Here are my questions about laying my ME code 83 weathered track.
How do I carefully use white glue to secre the turnouts to the cork roadbed (what parts to glue)?
What am I missing with this process: do I just measure the distance between two turnouts, cut the track w/ my nipper, shape the track to fit the cork, connect the pieces together with metal ral joiners, and then use white glue? I will solder and use rail joiners for the two broad curves of the around-the-room layout.
How wide does a ditch need to be to convey that it’s a river? Mine is 3-4in wide. I haven’t put ANYTHING into the area yet, so plenty of time to adjust it. The river will flow parallel to the track, which is very similar to the area I want to model (near Roanoke, VA).
Where do I put in areas in the foam for wiring and do I do that before putting down track?
Don’t glue the moving parts You don’t need to glue every single square inch of surface, just enough to hold it in place. I would use clear latex adhesive caulk instead of white glue. Holds quicker.
Basically that’s it, cut the track to fit and then glue it down. If you are using white glue you might need to hold the track down with push pins because white glue will take a relatively loooong time to dry.
How wide is a river? How tall is a tree. ASSUMING you ar modeling HO since you are using code 83 track (you haven’t told us what scale that 3-4" inches represents) your “river” would only be 20-30 feet wide. Not a very big river, maybe a big creek, especially if that 3-4 inches includes the slopes down to the “river”. Rivers on the east coast tend to be fairly wide, so a river would be more like 6-8" wide (40-60 feet in HO). If you can put the river on the edge of the layout then you can make the river flow “off the edge” and then you don’t say how wide the river is. If all the space you have is 3" then that’s all you’ll have.
If you bury the wires in the foam, then you will never be able to get to them to splice into them or correct a problem. From a maintenance perspective, dropping feders through the foam out the bottom and then do all the wiring on the bottom is easier.
Obviously its harder to put something under something else after the thing on top has been glued down. So its best to plan holes, wiring, slots, etc before you glue down the track. Unless you have a miniature version of one of those boring machines they use to put cables under streets.
Probably, but the fun part is you won’t find out what until after you have sprung the trap.
Have to agree with the others - if you glue the turnouts down sooner or later you’re going to need to pull some out to fix problems. If you cut out a tie or two you should be able to just slide the rail joiiners and lift the turnout out when the gremlins strike. If the tracks leading to the turnout are secured that should be good enough. Of course if you have a bunch of turnouts in a row…[banghead]
I feel the area around the points of a turnout should be firmly attached to the roadbed or else the throwing mechanism for the turnout (switch machine, Tortoise, or ground throw) may push the turnout out of alignment, particularly when using foam roadbed material. I use a short section of Luan roadbed (that I cut myself) on either side of the throw-bar and spike the throw-bar area ties down so they don’t move.
White glue does not generally hold well to plastic, but if you held your turnouts down with it, and also used a white glue 50-50 mix for the ballast, you can re-use the turnout by soaking it in water to soften and remove the glue with a bristle brush.
You can also re-use a turnout that has been held down with caulking. Simply wire brush the caulking off, unless you used so much caulking that it came up to the tops of the ties, which is way too much.
First of all, I would recommend using latex caulking compound instead of white glue. It comes in tubes for use in a caulking gun. Phenoseal is one good brand name, but others work. The clear caulk shows less than the colored ones. The caulk sticks well to the rather slippery plastic ties whereas white glue (Elmers) does not stick well to plastic.
I position my turnouts and mark the location for the operating rod (essentially the center of the throwbar). Then drill a 1/2" hole down thru the cork, the subroadbed and the bottom of the bench work. This hole allows the operating rod from your under table Tortoise machine to reach the throwbar. If you are using a bell crank mechanism made of piano wire, then you can drill the hole for it after the turnout is in place, but the larger 1/2" hole needed by the Tortoises must be drilled BEFORE the turnout goes down.
With the turnouts in position lay the track inbetween them. Use rail joiners and cut the flex track just to length with rail nippers. I don’t measure, I just lay the track down and as it approaches the turnout, I use the rail nippers to cut it to exact length. I clean up each cut rail with a file, taking care to remove any metal burrs from the nippers. Fasten the flex track down with track nails and/or caulking compound. If you have something that will take nails under the cork, then just track nails are sufficient. If you have foam under the cork, you probably need the caulk to keep the track in place. Weight the newly laid track down with books, bricks and other heavy objects to keep it in place while the caulk dries. Use a straight edge to make straight track come out straight. Make your curves uniform and beware of kinks at the onset of the curves.
