I need some transition rail joiners to join Walthers Code 83 Turnouts to Micro Engineering Code 70 Rail. The only joiners I see that do this are Micro Engineering Plastic Insulated Transition Rail Joiners: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?...&Submit=Search">http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?...&Submit=Search</a><!-- m --> Item number: 255-26003

I want to solder my rail, and I know you cant solder plastic as it will just melt.... Do I need to solder my joints around the turnouts? What does the plastic insulated joiner do? What does it insulate and do I want the joints between turnouts and other track to be insulated?

What have you guys done to join code 70 rail with code 83?

I can't remember if I have ever done 70 to 83, but I have done 70 to 55. I bought the plastic rail joiners to go between shinohara code 70 and ME code 55, and they didn't work. The profile of the Shinohara rail was too wide and would not fit in the ME transition rail joiner. I wound up crimping one half of a metal code 70 rail joiner flat, and soldering the code 55 rail on top. If you want to use the plastic transition joiners, you better make sure they will slide on the walthers turnout rails.

Trucklover ...

As far as the transition from one size rail to another is concerned, I use 83 for main and 70 for sidings, yards, etc. When I first started using two weights (heights) of rail, around 1988, there was no such thing as a transitional rail joiner, at least none that I was aware of. Sooo ... I slid a Code 83 joiner onto a section of Code 83 rail that had some flux* wiped on its base. I touched the iron to the top of the rail and the end of the solder to the outside web of the rail ... the solder flowed and that side was done. Then, using a fine-toothed razor saw, I carefully made a slit in the rail joiner right at the end of the rail section (carefull - don't cut through it, just a little slit in the sides, so the two rail heads can snug up to each other!) and then crimped the rail joiner (this part is trial and error) until the Code 70 rail sat on top of the crimped rail joiner and was flush with the top of the Code 83 rail. Then, with flux* wiped on the base of the Code 70 rail and the two rail sections spiked down and clipped together (as I remember I used a little Xacto soldering clip) so the heads of the rails were even I touched the iron to the top of the two rails as close to the joint as I could get but still on the Code 70 rail and touched the end of the solder to the outside of the base of the Code 70 rail. A little excess bubbled up flux* removal action with some alcohol on a Q-Tip, a few clean-up swipes with a couple different shaped jewelers' files or rifflers, a bit of rust, rail brown and maybe a couple dabs of grimy black paint and the whole thing kinda disappears (unless you point it out to someone. I never do that ... why call attention to that kind of thing if the viewer doesn't see it ... unless, of course, you do a masterful job of soldering the two disparate rail sections togther and want to show off your mad soldering skills, in which case, by all means, go for it!)

When it comes to gaps in the rails for isolation of sections or insulation of one rail from another, that gets into the unseen magic of electricity, and for that topic, I yield to Gary S. ... he is the Big Blue Electrical Guru!

Solder Flux is recommended here, although it's conceivable that you could try Gibson's Exraordinary Remedial Naturalized Flux. It'll make the joint 3% stronger! 8-)

And see, it took me so long to type this all out and then proof read and correct all the typos that the Nacho Man beat me to the punch!

It's tired and I'm late ... I'm going to bed! G'Night!

P5se Camelback Wrote:And see, it took me so long to type this all out and then proof read and correct all the typos that the Nacho Man beat me to the punch!

It's tired and I'm late ... I'm going to bed! G'Night!

HA! but your explanation was much more thorough I have only used a plastic 70 to 55 rail joiner once on my current layout, and since both were ME rail, it worked fine. But, it is in an area where I will want electrical gaps.

and, you could just use a standard metal code 83 rail joiner, and then somehow slide a small piece of 0.010 brass shim between the rail joiner and the code 70 rail to shim it up. I have never tried it this way, but in theory it should work.

Here's a little picture to show how to transition between different rail codes:

[attachment=5219]

Slide the strip of rail joiners onto a scrap of rail so that when you cut them, you don't crush or mangle them.

Josh, the base of various rail manufactured by different manufacturers may be different, so that sometimes the rail joiners of one manufacturer won't fit the rail manufactured by someone else. Nachoman's solution is slightly different than the one proposed by tin goat, but if you can get the joiner to slide onto the rail both either method will work. With nachoman's solution, you would solder the joiner onto the larger code rail, then crush the portion extending off the rail to give a double thickness of joiner material. Then you solder the smaller code rail on top of the crushed end of the rail joiner. The double thickness of joiner lifts the rail enough to make the top of the rail even with the larger code rail. You will probably need to put a thin shim under the ties of the smaller rail to fill the space between the cork and the ties that raising the rail to the higher code will cause.

A friend in the modular club is running code 100 on his mainline tracks (required by the club module standards) and code 83 on his sidings with code 70 on some of his spur tracks. He tried both the Walthers transition joiners that are design similar to tin goat's suggestion and the method suggested by nachoman. He preferred to use nachoman's method, and felt that the Walthers transition joiners were to weak for reliability, but I would say the method you use would be whatever works for you.

awesome thank you guys for all the replies! I like what Kevin said by shimming the Code 70 Rail with a small piece of .010 brass stock, so thats what im going to try and do first. Im getting Walthers Code 83 Rail Joiners, so hopefully they will fit Micro Engineering Rail lol

If I dont find this to work too well for me, ill come back and try what the others suggested Thanks guys!

BTW, ive now decided to stay away from soldering. 2 Reasons, I forgot when using Central Valley Tie Strips you do not need to solder the rail joints because you can lay a continuous rail and but each rail against the previous rail. The other reason is in case I ever need to remove the turnout for a modification or replacement, and in that case all I would have to do is slide the rail joiners back and remove the turnout (which im also not going to be gluing down, just kinda leaving it floating there while the joiners keep it in place.

Josh....I believe Atlas makes those transition rai joiners. If not available, I like TinGoat's solution....Very clever...

As to the insulated joiners, they're needed if you have "live" frog turnouts. Otherwise you can forget about them (unless you're setting up "blocks" or power districts, in which case you'd use them to break the continuity between blocks).

I suppose in my lengthy, slowly typed explanation above, I neglected to mention that I was hand laying rail when I did that and electrical feeders were soldered to the bottom of the base of each section of rail. The places where the rails were soldered together were either a transition as described above, or because there was a need to do so because the joint came on a curve.

In general, I didn't solder joints on tangent track ... just glued in the plastic scraps to insulate and isolate when that was necessary, and used additional spikes in the several ties on either side of a glued up insulated joint (no, not that kind of joint!) I tried like hell to keep insulated gaps off curved track due to the obvious need to find some alternative to soldering to maintain proper alignment.