I have seen most railroads with conventional cork roadbed, and they were flawless. A few days ago, I also saw a new type of roadbed, caulk. This brought up a question while I was reading a blog reading. Is caulk better than conventional roadbed? Is this a new way of laying track that not many people know about? If you know anything about this, sound off.
Peace
i dont think ive ever heard of anyone thats used caulk, straight up, for roadbed. You can use caulk to ATTACH your roadbed… but using it AS roadbed would seem to be a huuuuuge hassle.
You’d have to keep a uniform thickness, you’d have to have something to make sure it kept a somewhat uniform width, you’d have to somehow give it a proper ballast profile, you’d only be able to do a little bit at a time to get the track attached to it before it tried…
it would be a huge hassle dude.
If anything, what you probably read about was someone laying an industrial spur or some yard trackage, where roadbed isn’t used, and they were just using the caulk to attach the track to the subroadbed.
Some people use caulking to stick the track to the roadbed. You can glue the cork and use caulking to glue the track to the cork.
Pete
I think the caulk he’s talking about is the kind that comes in strips in rolls and can be purchased in Lowes or Home Depot. I believe that this method was described in this forum a while ago. You might do a search in the forum topics under strip caulk used as roadbed. I plan to use Midwest brand N scale cork roadbed on my new layout. After it’s attached with latex caulk to the extruded blue foam sub-roadbed, I plan to paint it with earth tone or grey latex paint to seal it from drying out. After the paint is dry, I’ll attach the track with a thin layer of latex caulk.
Bob
Not sure but I think the caulk they talk about is similar to the black sticky type with cork imbeded in it used to rap refregerent lines to prevent sweating. It is also self sticking so you might not need any glue or whatever to stick down or to stick track too?
train,
I know of vinyl roadbed but not caulk. Do you have a link to the blog that you are referring to?
Tom
I have a roll of grey goop, about 1/16 thick, purchased at Home Depot, that could probably be used for N scale roadbed. It’s close kin to the adhesive pads used to stick bathroom accessories to the side of the shower enclosure, but not as tenacious. IIRC, the now-vanished outer packaging included caulking sinks and tubs among its potential uses.
Personally, I would never use it for ANYTHING on my model railroad. It has a consistency similar to gently-chewed bubble gum, oozes under load and loses its stick-to-it-iveness quickly once exposed to air. Not characteristics that go well with bulletproof trackwork. The one time I tried to use it to anchor temporary track to plywood it proved even more temporary than the trackwork!
There may be other, more suitable, products out there. I personally use latex caulk to attach extruded foam roadbed (cut from fan-fold underlayment) to the plywood subgrade and to attach flex track to the roadbed.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I think what he might be refering to is what is commonly known as topper tape. It’s the foam that comes in a roll that you put between a pick up bed and the “topper” or “cap” It’s suslaly gray in color and has a foam texture with a peel off backing to revel the glue impregnated in it. I’ve actually seen it used on one of Allen Kellers Great Model Railroad videos but I can’t recall who’s railroad it was. Actually pretty impressive, inexpensive way to do it.
I’ve been using this rope caulk for a few years now and it’s great! Dirt cheap too!
(Click any pic to enlarge)
It comes in a roll like this…
And I use a wodden wall paper roller (the kind used to do the edges when hanging the paper) to smooth it and create trasitions in rail height easily.
It’s flexible, and stays that way for many years, so it’s quiet, and it’s very easy to work with.
I can lay dozens of feet of it in just minutes, and since it’s just a little tacky, it stays where I put it with no further adhesive. Ballast and scenery will hold it in place when all is said and done. I pull it apart lengthwise for N scale widths, for HO just use it straight from the package.
This was all layed in about ten
You guys were right. I went to my friend, and he cleared it up for me. Thanks for you input.
Peace