I have not soldered my rail joiners. I rely on a track power bus of #14 house wire under the layout and lots of feeder wires to carry the juic
I don’t use glue at all. I use a few track nails, generally 3 per turnout, and every 8-12 ties on flex track and the two ties on each end. The black nails are hardly visible with black ties and you can dab a bit of paint on them for brown ties.
Many ways to do this, experiment and find one that works for you. Just start with turnouts and if you use glue, keep it away from moving parts.
I have been using acrylic laytex caulk to instead of white glue to hold down both roadbed and track. The cheaper the better. A tube at Lowes or Home Depot costs about $2.00.
At first I was using white laytex caulk. Problem with that is it looks nasty under the ties until you get your ballast down. I have since switched to gray since the ballast I will be using is gray and it looks much better.
I lay my turnouts first then attach my flextrack to it and continue to the next turnout where I cut the flextrack to fit as suggested in an earlier post.
I’ve been using push pins / map pins to hold both the roadbed as well as the track in place while the caulk dries. I don’t do both at the same time first I glue the roadbed then wait a day before laying the track. The laytex caulk does hold better than white glue and sets up much faster also.
I either use tortoise switch machines, ground throws or Hump Yard Purveyance throws to throw the turnouts. I install these once the turnout is secured. However, I drill a 1/4" hole for the tortoise and hump yard throws before gluing them down. I rock the drill from side to side to gain a longer hole for the wire to have more distance to travel.
It costs $2 per tube and holds great. A thin layer is all you need and it cures in just 45 minutes. (I let it sit for 24 hours before remove the push pins.)
And, if you ever need to replace a piece or section of track, a putty knife underneath and a small amount of effort will pry it right up. Good for track and cork. It also comes in a variety of colors.
To help determine how wide the river should be check out a satellite view using maps.google.com look for a good size river with a train bridge over it… maybe that will help
I agree with the others that latex caulking compound works extremely well to hold track to the layout base. If you are using Styrofoam as your base there is an additional step: on the Styrofoam sheet that doesn’t have printing there is a clear plastic coating (probably used to protect the sheet). You must remove this coating before painting or glueing down track. Trust me on this one…I removed mine today after I had already painted and glued down the track.
Never glue down turnouts. Turnouts are mechanical devices that have a lifespan - they will fail eventually. If your lead-in tracks are glued down; there is no reason to fasten down the turnouts (where are they going to go?).
If you are using flex-track on a curve: solder enough flex-track together before bending it and then bend and secure. You are trying for seamless connections on the curve…unsoldered rail joints on a curve, or flex-track that is bent/secured/then fastened down in pieces will probably give you trouble. Nothing is more frustrating than troublesome track work (not to leave out troublesome electrics).
Someone further up this post mentioned the Kalmbach track book and I highly agree. Ninety percent of the [expensive] mistakes made in model railroading can be avoided by reading and checking this excellent forum. Good luck!
Gorilla Glue!!! It bonds anything!! (THAT WAS A JOKE). I was wondering if anyone has used contact adhesive for track, probably moreso on plywood than cork.
I’ve heard of contact cement to bond the roadbed, ie cork, to wood, but I wouldn’t use contact cement for track. Contact cement is, well, like the name says, it bonds on contact when used correctly - ie, no chance to slide things around and make sure they are lined up properly. It’s also a lot more permanent then some of the alternatives, so if you would ever want to change the track arrangement you could pretty much scrap any track glued down with contact cement.
What’s kind of funny is that, while I certainly did not discover the use of latex caulk as an adhesive - I found it in a tracklaying article in MR - it seemed until we all started talking about it here, no one was using it. Now every article in MR mentions using caulk to hold stuff down. The original article was in like 2004. Or maybe the backlog of articles is such that they’re just getting around to publishing ones written since the caulk article. I’ve used it for EVERYTHING - roadbed to base, track to roadbed, Tortoise machines to the bottom of the layout. The cheaper the better - I prefer stuff without any silicone in it as silicone has a tendency to shed paint and glue which makes ballasting not such fun, plus silicone caulks have an awful vinegar smell when it cures. I wonder if the $2 name brand that claims to contain silicone actually contains any - or if it’s like .01% of the total volume. Pure silicone - save that for caulking the tub.
Key point to remember with caulk - if you use the big tubes that gow ith caulking guns, there are marks on the tip to cut it - the smallest of these is WAY TOO BIG for laying track or roadbed. I nip the end off with wire cutters to just barely expose the opening - offhand guess about #12 wire fits in. You need to be creative to piece the foil seal inside, I use a piece of solid #12 wire to poke through. It doesn’t take much caulk to secure the track, and if it oozes at all up between the ties - you’ve used way too much. Even the clear I use co