Boy I'm right with yuh! I've built a few layouts over the last twenty years as well. Started with Unitrack sold a ton of it on E-Bay years ago. I then went with Code 55 Peco. While I consider myself a very good modeler I was never happy with flextrack. you have to be absolutely perfect with its installation for it to run trains as well as Unitrack. I'm back to bying Unitrack again for it's flawless performance. I figure with my scenery work and structures the Unitrack will look fine. when you see most layout photo's with no scenery just bench and track work the flextrack does look better in my opinion but with good scenery I have seen many excellent looking unitrack layouts.
I am afraid that my experience with Unitrack has been a dissapointing one. I bought a small oval set to use as a test track and assembled it on a flat sheet of MDF. The road bed sits flat on the board, and it all clicked together easily, but at nearly every joint there is a step at rail height. I checked that each piece had been assembled correctly but nothing seemed out of place, I had to take a file to it in the end to smooth it out. Maybe I have been unlucky, but it makes me reluctant to buy any more of it. Regards, Roger.
Roger, It has a lot to do with product perception. I recall buying my first mountain bike. My perception was it was for off road. Well I took it off road and flipped it and myself. You cannot ride in sand (Period). As far as I was concerned off road was off road and everything off road was ok. wrong :tb-err: I ran into the same issue with the Unitrack. Yes it is snap fit but one has to be really careful. The joiners can shift at an angle and tweak the rail or joiners. This causes the micro bends that you may be seeing. Remember the metal joiners are also snap fit into the plastic unitrack joiners. So, I have learned to be more careful in how I snap fit each piece and make sure that the joiners are level and aligned before I snap it in. Because Unitrack is so accommodating I tend to snap it in faster that I should. Also the comparison of Unitrack verses 55 on cork is not fair. One is a finished product where as the other is only the components of an unfinished product thuis making it cheaper. I'm sure the nickle rail and plastic pellets are cheap. But this is an important point I have learned in my short time here. "The key is where you find your enjoyment, be it running the train or building the layout for all to enjoy." I get a lot of enjoyment just seeing what a lot of you guys are doing out there. Inobu
Yeah, I mean look, I understand there's guys in Britain who get off on taking a perfectly fine Hornby set and regauging it to run on handlaid track. Me personally, I'm like woo woo woo? Kato turnouts are insanely cheap. The double-crossover is like 50-60 bucks online - compare that to Peco, you're going to pay 120, hand-assembling it with Atlas turnouts and a crossover you're going to get to 150 easy (if it's all motorized). Yeah the tie spacing is 1:150 Japanese but ya know what? I model Japan! In 1:150! So HA
I'm new to Kato Unitrack and I've never mastered Kato's rail joiner removal tool. I looked around on the Internet and found that someone had adapted a wire spade terminal on a screwdriver as a tool. I found one that fit, glued it on a spare length of brass tube and viola, it works and took all of 15 minutes to assemble. Just insert it and pull out the joiner. The spade terminals want to bend a tiny bit, but not badly. I'll bet if I built a fillet of epoxy around the web, I could eliminate that too. All in all, a cool tool.
The Kato "tool" and rerailer costs around $3. Are you saying that you can't figure out how to use it?
Really can't understand the need for this Kato rail joiner tool. I laid hundreds of pieces of Unitrack and removed hundreds of their joiners from pieces of Unitrack with my fingers. Never needed any gimmick to do the job. JMO. .
That's it exactly. There're four different ways to insert it around a joiner. I figure it out, then try again a few months later and can't get it to "catch" the joiner regardless of how I position it. I'm looking forward to @Massey 's picture of the Kato tool so that I have a choice on which tool to use. Perhaps it's my failing 60+ year old eyes and brain, but I find my free tool works first time every time.
I don't have any Kato track as of yet. But I am also willing to try some thing so basic and will cost me nothing. I'm in the experimental stage and trying to learn. Now it's time to go shovel some snow. The resident care taken came down with Covid-19 a week ago.
If Unitrack/Unijoiners weren't so darn reliable, we'd practice replacing them more, and not wait long enough to forget how between uses! Unless I'm installing terminal unijoiners, I rarely have to remove/replace a unijoiner. I have some old Unitrack pieces that have/had copper (plated?) unijoiners on them. These are on the older style, painted roadbed unitrack pieces.
There's truth in that. This is my first railroad with Kato Unitrack and I've not yet begun to lay it in earnest, so my experience with it is minimal. As I work with it, I suspect I'll get the Unijoiner removal thing down pat. Mine will be primarily a DC road, so I'll have a lot of feeders. I found a video on how to produce homemade feeders and I hope to try that soon. Maybe I can save a few bucks in the process.
