I started connecting lines to put down cork on the foam sub-roadbed and noticed that many are almost arrow-straight. How do I curve them and the cork so the flex track bends slightly? Having a lot of squiggly lines would look weird, but so true of perfectly straight flex-track.
TIA,
Lee
Hi, while prototype RR love straightaways, they do look a bit out of place on models sometimes. If you can create a reason for a gentle curve, like around a lake or rocky outcrop or something, providing you don’t get carried away, anything goes for scenic interest. Beware of creating S-curves that can be the source of derailments. You’ll need a straight stretch of about a carlength or (preferably) more between alternate curves.
After separating the 2 halves of the cork, it bends quite easily unless it is ancient and dried-out-hard. Sometimes you can reclaim old stuff by rehydrating it with water, but for the cost of new, not worth the effort. As for drawing the curve on your subroadbed, just use a freehand sweep, or a bent stick of small wood or a flexible metre-stick. The bent-stick method also allows you to draw in the easements at the ends of the curve easily. I find map pins or Tee-pins hold the cork nicely while the glue sets.
Have fun, George
I concur with Big G with the exception of the metre stick. To be honest George, I do not recall having heard the term, “Metre Stick” (approx. 39 inches) although I know what you mean. In my real life and younger days it was known as a, “yardstick”. 36 inches in REAL measurements.
I am from the old school of real (Imperial) measurements and firmly believe that if the man upstairs had meant for us to have Sillimetres, he wouldn’t have let someone invent the real (Imperial) measurements.
Sorry for the [#offtopic] rant, but I still use the real measurements that I was taught starting 69 years ago.
Blue Flamer.
Flamer…when I was in high school, in the early-mid 70’s, the chem lab had meter sticks, since most of the measurements were metric. I’m not sure if the meter sticks were there back in the 40’s when my Dad was in the same classroom or not, but his chem teacher was also our substitute teacher. [^]
Rotor
When I was in sixth grade, my teacher had a meter stick for purposes of paddling kids (back when they could do that; he retained it purely as a deterrent but I date from the tail end of the days when they still could so you never knew). His reasoning was “three more inches of range.”
The meter stick was for meting out punishment? Yes?