Curves.

[ebtnut]

The fundamental thing with flex track is to avoid sharp kinks.  Just laying it by eye won't usually get you there.  If you are working on a flat surface, like a sheet of plywood, make yourself a curve trammel.  Get yourself a cheap wooden yardstick and notch one end so you can mount a short pencil in it (you can insert a short brad halfway through the yardstick about an inch or so behind the notch so that you can use a rubber band to hold the pencil in place).  Then drill holes in the yardstick just big enough to accept a somewhat longer brad at the inch marks beginning with the smallest radius you plan to use and going up to the largest.  This becomes a  large compass, with which you can draw an exact radius on your roadbed, and use that as the center line to lay down your flex track. 

If you are using grid benchwork with risers to support the roadbed, make the trammel as described above, and use it to make curve templates out of stiff cardboard or Masonite.  Use these templates to locate the risers where the curves will be, and then after the roadbed is laid, use them again to draw the centerline on the roadbed and lay the track as noted above. 

[rains train]

Alright.

Alex

[Woody Elmore]

Another thing that causes problems with flex track is joints on curves.

Nice smooth, kinkless curves, as large a radius as you have room for, with as few joints as possible on curves will go a long way in ending derailments.

[r.cprmier]

Yeah;
use a jig or a template with the radius you desire, and you should be able to get the main radius correct.  Don't forget to at least consider easement curves in your design; also consider superelevation on curves, especially if you are running trains in excess of 20 cars.

You can find templates for curves in almost any scale for proper radii.  If you cannot find them, make one from styrene.  It isn't rocket science.

Rich

[SteamGene]

Woody,
The larger the radius the more pieces of flex track needed.  The solution is to use full pieces, not smaller pieces for the curves.  Save your small pieces for filling in around turnouts, crossings, sidings, etc.
Gene

[grumpy]

All your templates and jigs are not needed with EZTrack. Just put it down and click it into place. It leaves you with more time to build structures and run trains.
Don

[taz-of-boyds]

It seems you could make accurate templates using a program like Atlas RTS (aka WinRail).  Use the program to calculate eased curves (a transition curve from straight to fixed radius), and fixed radius curves.  Then print them full size.

This is my plan for a bridge I am working on that has five different spans.  While most spans are straight, they bend slightly at each transition between spans.  I want to be able to locate the spans properly to allow a gentle track transition between the straight sections.  I think it will work pretty well.

Charles

[r.cprmier]

This is important:

While part of the advantages of hand-laying track, if you can somehow stagger the joints in your flex track-espeecially on curves-you will afford a better piece by piece transition.  If you examine a run of track in a curve, you will see that a two-rail joint at the same place is a potential for problems; whether by quality of work, or by the later shifting of parts due to expansion, etc.  I know it sounds like a bit of a waste, but if you can cut back the inside rail  so that the outside rail is longer than the inside, and mate the next piece accordingly-staggering the rail ends-you will further ensure some reliable trackwork where it really counts.

Rich

[rains train]

I'm going to make an outline of the radius I need on cardboard and cut it out. Could I get some help on finding high radius sectional track? To make the outlines.

[Conrail Quality]

I'm going to make an outline of the radius I need on cardboard and cut it out. Could I get some help on finding high radius sectional track? To make the outlines.

Shinohara makes sectional track up to 36" radius.

-Timothy
-Conrail Quality

[rains train]

Could I get a link to find some of these?

Alex

[rains train]

Anyone..?

[SteamGene]

Do you know how to search?
Gene

[rains train]

I looked on eBay, but I don't know anywere else to search...lol...

Alex

[Conrail Quality]

Try Walthers. They're a distributor as well as a manufacturer.

-Timothy
-Conrail Quality