Hi Charlie, I actually went by Harbor Frieght Sat. & bought a bunch of pliers. I found I could use the drill press & drill them. I made a few pairs of my liking. They work quite well. Remarkably well. I had to go though 30 pairs to get 4 good ones. Most have the "teeth" going at too much an angle & the drill will follow that. Also depending on where the teeth start, the smooth end is too close to the teeth & there is then not much plier to reach the rail web. I also go some needle nose pliers, again cheapos. My thought was to cut the ends well back & then drill them. This way no teeth to deal with. Size of hole is a little more complicated that it may seem as there is some spring back of the tin. I did on pair for O track drilling #29 hole. Worked quite well in resizing the rail. Very well indeed. However, I found with rail in place the hole needs to be a whisker smaller to tighten pin.
I put tracks together with various loosness of pins. Crimped in place, then pulled apart to see how tight. Compared this to track where I reformed end with track in hand. I could never get installed track as tight, but for sure tight enough & then some.
On the pair I made so far, you can take a really, really out of shape end, give it a squeeze & presto, nice new shape. Honest, that easy. The end of pliers are 1/2" wide, so it may take 2 grabs being pin goes in more than 1/2 deep if you know what I mean.
I'm still perfecting hole size & the gap I'm grinding into end of jaws to compensate for rail web.
However, as it is after giving the rail 2 squeezes per rail the section fits nearly as tight as new. No joke!
I've done several sections. Takes aprox. 6 seconds per track section. That fast!
Gotten busy this week. I expect to have them perfected over the next 2 weeks or less. I'll photo all, before & after, both 027 & O tracks.
Very best, Don Johnson
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