Micro Engineering rail "weathering"

[peteski]

So the old Rail Craft C40 flex was weathered after the plastic was molded around the rail? Interesting.

[robert3985]

So the old Rail Craft C40 flex was weathered after the plastic was molded around the rail? Interesting.

Looks that way to me.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[ednadolski]

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

Does it work, the old trick to soak new flextrack in hot water in order to release some of the stiffness? (After drying/cooling, lol)

Ed

[nkalanaga]

As far as I know the old flex of all sizes was weathered after the ties were molded.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I spent last night cleaning up the ends of my sticks of this stuff with my Dremel thanks to @wazzou 's suggestion, and now want to make up a poster to share.

Friends don't let friends by pre-weathered flex track.

[Bill H]

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

I had to buy a lot of weathered code 40 when ME was out of production last year - so I bought what was available, and it is exactly as Bob described, completely weathered and obviously weathered before sliding into the ties.
Kind regards,
Bill

[SAH]

This thread kind of caught me off guard, in that I'm amused and puzzled at the same time.  Amuzzeld?  I guess I'm the contrarian in the group but I rather like ME weathered track.  When I built the original Spencer, OH modules 30 years ago ME track was the natural (only?  I don't recall) code 55 choice.  It looked good and since it stayed in the shape into which it was bent I could solder the feeder to the bottom side of the rail at my workbench and then glued the track into place.  Quick work with a file cleared the weathering away.  Paint the rail joiners tie brown and they pretty much disappear.  Robert's idea to cut down the length of the joiner is a good one.

Now that I'm currently building Spencer as a FreeMoN module, and I've run out of my stash of 10 cents on the dollar Atlas track I acquired from a scale switcher, I'm back to the weathered ME.  I find it's a joy to work with but to each his or her own.

BTW if you're "stuck" with a stock of weathered ME code 55, pack it up and send it to me and I'll reimburse your shipping cost.   

Steve Holzheimer

[milw12]

Looks like Steve just beat me to it, but I'll join the contrarian crowd with my take:

I never had an issue with weathered flex and slightly prefer it to unweathered. I use a jewelers file to clean the spots I need to solder, namely for feeders attached to the base of the rail before installation.  It's nice the solder doesn't stick to the weathering, preventing any "whoops" moments and flooding the inside web, etc. For rail joiners I file the underside of the rail only, but I only use joiners for a mechanical connection and never electrical as I made a habit of soldering feeders to every individual piece of rail.

It holds paint nicely, and any pin points that you miss aren't a blaze of fresh nickle silver. Clean the railheads and it works great, and I have pretty high standards when it comes to smooth operations. No issues with curvature either in my experience.

Steve, if you end up with too many sticks of donated weathered flex I'll be glad to help

Lucas

[OldEastRR]

It seems that people have an original impression of something, and keep that impression even after the something is changed or improved slightly. Here we saw it with modelers swearing at ME track because the weathered track showed shiny spots when the ties shifted. Then we have those swearing by ME track, with the updated info that the rail is now weathered before the ties are added, thus making the original impression wrong and out of date. These little prejudices can add up to make one person's layout times a pain, while another guy using basically the same stuff has no complaints. The difference is in the evolution of each product's qualities. Once upon a time, nobody was keen on Atlas N locos. Things have changed since then. Even Bachmann managed to come out with some fine running and looking steamers in N. Quite a surprise for anyone who ever saw or ran one of their U36Bs in the '70s.

[NtheBasement]

I too see posts on pretty much every forum that I visit that state as absolute fact something that directly contradicts my own personal experience.  There are a lot of reasons why this could happen, including circumstances that differ from mine, but there are also cases where the poster is just good at sounding authoritative without justification.

In the case of ME weathered flex, I tried it 25 years ago back when i was first building my layout.  At the time the only code 55 flex that I could find was ME and Peco, and the ME rails had clearly been colored before molding the ties.  I don't know when code 55 first came out but my impression was that it was only a year or two prior to this.

[robert3985]

When I write an opinion here, it's due to my experience.  Since I've been at N-scale a long time (since the middle 1970's) and I've used Rail Craft/Micro Engineering Code55, Code40, Code70 track for a long time too. 

At various times, Rail Craft/Micro Engineering flex has been difficult to get, so my first experience with their weathered flex was caused when I needed some Rail Craft/Micro Engineering flex and all I could get at my LHS was the weathered variety.  I found that the "weathering" had to be removed before it could be soldered, but I really didn't care if where the spikeheads moved when bending it showed "un-weathered" rail, because I paint & weather my flex before ballasting anyway.  But, the soldering was a PITA compared to non-weathered flex, which made me decide to not buy weathered rail flex again.

Things they change, and Micro Engineering's newer injection tool got more coarse, and they started sometime to chemically treat their rails before attaching the ties...one bad change, one good change. 

BUT, for me, I don't really care about weathered rail, since my track gets painted anyway (as I've already said)...but I DO care about not having to remove the rail weathering treatment before soldering.

If I didn't plan on painting my track, then I'd probably think the pre-weathered rails were the cat's-meow, and put up with the extra work that soldering it takes...BUT, I do paint my rails and ties, so the weathering adds to my work effort and time expended when laying track..for something I don't need.

I don't consider this a "small-predjudice"...I consider it a preference, derived from my own real-life experience and my work/modeling methodology.

However, in giving advice about Micro Engineering flex in the future, I won't include the silver-showing comment, since ME has taken care of that.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[nkalanaga]

Code 55 was available from Railcraft (now ME) at least as far back as the mid 1970s.  It was developed for HOn3 modelers, and, I suspect, may predate N scale.

[Doug G.]

Kemtron had code 40 and code 70 prefab track in the late sixties.

Doug

[KaosKubes]

If anybody is interested in how I cut and apply these tiny cut-down rail joiners, which virtually disappear when the track is painted, weathered and ballasted, I'll post a link here if requested.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

Yes, please, I'm interested.

[lock4244]

This thread kind of caught me off guard, in that I'm amused and puzzled at the same time.  Amuzzeld?  I guess I'm the contrarian in the group but I rather like ME weathered track.  When I built the original Spencer, OH modules 30 years ago ME track was the natural (only?  I don't recall) code 55 choice.  It looked good and since it stayed in the shape into which it was bent I could solder the feeder to the bottom side of the rail at my workbench and then glued the track into place.  Quick work with a file cleared the weathering away.  Paint the rail joiners tie brown and they pretty much disappear.  Robert's idea to cut down the length of the joiner is a good one.

Now that I'm currently building Spencer as a FreeMoN module, and I've run out of my stash of 10 cents on the dollar Atlas track I acquired from a scale switcher, I'm back to the weathered ME.  I find it's a joy to work with but to each his or her own.

BTW if you're "stuck" with a stock of weathered ME code 55, pack it up and send it to me and I'll reimburse your shipping cost.   

Steve Holzheimer

I have over 1000' of ME weathered flex ready to go... I find your post reassuring