I may be wrong here, but I think most of our problems with gaps disappearing and rails moving out of gauge is not so much a problem of the metal rails expanding, but is more often caused by our wooden benchwork expanding and shrinking with the change in seasons.
Our local group, the Mid Maryland S Gaugers, includes Sam Powell, who rebuilds pianos for a living. Sam relates the constant problems working with wood in a piano frame. The wood must be selected carefully piece by piece, keeping in mind how the grain runs on each piece. Then, when two pieces of wood are attached, no matter how securely, the individual pieces of wood interact with each other as the temperature and humidity change. We do not build our benchwork with such precision. Therefore our layouts are built on a moving mass of wood. The same problems crop up in our wood models. Recently, I constructed one of Frank Titman's Icing Platform kits. As soon as I built the deck of the long icing platform, I started to have warping issues, even though I had painted all parts after assembly with solvent based paints. Sam took one look at the platform and identified the problem: The platform deck was designed as two layers of wood glued to each other. Unfortunately, the grain in one layer was at a 90 degree angle to the grain in the top layer. The solution? Cut some expansion gaps in the underside of the icing platform, to enable the structure to breathe. Dan Vandermause Ellicott City, MD --- In [email protected], "Ed" <Loizeaux@...> wrote: > > > Not much of the track is soldered together > > This first kink was with SHS flex track. > > I wonder if the size of the rail has any effect on the expansion. > > The material the rail is made from will determine the amount of expansion. > Different materials will expand at differing rates. > > > I tried to not go end to end tight on the rails. I > > guess the rails will show be where I could have left more space! > > Bill Lane > > You might want to visually inspect those "former" gaps on a warm/hot day. If > the ends of the rails now touch, that would be a good place to cut a new > larger gap before the pressure builds up and leads to a kink. > > Question: In the real world, how do RRs prevent heat kinks when welded rail > is used for l-o-n-g stretches of track? With welded rail, there are no > slipping expansion joints -- or are there? > > Cheers...Ed L. > www.sscale.org > ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
