After this project sat on the back burner for WAY to long - I have finally started making some progress again!
:banana-dance:
In looking to have as reliable of a connection and as smooth of a track as possible (with sectional track) - I went forward with picking up the AFX "Track clips":
The clips DEFINITELY make for a tight joint!
One of the issues that can plague joints on TOMY track is the engagement of the locking tabs at the joint. The pieces I put together with the clips had one tab that wanted to pop up (could be pressed flat - but a light twist of the track had it popping right back up). With having the clips to hold the joints together I went with a suggestion I had read about, regarding removal of the detents on the tabs on both portions of the joint (note the green glue stick pointer for the raised area on the joint pieces)
Here is the tab that kept wanting to pop up:
Raised "bump" on lower half of the joint:
Raised locking bar on upper half of the joint:
After a little work with the Dremel - here are both after material removal:
The end result? A nice smooth transition!
An interesting observation was made during assembling the curves...
I am using a mix of AutoWorld and TOMY / Aurora track, and in looking at the slots, the TOMY / Aurora has a little widening of the slot as it approaches the joint, where as the AutoWorld track did not - resulting in a "catch point".
(AutoWorld on the left - TOMY / Aurora on the right)
Not having any spare TOMY / Aurora 12" radius pieces handy, I decided to use the Dremel to remove a little material from the slot of the AutoWorld track to blend the joint. This turned out to be easier to do than I thought it might be, using a standard cut off wheel and a little patience.
Here is the end result - no more "step"!
Currently have all the joints modified and clipped for turns 1 & 2 - plus the back stretch!
More updates to follow!
:banana-dance: