I think I had asked you before about this, but now there is a problem ...

I had made diff. trials and had used a pH neutral glue from the Danish Dana for my K tracks

Because of a short circuit around a breaking modul, then I realise that there had been rust after around 12 months and a picture will be added later

I had also sent the picture to Märklin, and they had answer this way:


The first round:

Guten Tag

This had been sent via homepage, but now there is also a picture included

A few years ago I contacted you about the glue for ballast in K tracks which Märklin could recommend, but the only response from you was to rust, that it was unknown for Marklin.


I have now tracks with rust after about 18 months and a picture of a 2251 is included in this mail


There is used a non-acid wood glue mixed with 4x water and a little dishwashing agent + a stone ballast.


The underlay is rubber cork and the room is inside our house.

Do you know what has been done wrong

I would like to hear from you


The answer from Märklin

Dear Mr. Steffensen,

this is the typical result, when a model railroader uses glue with too much water, when he try to fix the gravel at the tracks. Please never make the glue thinner with water. This water will rest in the gravel and starts then with the corrosion of the tracks.


And then I had sent the following

Good evening Mr. Mayer

Thank you for your prompt reply, but there is something I can not get to fit

As I know, is all wood glue today diluted with water for getting the dry matter content to fit and also to be the part, that needs to evaporate, so according to my opinion there is water in all wood glue types

Do you think, that it is wrong ?

If I'm right, then it should just be save to keep dry matter high to avoid water

However, as the viscosity becomes very high .....

And how much water can the K track accept


Do you have another suggestion for diluting a wood glue to avoid the water ?

---

So the golden questions is

What had I done wrong
Is there a better way


Looking forward from guidelines from you

Are you also using K track ?
And if so, had you after a period check, if there are rust ?

Yes i did had problem with the rust.
The problem with Marklins K track is that stud contact metal is not hidden under the plastic sleepers instead.
Or stainless steel like rail.
With stainless steel it wont rust.

You can also add a bit of Isopropyl alcohol instead of soap, in addition to wetting the area by spraying with Isopropyl alcohol first.

I think running a de-humidifier (as suggested) immediately after ballasting will help a lot, especially for that 2-3 day period before the glue mixture dries. I have heard of some people using a hair dryer to accelerate this, but be careful a.) to not blow the ballast away and b.) not to dry it too quickly, possibly causing cracking or other issues.

If there are high humidity conditions present where you are working, you could test a few different methods on "junk" track and see what comes out the best before doing the whole layout.

-Brandon

Just to mention that my de-humidifier is ALWAYS running. Not only after ballasting.

I dont go down as low as 40%; That makes a lot of nasty static electricity. -At least with the wooden Ikea-floor that I installed in the train-room... =:-)
I keep humidity around 55%.

I had picked up my trial

And tried to compair the 4 diff. tracks

They are measured with my iPhone with the different dB meters

They show very different & high figure, but there is still a picture of it

Measuring wagon was a Märklin passenger wagon with bogie and was run with a finger back and forth

And there are approx. 2 - 3 dB less sound from the alternative adhesives with 1:5 water + detergent, but clean glue of my favorite again showed 4-5 dB lower than the "normal" wood glue.

But it is a difficult measurement with an iPhone

I have also used a recording of the sound of a graph, the graph shown here the same observations, and can be displayed

The screws are not yet removed ......

If you don´t want rust,use special glue from Faller and add with cork ballast.

The confession had also been sent to Mr. Meyer at Märklin ....

an alternative is not to glue them at all, just press them into Merkur Styroplast

http://layout.mixmox.com/1/laying-track

When I had to move house and dismantle the layout I was able to lift all my K-track and use it again

I know this is an older thread but I am actually facing the same sort of issue.

I have used blobs of undiluted wood glue on the sides of the sleepers on my K track at intervals to secure it to merkur foam in my hidden areas (no ballasting)

I have found in a matter of days that where the glue has come into contact with the copper tabs underneath the K track, it has rusted and discoloured the glue.


After reading this thread it is clear that diluting the glue for ballast applications is not the problem, rather the wood glue itself.

I wonder if Jorgen (bygger01) found this out as well, since I don't see how the cork underlay could be blamed either.

I am now thinking either a contact adhesive or superglue might be required instead?