Author Topic: back at the Kato Rail join issue.  (Read 776 times)

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JoeD

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back at the Kato Rail join issue.
« on: February 03, 2023, 06:09:18 PM »
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I just acquired some more KATO track and came up with what I think will be a good use for it.  Still I had the joining sections to deal with...unsightly.   I did some creative cutting of road bed at the notched ends with a razor saw, pulled the rail back and refitted the two pieces flush.  What I got was a plastic join with rail overlapping adding strength and alignment. In this case the actual rail gap is about 2" beyond the roadbed join.  Its a trick we did with the Z roadbed track...seemed to work here. Because you can remove the rail by simply removing the rail joiner with the plastic base, I't possible to do a lot of pre painting, weathering and distressing before putting it back together.  The inclination is to stick everything together and then start blending, but if you address this in short sections I think you can take Kato to the next level.     Colors, blending with ground cover to come. 

Joe

in my civvies here.  I only represent my grandmothers home made Mac and Cheese on Railwire.

Ed Kapuscinski

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Re: back at the Kato Rail join issue.
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2023, 10:57:45 AM »
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Yes, but... you just messed with the sacred geometry that makes Unitrack so useful.

Lemosteam

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Re: back at the Kato Rail join issue.
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2023, 11:27:59 AM »
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Yes, but... you just messed with the sacred geometry that makes Unitrack so useful.

You could use a sacrificial section of track and use that to splice the two cuts on the finished track to return the cuts back to their original geometry.  If Joe did not cut the track, the geometry remains.  if the rails were shortened, that could be eliminated by what I suggested.