silicon that will let you reuse any track

i ve been experimenting with adhesives to keep my marklin track down,, but if i ever wanted to remove it, i can easyily without losing ties and screwing up the guage of the track. so far i ve used everything from special glues to even laying track in wall plaster, letting it harden for a month, then trying to remove it easyily and cleanly. i ve wrecked alot of marklin straights doing this, but i ll be laying over 35 miles of the stuff, and if i ever decide to retire from z scale because i cant see it anymore,, or because of health,, i wanted a way to remove the track so i can resell it, as marklin track is pricey to just glue down n throw it away later.

i came across this caulk that so far is easy to peel off, yet hangs on like liquid nails where it needs to,,,, lepages tub n tile caulk,,, you make a nice line down the center where the tracks going onto the cork,, then spread it out a bit so the track rests evenly in it. add your ballast rock, and push it in with a cotton ear swab,, add a thin line on each side of the cork, add your ballast, let it set. what happens is the caulk will get clear n rubbery, holding down everything in its place. but if you need to pull up a piece of track,, just exacto knife an area of the caulk and tug on it,, the elasticity of it instantly opens up around the track ties, and with a bit of light tugging here n there,, the track pops off, clean and ready for the box. they also have a window caulk that you use in winter, then in the summer you give it a tug, and it just peels away from your windows, cleanly and easyily,, but it is a bit more pricer then the tile caulk, but it actually comes off alot easyier as well.

just a helpful hint to anyone wishing to save their precous marklin track. i ve used 24 tubes of this so far on my layout,, and with a few ideas that went sour lateron,, it saved all my track from being garbage. p.s. be careful with it around your switches. its can get gooey. canada mike

Thanks for the tip. It sounds a bit like that stuff that banks use to stick your new credit card to the letter it comes with. Anyway it sounds pretty good.

How long have you been using it? I'm just wondering about long term effects, although if it's meant to be used in wet areas then it should be OK over a long period.

I suppose it's called somethng different here in OZ, but I should be able to find it at a good hardware place.

Sounds amazing. I never hear of this one before. Good job. Cheers, Jim CCRR:)

Thanks for the tip, Mike. I'll be laying track soon so this was timely!

Thanks for the tip Mike.

yes,, it probably will be called something else,, and yes,, it works just like the silicon they use to hold your credit card to the sheet,, actually thats what gave me the idea!! just make sure when buying any silicone,, that it does say non toxic,, and that it can peel away when finished its use,toxic silicons go super hard and never peel off, theres about 9 on the canuk market that say just that! i was soo worried to be using soo much marklin track, and the idea of it getting white glued into place haunted me. the samples i had went through our wost winter,, i left 1/2 outdoors, the same indoors,, and even a few of the promising silicones in a bucket of water for over 2 months. i ve been testing for 8 months now,, making sure i get the stuff that will last a long time,, and yet when that time comes, it will not be hard and impossible to take off. some samples of the promising ones are now in the sun, on the roof of my greenhouse,, just to make sure it wont get brittle with age. i ll tell you how they went in the fall,, but so far ive ben using the product with awesome results. i m building a huge layout,, 4 by 15, then it turns to 3 by 29 feet,, then goes up 4 feet in a helix,, and back the same distance!!! so we are talking over 500 pieces of marklin flex, and other track!! if i decide im too old to play with this scale in the future,, then i can resell every track,, without having to worry about broken pieces. and rebuy O scale to start again, hahaha,, least that anyone can see!!!!! canada mike

Mike, that is a big project. I don't want to think about how many trees I would have to make for something so large. I wish you the best of luck with it. I'll give the silicon a try and see how it is to work with. Thanks again for the tip.

if you look back on my listings,, you will find my TREE MAKING MACHINE. i have picts on my forum of it. it can build up to 10 trees in 20 seconds,, once you get the hang of it. loren uses it, and says its actually fun to build trees on his unit,,build one, you wont be disappointed. i made 600 wires full of tree spurs, put them in a long box. as i need a few trees i just pull out a stem or two, cut to length, add foliage and im ready to decorate. very cool, and super fast way to build all the trees you need!! im not sure if the big forum change did anything to my picts,, if it did, tell me and i ll re add it to the forum. ok.i know i lost all my listing posts marks,, that i was a bit upset with, since i try to come on as much as possible, but owell. i like to benifit the forum as best as possible, so as i make things for this scale,, i add them for all to see. canada mike

liltoot wrote:

if you look back on my listings,, you will find my TREE MAKING MACHINE. i have picts on my forum of it. it can build up to 10 trees in 20 seconds,, once you get the hang of it. loren uses it, and says its actually fun to build trees on his unit,,build one, you wont be disappointed. i made 600 wires full of tree spurs, put them in a long box. as i need a few trees i just pull out a stem or two, cut to length, add foliage and im ready to decorate. very cool, and super fast way to build all the trees you need!! im not sure if the big forum change did anything to my picts,, if it did, tell me and i ll re add it to the forum. ok.i know i lost all my listing posts marks,, that i was a bit upset with, since i try to come on as much as possible, but owell. i like to benifit the forum as best as possible, so as i make things for this scale,, i add them for all to see. canada mike

