Micro Engineering rail "weathering"

[Simon D.]

I use a fibreglass pen, best thing to clean joints, but do clean up the little fibres afterwards, these can be sore if they stick into fingers.  You can get extra thin ones for small areas.


(Note correct English spelling!).

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Jeez, this track really is a pain in the a$$. lol

[NtheBasement]

Jeez, this track really is a pain in the a$$. lol

That was my conclusion when I tried it years ago.  I ended up sanding the rail bottom with 220 grit.  I had to paint the joints and turnouts that they are connected to, then the weathering was not the same color so I ended up painting it anyway.

[robert3985]

Jeez, this track really is a pain in the a$$. lol

Yup.  That's why when I recommend ME flex of any Code, to get only "Un-weathered".

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[MetroRedLine]

I'm making progress on my Pavonia engine house TTRAK module and it's getting to be track time.

I think it might finally be the chance to use up a bunch of ME pre weathered track I bought 20 years ago and haven't found anything to do with since.

I have some questions about the weathering they've applied though.
Essentially: Is it electrically conductive?

Do I need to clean it off where I'm going to solder feeders? If so, how?

Your experiences with it will be appreciated.

All of my flextrack is ME pre-weathered Code 55 track. Yes, it is electrically conductive. The track in my unballasted tunnels (out of viewing sight) have the rail tops still weathered and trains run just fine. But if you do plan to solder the track, you do need to scrape off the weathering in order to get the solder to adhere to the rail.

[peteski]

All of my flextrack is ME pre-weathered Code 55 track. Yes, it is electrically conductive. The track in my unballasted tunnels (out of viewing sight) have the rail tops still weathered and trains run just fine. But if you do plan to solder the track, you do need to scrape off the weathering in order to get the solder to adhere to the rail.

Well, as I mentioned  earlier, the dark coating is not actually conductive, but it is so thin that the metal wheels can cut through it to contact the rail's bare metal.  Just like nickel silver oxidation is not conductive in a similar way.  It is all in your view point.

[Doug G.]

The oxide that forms on nickel silver rail is conductive but nowhere near as conductive as clean nickel silver. So, locomotives will slow down or stutter when encountering the oxide. The longer trains run on the oxidized track, the more the oxide will be worn off and trains will run smoothly again. Cleaning it off, of course, is better.

Doug

[peteski]

The oxide that forms on nickel silver rail is conductive but nowhere near as conductive as clean nickel silver. So, locomotives will slow down or stutter when encountering the oxide. The longer trains run on the oxidized track, the more the oxide will be worn off and trains will run smoothly again. Cleaning it off, of course, is better.

Doug

The old-modeler's-tale is that oxide in nickel-silver track is conductive.
Do we have any actual specs on this?  Are we talking about 0.01, 0.1 1.0, 10, or 100  Ohms/square?  I would love to see some concrete info on this, because I don't buy it.  For all we know, it can be 1,000,000 Ohms/square, which at the currents that a loco needs to operate, it might as well be an insulator.  Where is the beef proof?

[wm3798]

The thing I don't like about the pre-weathered is that the second you bend it, the ties move, leaving little unfinished blips all along the rail that have to be touched up.
I think someone else mentioned this.
Also, the finish does bond the rail to the tie strip at least a little bit, and makes the track that much more challenging to coax into alignment.

Lee

[ednadolski]

The thing I don't like about the pre-weathered is that the second you bend it, the ties move, leaving little unfinished blips all along the rail that have to be touched up.

That seems sort of odd to me. I expect it with rail that I paint myself since the spikes act as a mask.  W/the weathered rail flextrack I would think the rail was (chemically) weathered before it went into the injection molding machine.  Perhaps the heat of the process somehow wears off the blackening?   If so then I would also expect to see it on the bottom of the rail base where the tie web moves, but I don't have any weathered flex on hand to check.

Ed

[peteski]

That seems sort of odd to me. I expect it with rail that I paint myself since the spikes act as a mask.  W/the weathered rail flextrack I would think the rail was (chemically) weathered before it went into the injection molding machine.  Perhaps the heat of the process somehow wears off the blackening?   If so then I would also expect to see it on the bottom of the rail base where the tie web moves, but I don't have any weathered flex on hand to check.

Ed

The only explanation I can think of is that the rail is weathered *AFTER* the plastic part is molded.  My speculation as to why it is done that way is that the weathering  is fragile enough to be scratched/scraped during the insertion into the molds and molding operation.

THe molded ties/spikes act as a mask. When you bend the flextrack, that changes (increases/decreases) the space between ties, exposing the bright rail.

[rodsup9000]

 I pretty sure that the rail is weathered before it's molded into track.
 Both of these where taken on a curve and the ties have been moved from their molded position

[peteski]

Is that the original Railcraft flex track (with small spikes)?

[rodsup9000]

Is that the original Railcraft flex track (with small spikes)?

No, this was bought about 15 years ago

[robert3985]

Out of curiosity, I thought I would see if I had any weathered ME flex of the newer variety (with the bigger spikeheads), and I found some.

Interestingly, when I bent it, the rails were fully weathered and no shiny spots appeared. 

I also found some ancient weathered Rail Craft Code40 scraps and bent them...and they showed the weathering under the spikeheads and under the ties on the bottom of the railfoot to be absent, revealing shiny nickel silver areas where the ties had moved away from.

Looks like ME has improved the process at least so that the weathered rail is now completely weathered.

I also noticed that the weathering on the new ME flex didn't make it any stiffer either.


Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore