Steel Track Solder.

[Tiddles]

Looking at building a Triang TT train set.

The 60 year old steel track dose suffer from voltage drop so want to know how to attach droppers,

Struggling to get the solder to stick.

Before I give up and throw money at Hornby!!

[Bigmet]

The steel rail is tin plated, so regular resin cored electrical solder will solder to it. But this stuff as you realise was made sometime in a previous millennium, so there will be a layer of transparent strongly adhering tin oxide covering it, which is why tin doesn't corrode away that quickly. The gentle application of some very fine sandpaper will remove enough of the oxide to permit the resin flux to aid the solder flowing on the cleaned tin surface. HTH

[pete12345]

I've always soldered to the underside of the rail rather than the more common outside edge (it looks much better!) Cutting away any plastic webbing between two sleepers, followed by a few strokes with a fine file, should clean off any residue and present a bright shiny surface to solder to. Drill corresponding holes in the board surface before soldering the droppers on, and they should thread neatly down as the track is laid and will be invisible once ballasted.

[GeraldH]

I tend to solder to the bottom of the fishplates where there is a gap in the sleepers. The wire is then threaded down through a hole in the baseboard. Would replacing the fishplates reduce the voltage drop reducing the need for droppers? I guess that someone still makes suitable fishplates for Triang TT? Gently tightening the fishplates with some pliers might also help if they're not too fragile?

[Tiddles]

The steel rail is tin plated, so regular resin cored electrical solder will solder to it. But this stuff as you realise was made sometime in a previous millennium, so there will be a layer of transparent strongly adhering tin oxide covering it, which is why tin doesn't corrode away that quickly. The gentle application of some very fine sandpaper will remove enough of the oxide to permit the resin flux to aid the solder flowing on the cleaned tin surface. HTH

Thanks, will try that.

There is also the possibility that age has caused the electrical resistance of the steel to increase.

[Tiddles]

I tend to solder to the bottom of the fishplates where there is a gap in the sleepers. The wire is then threaded down through a hole in the baseboard. Would replacing the fishplates reduce the voltage drop reducing the need for droppers? I guess that someone still makes suitable fishplates for Triang TT? Gently tightening the fishplates with some pliers might also help if they're not too fragile?

The fishplates are fixed to the track.

Tightening them dose help. Unfortunately no one dose fish plates for the thick Triang rail.

I may just buy the new Hornby track but that means modifying the check rails on the points.