ME Flex Track H0 Code 55

Hi,

it looks like this flextrack (ME-12108) is out of production at Micro Engineering. Does any member of this group know more about it and maybe a dealer/somebody who has stock of that Flextrack. I am desperately looking for it for a while now.

Many thanks, Tobias

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ME has a tendency to only order track when they are actually out themselves. Just wait a while and the track will be back in stock if the dies for that particular track haven't been damaged. If so, it will probably be a good 6 months before the dies are fixed. They should be doing a better business plan than what they do and it shows in the lower sales than what they end up with. I'll also note that when their rail bin is empty is when they actually do order more rail of any particular size. This again leads to long delays as the roller of the rail fires up the machine to make the rail rather than other things that they are doing with the wireforming machine.

-- Yeppie, Bush is such an idiot that He usually outwits everybody else. How dumb!

Reply to
Bob May

ME does everything inhouse, including rail, dies, castings and flex track. Their shop was open for tours during a NMRA national convention in St. Louis several years ago.

Alan

Reply to
Alan Gilchrist

Well, back before they changed their name, it was a lot more of a different arrangement. About the only thing that they did inhouse was weathering the rails. Everything else was done outhouse. As one of the people that dealt with them, I often got frustrated with their system.

-- Yeppie, Bush is such an idiot that He usually outwits everybody else. How dumb!

Reply to
Bob May

Bob May schrieb:

Unfortunately it seems that the production for this flextrack has stopped more than a year ago. I think one of there tools broke and since then nothing happened. I checked all sources I could find on the internet and even those who indicated stock available didn't have them.I am quite desperately needing this track - who can help me please......

Reply to
Tobias

When I was there in 2001 during the nmra convention, they had the faculties to do both white metal and investment casting (lost wax), many of the white metal parts casted where for their Wheel Works line, while the lost wax stuff was for frogs for turnouts and other things.

I also watched as they manufactured flex track, they have a mold that is about 2" x 18" and is mounted on a stand, they insert the rails in and mold one half of the track, then they take it out and put it in the other way to mold the other half.

Most of the steel molds they use for molding track and turnouts was milled inhouse with an ESD (Electro Static Discharge) machine, a process where a carbon pattern is placed in contact with a blank of mold steel and high voltage/current creates an arc to burn or etch out the mold.

I think their rail is created inhouse as well as I did see bundles of cut wire stored on a rack.

Alan

Reply to
Alan Gilchrist

When you do the rail rolling, you do a single long piece of rail and then cut it at the end of the rolling. This is the only way to get the right length of the rail without any wastage. The round wire feedstock is never exactly the same size so if you go and roll a preformed length, you'll end up with differing lengths.

-- Yeppie, Bush is such an idiot that He usually outwits everybody else. How dumb!

Reply to
Bob May

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