I’ve been using strips of cardboard cut from cereal boxes to transition my spurs down from the main to ground level. I was recently told that may not be such a good idea, that when I start to glue the ballast and get the cardboard wet, it may buckle all over the place. Anyone have suggestions as to what a good replacement would be? How did you do yours?
JaRRell
If it’s cork roadbed, wrap a piece of fairly course sandpaper around a wood block and sand away. It’s a fairly easy process and it worked for me. If you sand too much off in any given spot just rip the cork up and try again. Cork roadbed is relatively cheap.
Unfortunately, that could be the case, so what I did was to not saturate the entire volume of ballast in any one place. I know that others will advocate a thorough gluing of the ballast, but I did quite well with only a shell of glue in the first 1/4". Mind you, I used EZ-Track, and not flex. Flex may squirm around in such an arrangement.
Styrene maybe, flat strips from the sides of plastic gallon milk jugs or from the impossible-to-open-using-your-hands clear plastic packaging that staplers, pliers, pens, and other things seem to come in these days…? I have used it and find that the thinner plastic seems to give me a finer height match, too. I can layer them twice and still not get the thickness of some cereal box stuff.
Try plastic.
I’ll have to try that. Heck, I don’t have that many turnouts where I need to do this and I do have some extra cork.
Thanks,
JaRRell
Plastic would work if I can find some that is just the right thickness. I remember someone saying that they just used 3 pieces of square (like in a square stick) styrene, the first one 3/16ths inch (I think thats the thickness of cork roadbed), one 1/8th inch placed about halfway the length of the incline and then a slightly thinner one near the bottom. He then applied the ballast, formed it good with his fingers and glued it down. He swears it works fine.
Thanks for the suggestions!
JaRRell
Nothing happened on my test section, which was a short section of main, a single turnout, and a siding built lower on N scale roadbed. Cereal box cardboard for shims. I ballasted it and nothing went crazy. I ended up using 70% isopropyl alcohol mixed with Elmer’s glue, the drop of detergent in the water trick didn’t work at all, it just beaded up (but I have hard water). The alcohol/glue mix sucked right in and truly secured the ballast, and I saw no bulging or warping where the cardboard shims were under the roadbed. I haven’t ballasted the actual layout yet, heck I still need to put a base brown coat of paint over the pink foam.
–Randy
Thanks Randy. I think I may try a short test section… maybe even off the layout… and see what happens.
Jarrell
That’s probably the best thign you can do. Best use of half a sheet of extruded foam - I tested gluing the roadbed and track down with caulk, tested cutting the hole for the Tortoise, tested ballasting - all before touching the real layout. It’s pretty hacked up with other thigns I’ve tested on it, but I do not consider it wasted money by any means. Sure beats messing up the actual layout and having to rip a section out and start over.
–Randy
I used to use thin cardboard like that, and once in a while, had problems with moisture causing it to buckle. On my next layout, I dipped the cardboard in melted parafin wax. The wax sealed it an dI didn’t have any problems with moisture.
Jason…Take a look at shingles at the lumber yard. They usually have broken bundles as they are also used for shims for various things. Pick out the ones with a sharp, not blunt edge. When nailing the rail dont spike at eather end.of the shingle, the thicker edge can be sureformed filed. You can also mount a turnount on top of a shingle if you wish as they are easy to trim
Dont confuse the roofing shingle with door shims, door shims are to short for HO…John