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Summary: Start on easy runs, align the rails, and keep notes before you add puck tracks.

Installing a Full-Length Track

1. Drill Mounting Holes In Base

I printed a simple jig to keep hole spacing consistent. You can eyeball it if you want, it doesn’t actually matter, but the jig made the whole process smoother and more “automatic” for me.

• Use a 3/16 inch bit.
• Drill from the inside of the base track outward so any burr ends up against the soffit where you’ll never see it (and where there’s no risk of it touching any wires)
• I drilled three holes per full-length section: left, middle, right.
• The holes don’t need to be perfectly centered or spaced. The main benefit of the jig is repeatability.

Using the jig on a base track

2. Pre-drill the soffit

Holding your base track on the soffit with one hand while driving a screw with the other sounds doable, but it’s annoying at best, dangerous at worst, and will very likely be crooked. Not to mention I probably dropped 5% of all the screws I installed.

What worked for me:

1. Use the jig to space the base track off the fascia at the depth I picked
2. Mark the first hole with a marker or pencil
3. Set the track down and drive a self-drilling screw (or use a small drill bit) into the soffit at that mark
   • 💡

     If you're using a drill bit to do the pre-drilling, I recommend having 2 drill/drivers with you so you don't have to constantly change bits. If that isn't an option, I would at least use a driver and a hex shank drill bit to save some time.
4. Back the screw out and remove it (if you used a screw instead of a small drill bit)
5. Hold the track back up and install that first screw for real

It is an added step, but it makes getting the first screw in much easier. This anchors the section and keeps your alignment exactly where you want it without the screw wandering. It may not be that big of a deal in easy areas, but it will really help when you’re in hard-to-reach spots.

3. Don’t Fully Tighten the Screws

Leave all of the screws a little loose. Not wobbly, but not locked down either. This small bit of play does two things:

1. Makes it easier (and possible) to get the puck track clipped in.
   • It’s unlikely that your soffits are perfectly flat. If you screw the base track down tight then it will end up slightly wavy. Leaving it a little loose lets the tracks compensate for minor soffit unevenness.
2. Helps you keep a nice straight alignment of all tracks even if they’re slightly off when you install them.
   • By not being super tight, you give yourself some space to slide them around a little.

Closeup showing the screw not fully tightened

You will thank yourself later when installing the lights. There’s nothing more frustrating than thinking you’re in an easy spot, only to struggle and fight with the track because it won’t clip in.

Recommended: Offset Base Tracks on Purpose

Naturally you’ll want to keep your base tracks and your puck tracks perfectly aligned, meaning the two halves are the same lengths as each other and each one starts and ends in the same place. Of course for a full run you need them to start in the same spot and end in the same spot so you don’t have one running longer than the other, but for all the points in between… consider offsetting them.

If at the start of a run you intentionally cut one of the track halves a little shorter, you’ll now be able to use the puck track to bridge the gap between two base tracks. This “gap” should be small because you’re butting the base tracks together, but it’s still a gap.

By offsetting them and having your puck track snapped in to two separate base tracks, it helps align everything perfectly and makes it feel and look like one continuos unit.

I’ll say again: that’s a trick I didn’t figure out until the end and I wished I had done it sooner. It really makes your long runs more cohesive.

4. Continue Using the Jig For Alignment

Once the first screw is in:

1. Use the jig on the other end of your track to ensure it’s spaced evenly across the whole thing
2. Install the middle screw
   • Doing the middle before the other end decreases the chances of you creating a hump in the middle of the track. It’s like how you’re supposed to tighten things in a star pattern. Except it’s a straight line.
3. Install the last screw

Full-length sections go fast once you get the rhythm. The hardest part will be figuring out what tools you want in what pocket. And make sure you always have more screws then you need… you will drop some (or a lot if you’re me). Having a good tool belt can be really helpful here.

Cutting a Track to Custom Length (straight cut)

You are obviously going to need to cut tracks shorter as you reach the ends of your soffits. It’s easy to do, but there are a few things that can make it way harder than it needs to be.

1. Snap the Base Track and Puck Track Together

When we were installing full-length tracks you only work with the base track. When you start cutting the tracks down to size you need to work with the base and puck tracks together so that you have matching pieces when you go to install the lights.

