ok so i thought the black roadbed would be easier to work with than cork so i ordered a 24’ box
i cut out my proposed layout using a lot of pins to hold the roadbed in place and the stuff was a pain to work with, cutting it no matter how slow i went resulted in tears and not a straight line
i got a couple pieces of cork from a friend and it seems much easier to work with and certainly splits apart a heck of a lot easier
is there a certain brand of cork that is better or are they all the same?
is there somebody who sells it by the roll vs 36" pieces?
the one nice thing about the black roadbed was the 24’ roll so each piece was cut to fit.
matthew
The LION has used good cork and has used bad cork. Bad cork was too dry and crumbly, and was inconsistent in thickness. LION tried black stuff but did not like it. Why are you cutting it? It is not like cork roadbed that goes together in two pieces. Should be straight forward to cut it for switches or what not. I do not recall trying to use it on a curve.
In addition to being cheep, LIONS are not known for their great patience, thus on his new layout, no road bed at all. Lay the track directly on the Celotex (like Homasote, but lighter, stiffer) Making changes to tracks is also easier. Railroads, and LIONS too, are always moving tracks around.
ROAR
Plastic? Do you mean Woodland Scenics foam? Cuts pretty easy with a pair of scissors, or a sharp hobby knife. If you’re tearing it, your knife probably isn;t sharp anymore. There’s a reason #2 blades come in packs of like 50 - they get (relatively) dull pretty quickly, as evidenced by getting ragged cuts in material. It may still cut through a stiffer material just fine, but you end up having to apply more pressure than when it’s sharp, which is another whole problem with respect to safety.
All in all, I had a pretty good experience with the QS stuff, especially with the long rolls. No seams every 3 feet. I also did not try to fit it the same way you traditionally do cork around turnouts - instead I laid the roadbed for the mainline continuously, and then cut only the piece for the diverging route to nestle against the main. I also had a very broad radius, so I wasn;t trying to make it conform to 18" radius curves, which may cause bunching if you don;t slit it in half like cork.
–Randy
With the black stuff I had to split it for curves, at the end of each curve you have two unequal ends I was using a #20 scalpel blade that was quite sharp Matthew