How I now infill 009 track!

I have been putting off doing the infilling of the tracks for a while, but it dawned on me I had to come up with a solution soon. I was trying to think of a better way of making the groove for the flanges when I noticed some wire that I used for the control panel. It looked about the right diameter for the job. The only problem was keeping it in place. I then thought "What if I put the wire in place after the clay was placed?" - so that is what I tried. I'm pleased to say it worked, and with another simple homemade tool it became a quick (15min per 30cm) job! Here's what I did:

First thing to do was to put a dab of PVA on the sleppers and roll a line of the clay the desired length.

This was then smoothed over using a slightly damp finger.

Now using a straight edge of my homemade tool, (just a bit of plasticard, one edge having two notches as you'll see later) I moved it across the rail tops gently a couple times. Too much pressure may cause the clay to tear up a bit.

The aforementioned wire is then pressed into the clay, making sure it touches the rails.

This is my homemade tool...

...which was used (again gently, and at least 2 or 3 times) to remove enough clay so that it is just below rail height. This will mean no couplings will hit the clay, and it will also make track cleaning easier.

And removing the wires we end up with this.

You may need to scrape away clay from the rail sides like I am doing here with a metal instrument.

The old way vs my new technique - much better!