I know many folks have left good ol’ tubular in the dust but I’m still using it. Looking to see how many ties people have now or in the past added to each section. I’m almost done and I"m using 3R’s rubber ties and I’ve been adding 8 ties to each section. I thought the 8 additional ties really helped the curves especially.
Thought this looked good but i"v been looking in some magazines and see many people only add 6 per section.
Probably won’t change it, but wondering what people have done and liked.
Glad you chimed in. Did you add 8 ties per section?
On another note, wanted to thank you for your suggestion a couple of months back on using those metal bus bars from Home Depot. They work really well and made my life a lot easier.
I don’t know why i didn’t think about using one less on the straights only. I used 8 on both curves and straights. Well, I’m pretty into it, and I don’t know if it’s worth ripping them up.
Mike I’m with you… adding MORE ties looks better. I add 10 per regular straight section and 12 per section of 027 curves. The key point is I cut my own ties and cut them to the upper face size of the Lionel metal tie.
You’ll notice the metal ties on 027 track have a curved lip on each long side. This is done as a safety measure to help prevent having cuts on hands. Older 027 track does not have this feature.
Since I ballast my track, cutting the tie to the upper face dimension of the tie (actually slightly narrower) looks better. And once ballasted, the larger “bottom” size of the metal 027 tie gets hidden by the ballast. That bend on the tie actually helps the track to be held down by the glued ballast allowing track screws to be removed, thus helping to cut down on table top vibration noise.
I used balsa wood to make my ties. Spray painted brown on the face, and then used a black or brown magic marker to do the edges when cut. Before I cut them though, I take brown and black crayons and “color” to balsa wood to help add protection and a little more unevenness in color.
I have used 3R plastic rubber ties and these look great. Used Moondog rubber ties at first, can’t find them any more, but 3R looks a lot better. One advantage of Moondog ties is that I could use glue on the bottom and slip them into place and they would stay, 3R ties are hollow underneath and require a little more work to fit where the track does not meet the surface just right, sometimes I would use two ties or an O Gauge tie for 027 track. I am using a couple sheets of plywood for my layout and so I have some high and low spots to make up for.
There are rubber ties for S Gauge track if anybody is using A.F. or K-Line track made by 3R plastics.
I use the same philosophy as Brianel, ties slightly narrower than the metal ones (for the little track that I have gotten around to ballasting). I use popsicle sticks, which you can buy by the bag. It’s not obvious that some ties are a little smaller; and they give the impression of narrower ties overall.
I too have used brown-painted popsicle sticks by the bag. Also have used wooden coffee stirrers that I cut glued together. Also cut up grey foam rubber strips - looks good from a distance and helped support the track - it ‘gave’ well under a heavy train.
