To accurately align the rails prior to soldering, use a pair of old style copper rail joiners upside down on the top of the rails. Once soldered slide them along the rail, lift up your section and remove them.

Another invaluable plain simple English no drama educational video - thank you

You can get perfectly perpendicular cuts with a Dremel if you use a flex rotary shaft. I use this to cut all gaps in my rail work. I've even used a flex shaft to build a tiny miter saw for metal tubing.

Great video. I just have one tip that I learned form experience. I use double sided copperclad sleepering and had trouble with short circuits, which was eventually traced to the pins touching both strips of copper. I now gap both sides of the strips before installing.

Just me mindful of when soldering track near the sleepers that you don't distort or partly melt your sleepers with the intense heat from the soldering iron. There are mini heat sink clamps you can purchase or if you want to, like I have done,made my own and saved a few precious dollars as railway modelling is one expensive hobby to have!! Cheers,C. Bernath, Sydney Australia.

Hi. The pcb material in this instance is grp. The brown type is paxolin (paper resin mix)

What a great detailed video. I'm using a small back bedroom 9'6" x 6"6'. Likewise my space is limited and therefore one lift up section near the door and a dropdown one behind is necessary. Most videos don't go into such simple detail as yours. Very helpful indeed.

Great Video! I have used PC board but for greater strength on the sectional layouts I've done, I prefer flat head brass screws. The process is similar. Pre-drill and install a brass screw under each rail on both sides of the gap, making sure the screw head is close to the bottom of the rail but doesn't hold the rail up at all. Than, solder the rails to the screws and finally cut the gap in the rail.

Thanks for your very helpful video. I am building a small modular wall section layout alongside my living room walls and around one corner. Your Idea to use a piece of wood beam as a guard is very helpful, so I learned a new practise from you thank you so very much for it. Greetings from Lübeck in northern Germany, Ingo R.

Top tip: Connect the track and point with fish plates to get a nice smooth connection perfectly in line, then pin the track in place, solder the fish plates to the PCB and then cut through the fish plates. The fish plates just aid in that nice smooth connection.

I really admire that you put that "yes, I unplugged it"-clip in there (4:15) ;)

Always great watching how you do things and share your ideas 👍🏻 Fantastic cheers Stevie 😎

I've just found your channel - Love your style and commentary. Right to the point with no BS and a touch of humor - love it thanks 😁

Tip when using bare PCB. Use a scotchpad to scuff up the surface, This will help the solder bond more strongly.

So helpful - thank you for sharing. Like many others, I suspect, modern space (or lack of it!) demands using lifting sections and this video really helps.

Fantastic demonstration. Thank you!

Great video thanks, nothing to do with railway baseboards but I had to cut out some sections to repair me shed and used your baton idea and it worked a treat. Big thanks to you, you saved me a lot of hassle, trouble is now my missus thinks I can do woodwork 😕

I drove two small nails in the roadbed before I laid the track. Then I soldered the rails to the nailheads after I laid the track. Works great, and looks far better.

Thank you for the demonstration and information it’s been a big help. 😊

Just because there's no comments that KZfaq is letting me see, the rest of the circuit board is a high temperature resin and fiberglass combo. Medium quality boards should be using something similar to FR-4. Great video!

What a fantastic video, on I have two which is very useful.this is been grinding my brain for ages. Thank you very much well explained.❤

That’s a brilliant idea. I wish I had seen this video before I constructed my layout

Simple and thorough explanation and demonstration. TNX!☺

Excellent video! .. I have three baseboard joints to cross, so this process explained has been extremely useful :)

Thats a pretty nifty way of doing it. My layout from when I was a kid had a plug underneath.

Thanks That was really amazingly short concise no waffle interesting well done thank you

Personally, I've always soldered to small screws which has the added advantage of being able to adjust the height. Always worked for me.

Use a saw blade with MORE teeth to end up with a smoother edge with less splinting of the wood. You should grind away the copper from the board side as well to prevent ANY possibility of a short through the nails. The shorting may not occur at first, but may develop over time with use. Using hobby files instead of the bigger coarser ones will assist in the delicate forming of the rails after cutting and, do not forget to file away any material left from cutting from the inside of the rails, where the flanges run, so there is less chance of a derail. After all is done, having pins installed in the bottom portion along with holes outlined with a imbedded washer will ensure proper lineup.

Thank you for your good advice!

Using a Tracksetta straight across the joint will align the tracks when soldering

Thanks for this, We have joints on both or layouts. i must admit we don't have issues when on straights but we currently have two joints on 3rd and 4th curves! they are an absolute mare! So many derailments if you don't get them 100% in line

Thank you for that, iv been struggling thinking about how to fix the track correctly on my removable sections

my old n gauge layout I had a long curve that ran over my lift up access board, I superglued the tracks that went over the joins and cut them with my Dremel its a process I will happily use agin on my 00 layout im planning,

Very helpful video Thanks Nick Australia

Most excellent, Your totaI production of the video. I've been curious as to how it was done, in Your case, very well !

If you cut the rail at a diagonal you can hide the seam better and not have a huge visible gap.

Very much like how you’ve shown your method of adding the pcb ties. Although I agree these joints need to be avoided where we can, the way the alignment on your fold-up piece of the layout looks, that’s some excellent work you got done there.

Very useful tutorial, thanks.

I am using the rail aligner and pc board that are pre made , good video and I subscribed to your channel

Complimenti un idea semplice e geniale!!!!!!! Bravo!!!!!

