Too Old ???

It's not you or your age Ifnwen99, Peco fishplates seem to reply on plenty of pressure to ensure good connections. Since I have adopted the one wire per rail section approach and glueing the track in place, I am seriously considering doing without the wretched things altogether. One advantage of this will be that each length of rail will be free to expand on its own and not pass on its expansion via an overtight fishplate joint.

Until now my technique has been to chamfer the rail ends with a couple of quick flicks from a file and to open up the fishplates ever so slightly with the blade of a small screwdriver. If force is required, it is always via something like a block of softwood so that my fingers don't suffer if I slip.

For insulating joiners I slice away extra space from the top of the sleepers.

David

a chamfer is good..also, a quick swipe of a file underneath, and a couple either side of the rail web, across the top of the foot will help too..this will hopefully eliminate the microscopic burrs that can occur after cutting the rail... I also find using a small pair of pointy-nose pliers helps....my pointy-nose ones are very old, and have real points, one tapering but round in cross-section, the other half round....the pointed jaw fits nicely inside one end of the fishplate, with the half round jaw gripping underneath the plate.....this enables me to ensure the fishplate is actually engaging the rail web...once engaged, a shove with a wood block ensures the whole rail length goes thoroughly out of skew.....

the problem for me with peco's insulated joiners is their thickness, and the amount of sleeper depth needed to be removed.....also, when warm, they can go out of alignment across the join?

forget they're there...and place a soldering iron too close, and all hell lets loose...