I’m fumbling my way to my first layout in over fifty years… seems like everything has changed. My last railroad went bankrupt when I turned 16 and bought a car. About half of my layout is covered in two laminated sheets of 1" pink foam (I live on an island off the coast of Corpus Christi and 1" is all I could get locally). The other half is open benchwork since that is where my logging and mining operations are located up in the hills. My plan was to try out both foam and open benchwork to see which I prefered. I am also planning to move at some point in the not too distant future so my 9’ x 8’ track plan is being built in 2’ x 4’ sections. I began working on the open benchwork portion tonight and began to layout my cookie cut sub roadbed from a half sheet of 3/16 Luan. If I use a 2" wide sub roadbed I can all the needed pieces from this one sheet. My question is is that wide enough? That area 'up in the hills will be using N scale cork roadbed which I leave in its original rectangular shape (I won’t split it) since these are logging tracks primarily and I going for a ‘quick & dirty’ looking roadbed. Am I being too thrifty with the 1/2 sheet of Luan or should I make the sub roadbed wider… and if so how much wider? Thanks in advance for helping me get past this one. Roy &n
2 in is plenty wide for one track, but I would use something thicker than 3/16 inches, at least 1/2 in (many people use 3/4 in but that’s awful heavy). Especially in someplace as humid as Corpus. 3/16 is liable to warp and sag with humidity changes and will flex under weight.
Welcome aboard.
Walk through the store where you buy your building supplies and check out which sheets of material are warping already, and which ones are not. If you are building in segments (modules, dominoes) tongue and groove material will keep it lined up better at the joints.
Bench work is the foundation upon which you will build your miniature world. It must be solid and level.
I would not use anything less than 3/8" for roadbed, and 1/2" would be better. You will have all sorts of problems with that thin luan ply. When you apply the ballast glue to it, it will warp and perhaps delaminate.
I think you mean subroadbed. He’s gonna have a tough time finding cork 1/2" thick!
Hi Roy: Welcome back to a great hobby. Here’s an alternative to consider. Take that sheet of Luan, rip it into strips 3/4" wide. Then glue the strips side by side to form a laminated spline. Then, nail or glue the track down. This is an example of spline for HO.