There is another option which can be used. Place the track on thin plywood, and have dowells under each end of the track. The dowels can be wired up to carry current; and set up so current is drawn from the hole in which the dowells go into. If you have to go over a lift up / out section, just remove the whole section of track, remove, replace and replace the track in the holes. My first effort was with wall plugs which snugly fitted into PVC piping. This was used with 19 * 42 mm timber, which was run over a set of scales. Using this method for 17 years and have not had a derailment on the scales as yet, and has not affected the accuracy of the scales.

Great video, really clearly explained. Even I could understand first time round. Question: How do you reconnect the power between the rails?

Nice job I put a hinged bridge at the door of my shed layout and on a twin curved track it does work with care and pcb board . Regards Fred ps hinges on raised small piece of ply 😊

Hi, great stuff well explained. You are right about those finger transplants!!!

Very good idea there.like it.

Brilliant thank you man

Bravo 👏👏👏from Italy

Very helpful. Thank you!

I'm doing exactly what your doing but just need to perfect the skill , great tips now I know where I've been going wrong lol

I've used this method many times however I had a short occur a few years later that took me some time to locate. The problem is with the nails being used to fasten down the copper clad tie. The nail can contact the surface cladding and also make contact with the underside cladding. If both nails do this, then a short occurs. The underside cladding should be cut before installing. This kind of short is nearly impossible to find because it occurs long after your rail has been operating successfully.

Gracias por compartir, excelente remedio. Saludos desde México

Close to cutting through the electric cable on the power saw at start of board there ⚡️⚡️⚡️

My model-club has a modular layout, and we use this method since the 90's.

Try gapmasters. They look like real ties and come in a wide range of scales / gauges.

very nice .can you tell me what I will need to run marklin gauge1 trains in england central station 3 +60101 power box and what els do I need to get the power to the track? is there a special central station for gauge1? thanks barry

Being a member of a good railroad club during many years the lift sections were all in the landscape, never in tracks sections. In the early days of the club a bridge was removable. What happend? Of course one day a train was running there, and the bridge was not in its place..... Building my own very dense railroad heads up places were planned as well as the tracks. But of course, it can be made.

Thanks @wallsrail, that was very informative. What did you do for hinges?

Great video. How do you combat the expansion or contraction of the wooden baseboard especially in the loft with extremes of temperature

Its usually fiberglass under the copper :)

We use a material called G10 in the USA it is a laminate of fiberglass layers green in color. The laminate is what makes multi layer PC Boards possible. Back in the day G10-FR was the material of choice the FR indicating Flame Resistance. Today the board of choice is FR4, which is just G10-FR. If you take a multi layer board and snap it in two, under a magnifying glass you can see the layers of copper between the layers of laminate. And P.S. A well-conceived, consise, and presented, video. Very rare in these days of self promotion and ego! A much appreciated THANK YOU!

I am a rank armature in the model railroad hobby and have a need to build a modular layout requiring similar connections. But I am confused about the requirement to have the copper strips on either side of the joint as they don't appear to have any connection to each other. I'm sure I am missing something quite fundamental and simple here but I just don't understand. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, if you have a gap between the rails and a gap between the pcb boards , how is the electric contract made ?

All very interesting but how do you maintain electrical continuity? I don`t know what they use for modern PCBs but back in the day it was something called Paxolin.

Our little group are having some difficulty with baseboard joints are are about to renew/repair them. In your video there appeared to be quite a gap between the strip and the rail, which you appeared to simply flood with solder. What sort of gap do you think is acceptable.

Ya sound like Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones mate.

I would like to see a video of your lift gate, do you have one? I have to either make a lift gate or lift out thanks you for sharing

A very interesting video, well made. I must be missing something though - I thought the main problem with lifting sections was connectivity at the joints? I see you've secured the ends of the rails to provide alignment, but I don't see any connectivity. Why bother using copper PCB if there is no electrical connection? I was waiting for the sprung 'pickup' that would electrically join the bits of PCB.

Looks to me that the PCB board ties are not as thick as the sleepers that are on the rail. Why not shim the PCB tie up so it will contact the rail??? You could use a lot less solder that way and it would look better.

❤❤❤

I see, it's a wonderful method, but one question I have is that in a model using a DC motor, in a type in which currents with different polarities (+ & -) flow on the left and right rails, it's possible to have the current at the end of the track as shown in the video. soldering both will short the left and right rails. Is this model a catenary type, a battery type, or is it only for real steam engine locomotives? From Japan 🇯🇵🤔🍀

Have you thought of using a swinging bridge section instead?

I don't get this. How does the electricity cross the gap? The rails don't touch each other.

In the US you can get the pc board from Radio Shack. Since I don’t have a bandsaw I found instructions on KZfaq for scoring both sides of the pc board and snapping the board along the scores. Clamp the board right on the score line to snap it. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q6ibg7uQts62eWQ.html

so you've no expectation that current will be maintained by the track over this joint, obviously.

Pcb stands for personal computer board. When you say “pcb board” you are saying pc board board

Might be a stupid question, buy why? Why is there any need to add boards like that at such joints? Electrically the sensible and easy thing would be to just run a set up wires between the two sections, so I can't see that being the reason. From a scenic perspective it just messes up the look of the track at the joint. So I just can't see any reason to do this.

Why can't you just cut at the gap 1-1/2" from each edge then connect a 3" section of flex track at the joints. I see modular units connected this way at shows all the time vs. having to be exactly spot on every single connection? Again... many ways to do it... Yours is a very good video... Just thought I'd ask.😊

U haven't showed us how u get the electricity from both sides of the join to one another ...to continue the connection

A

At 7:54 I think the term you want is Masochist, not Sadist, but then I haven't seen you interact with other people 😋.

Warum nicht in Deutsch?

Will this work for S-scale?