Finally got my track pieces all painted and race ready, and now I'm noticing a strange phenomenon...My magnet cars don't seem to like the track much anymore. The Tjets and Xtracs zip around just as well as they always did, but the Gplus and Tyco cars really slow up the corners and sometimes stall, though they seem to be OK in the straights. I don't get it.

The rails have been well cleaned off. I used the side of a square carpet blade to skim them till they were shiny. (didn't use the blade edge itself...didn't wanna put nicks in the rails) And all the connecting contacts are good, at least as far as I can eyeball it.

Question 1: Is it possible that the entire rail needs to be exposed for these cars to get the right amount of power, and not just the very top?

Question 2: Despite my best efforts, there is a wee bit of paint in some of the slots, and its a flat paint. Is it possible that the paint could be causing that much drag on the guide pin? I haven't re-fastened the track yet, so I could pull it up and clean out the grooves a bit, but it doesn't seem like enough paint to cause that big a problem.

Any insights?

Trev

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If you are married ask your wife for one of her emory boards they are flexible enough to fit in the slot and work great for cleaning off any paint

Roger Corrie
Virginia Beach, VA

No kidding!? Well, I s'pose so! simple physics, really. I wonder about the effect of steel or aluminum guides on a routed track made of PVC?! A new friend who has opened a slot-store has ordered his second pvc track. The first track is a 62'-4 laner. The second will be an 80' 6 laner. These guys run cars that can be best described a a beams of light that can turn corners. I mean 62' in under 2seconds HAS to be doing something to the slots at the curves, right?! Just curious I guess. My fastest car is just under 5 seconds on the same track.

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Surprisingly you will find that it is the pin that actually wears out and not the track. Your pin will start looking like a small blade after repeated use.

I have been running magnet cars on my track for nearly 14 years and the slot in the corners looks no different. The rails do wear from cleaning and light sanding as we use the "Bright Boy" stone from Walthers to clean the rails. Brad Bowman estimates that routed tracks with seemless rails have a life span of ten years without having low spots in rails.

;)

I would guess that in the painting process you have had some paint get into the connections between the track sections....
Since it doesn't sound like you plan on taking the track apart in the near future anyway, solder the rails at the joints....
I had a 6 inch Tomy 4 section curve that my G3 would slow down on no matter how I cleaned it or the connections.
It is one soldered section now. :rolleyes:
That fixed it....
Scott

Soldering the joints is the best solution but if you don't want to go that far, at least use dielectric grease at all joints. Rumor has it you can still get a can of the stuff at the Harley shop. The auto parts store just has little tubes.

Soldering the joints is the best solution but if you don't want to go that far, at least use dielectric grease at all joints. Rumor has it you can still get a can of the stuff at the Harley shop. The auto parts store just has little tubes.

Actually, I'd considered that. But I always understood that dialectric grease only helped as far as protecting the connection you have, rather than giving you a better one. Am I wrong about this?

Thanks for the tips guys. Actually I found that if I folded up a couple of my old business cards and ran em down the slot, it picked up quite a bit of the paint residue. And a plain popsicle stick seems to get most of the heavier stuff. (I shy away from using sandpaper in the slots if I don't have to.)

Trev

Actually, I'd considered that. But I always understood that dialectric grease only helped as far as protecting the connection you have, rather than giving you a better one. Am I wrong about this?

You are correct. But if you do not use it, your connections will degrade as the connections oxidize. The grease is actually non-condutive. It just prevents oxygen from getting to the connection.

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Hmm now you have me wondering. I was speaking from a visual point but the slots could be worn if measured accurately. It hasn't seemed like anything that would affect the cars. We don't run anything in neo land but have run modified cars and cars close to RO specs. The wood walls at the turns at the end of the long straights show massive wear from cars leaving the track in the corners that tells you the corners have taken some abuse. The track is old and I'd be curious now to measure a new track piece with slots in the existing curves. We have run magnet cars thousands of laps on this track over the years so it would be interesting to measure just how worn the track is.