Canada Mike,

I don't see anything under your name about any tree making machine. I could only find three photos in your album... unless I'm looking in the wrong place.

Alex
Tokyo, Japan

I found it in the forum archives by doing an advanced search for keyword: trees and author: liltoot. I found 5 photos in photo archives and read the description on them. I am not completely clear on how to load the chenille as you twist the wire. I make single trees currently and lay it down then place second wire over top before winding. Mike, maybe you can be a bit clearer on how to load the chenille as you turn slowly. The rest is very clear to me. Thanks.

ok,, well,,, you open up a ton of chenile bumps, so you can put lots at your disposal. the 40 inches of wire goes in, goes around the cuphook and back out, theres a screw outside the end, just give the wire a light twist onto this screw.

start the drill, or you hand crank slowly,the V shaped area thats holding the chenile,,just feed it between the 2 wires til you get to the end,, a few will fall out, some will be just attached, and lots will be in the loose twists. now hit the fast button and tighten it up,, in seconds the tension gets tight,, thats why you osely twist around the screw. i lost my first prototype from the tension buckling the machine, haha. as soon as its all twisted tight, unhook it from the screw, cuphook, and bring the next 40 inches into the machine threw the hole. cut off the piece you made and there you are,,40 some inches of tree!!

the chenile will stay in place once its tightened, even the ones just barely hanging on,, making some very long limbs,, an added bonus if your doing big trees. look at the long wire and slowly cut the best trees that you can see from the strand,, a few places will be bare,, but the most will be great looking trees. start the next length.

once you get the hang of it,,i was doing a length of 43 inches every 30 seconds!! pull the wire, twist, start drill slowly , add chenille in between the wires, hit the high speed, pull the next wire in place, cut off the length,, go again,,, its that fast!!! loren did a few changes to his, maybe ask him about it,, he added a foot pedal onto the drill, for even faster strings of trees. he said to me about 3 weeks after he built his,,,,this machine has made tree building actually fun!! now for loren to say that, after building one tree at a time for years now,, it has to be fun, hahaha!!!

i tried to patent it,, but they say theres just too many tree ideas already patented to even bother,, but when i get more time around here,, i m going to put more effort into a better design that could be patented one day. enjoy!!! canada mike

Mike, Please post the photos again. About 10% were lost in the transition. Sorry. Also, I posted my thoughts to your ebay thread. Cheers, Jim CCRR:)

ok,, im being asked by everyone about my tree machine, so again i ll try to download the few pictures i have right now. im very busy with my poker this month, as the top players get to go to vegas to the million dollar games. i ve been to vegas every year for free for 5 years now,playing in many self won buyins,i still have 3 more to get final tables for to get in free, theyre all in the next 2 weeks, and im going again this year,, but i need practice for the big tourneys next week. after that i ll have time to take more after that,,ok. but i ll put the ones i have for now on,, ok. canada mike

ok,, im being asked by everyone about my tree machine, so again i ll try to download the few pictures i have right now. im very busy with my poker this month, as the top players get to go to vegas to the million dollar games. i ve been to vegas every year for free for 5 years now,playing in many self won buyins,i still have 3 more to get final tables for to get in free, theyre all in the next 2 weeks , and im going again this year,, but i need practice for the big tourneys next week. after that i ll have time to take more after that,,ok. but i ll put the ones i have for now on,, ok. canada mike

Thanks again Mike, you clarified the loading process. As far as your poker endeavor, I wish you the best.

update.... i ve found that the sun does break these silicons down,,drys them out, and turns them brittle. being in the sun in varous areas on my property, inside a greenhouse, outside on a roof,,,,,all succumbed to drying out,, some others were in bad shape,,cracked n falling apart.

sooo, keep your siliconed track away from the sunlight, it will get old and not release as well as normal. i ve got some still in tests, under different lamps in my woodshop,, i will get back to you shortly on those,, but they all seem to look ok. canada mike:woohoo: