DalaGStanator's Customs, Mods and Experiments

It seemed hot melt glue wasn't quite strong enough for making custom track using certain materials. It works great for the likes of cardboard or wood, but the sleepers break off too easily and the curves don't keep their shape well.



The majority of homemade systems I've found that aren't cardboard use superglue to attach the rails, whether they're made of PVC, sunboard or even automotive curtain tracks glued to wooden sleepers. Decided to try it out to see if it works better, and it does. One of Miniature Vehicle India's earlier techniques involved "sewing" the rails to the sleepers by making holes at the sides and threading strings through them. I was initially going to take advantage of the moulded teeth on the zip ties by drilling equally-spaced holes between them for something similar, which would've been more time-consuming and not necessary. The superglue holds the track together just fine by itself. While it can still be torn apart easily if needed, it no longer breaks unintentionally like the hot glue did.



Prior to this, I made several (unpictured) attempts at cutting out curves and getting them to meet at the ends, which were all unsuccessful due to incorrect angles even though I made them consistent in shape. After giving up, I simply traced an existing curve from the Junior Train set and found it takes six of them to make a full circle. I then reused one of the traced curves to make a new BumBin-inspired jig, since the old one was worn and not precise enough. Later tried hot-gluing rails to them similar to the OG piece, though I don't plan to use that gauge in the near future. Very oddly, using the traced curves as a guide 'still' didn't give the right angle for the (wider gauge) parts to line up and form a circle.



The wire tube connectors I used before were not the best idea, so I tried the pin method upon seeing it on DIY with Z's car curtain H0 track. A thinner zip tie was used to make the pins to ensure they won't be the same height as the rails, with the teeth facing each other to help strengthen the joints. I only put the connectors on a straight to try the design, and later attempts will (naturally) have them on every piece. To overcome potential clearance issues, I could go back to the previous two-layered rails to make the inner sides level with the inner pins. The cardboard wheelset I tried it with happened to have very broad flanges, hence why I didn't need an inner layer for this attempt.

Thought about going back to Quazar-like angled spacers for curves, but at a sharper angle than before to get a better radius. The quarter/half-circle bending method used by Abhilash and Housing Tech worked fine too, so I'll just have to find which one will work best for me.