2. Mark Your Cut

Measure, then mark the cut point on your track.

Unless it’s necessary for your setup, I would cut things a little short just to give you some wiggle room with the install. It also leaves room to get an endcap snapped in to the track (if you’re using endcaps).

3. Cut With the Track Halves Snapped Together

Cutting the base track and puck track separately often leads to mismatched lengths or a lot of extra work for no reason. Snap them together and cut both at once to make your life easier.

I typically cut mine with the face track either pointed up or pointed towards me. That reduced the risk of scratching the most visible part and also will hide “tear out” if you have any (although that’s very unlikely on aluminum).

4. File the Edges

If a burr points inward, it can nick the cable. File the interior-facing cut clean with just a couple swipes of a file; no need to go crazy. The outside-facing burrs don’t matter as much.

5. Label Your Pieces

If you’re installing your tracks the same way I did then at this stage you’re only installing the base tracks, and you’ll come back later to do the actual lights and puck tracks. But that means you need a way to re-associate the two track halves later. You could just install the puck track now (without the lights) and then take it off again when you’re ready to install, but that’s a couple added steps. I found it easier to label them and then set the puck tracks aside for later.

Immediately after cutting the track, I labeled the inside of both halves using a marker. I originally started with letters, but as the track install went on for days and weeks, I would forget where I was.

I ended up switching to the date plus a letter. I ended up with something like:

12-08 A
12-08 B
12-10 A
12-11 A
12-11 B
12-11 C

Ignore my chicken scratch handwriting

It made it trivial later to match each puck track to its correct base track. Whatever method you decide to use for labeling, just make sure you keep up with which ones belong together.

6. Install the cut base track

Short sections often only need two screws instead of the typical three. Other than that, the install process is the same as when installing a full-length track.

Custom Length Bevel Cuts

I didn’t do mitered corners for horizontal turns (more on that in the “Before You Install” section), but you will want to do bevel cuts for all the angles involved with a gable peak or any transition that is at an angle. A clean bevel helps the tracks follow the pitch and keeps things look smooth.

Bevel cuts follow the same principles as what was discussed in the regular custom length cuts discussed above, but there are added steps for how to measure and cut the angles.

Transition from angled to vertical track with a clean bevel cut.

1. Determine the Angle and Length

Use an angle finder (digital is nice) to measure the angle of the peak that the track needs to transition across.

Technically you don’t need to measure this and you can just do the math if you know the roof pitch angle, but I found that the real-world angles on the soffits often didn’t match up exactly. Even opposite sides of the same gable didn’t always have the same angle. To me it’s better to just get an in-place measurement.

While here you also need to measure the necessary length for the track you’re cutting if a full-size one won’t fit. The measurement should be based on the base track length (which will end up being longer than the face track when we cut it).

2. Divide and Set Your Saw

Divide the measured angle in half and set your saw angle to that number. I always angle my saw left-to-right (see picture below).

3. Mark and Make Your Cut

For full-length tracks you can skip measuring and marking and go to the next step since the length of your piece doesn’t matter.

Your base and face tracks should be snapped together at this point. To ensure your track is the right length after you cut the bevel, the mark for where you’re cutting must be made on the base track. Assuming you do the bevel cut correctly, your base track ends up being longer than your face track. If you measure the length you need and mark it on the face track and cut there then your piece will be longer than you expect.

Saw angled left to right. Base track faces away from me to ensure it is the longer piece after being cut.

Make your cut, label both track halves, and install the base track.

Because your saw is already set to the correct angle, it’s typically best to cut the next section for the other side of the transition right now.

The two opposing pieces should form a perfect transition when aligned. If you find that you have gaps or anything like that, your saws angle calibration may be off. You can fix it, or remember you need to add or remove some degrees to whatever you measured.

Going Around Corners (Without Miters)

Since the puck openings dictate where cuts can be made, miters around corners were not practical for me. It would have been way too much extra work, and it would have resulted in the puck spacing being off somewhere. I chose to use butt joints instead, and I’m glad I did. But I already talked about this in several other places.

• Everything you need to know for planning and measuring corner joints is in the Before You Install section
• Everything you need to know for cutting corner joints can be found above (hint: it’s the same as any other track)
• Everything you need to know for wiring a corner joint is on the wiring/lights page