Okay, I just got a great idea. For those of you that have cork roadbed and it is drying out, why don’t you try something called cork grease. Before you ballast your track, apply cork grease to the bottom and the sides. Also, if you didn’t ballast track, try applying it to the sides of one section, one section a week, for example.
Okay for all of you who don’t know what cork grease is, it’s used on musical instruments to keep the cork (on woodwinds) from drying out and cracking. You can get it at music stores for somewhere near a dollar and it comes in a chapstick tube.
I don’t know if it will work with the ballast, I’m not at the stage where I could try it either (still trying to design). If someone wants to see if it works, let me know!
I don’t know if it will work with the ballast, I’m not at the stage where I could try it either (still trying to design). If someone wants to see if it works, let me know!
Cork, like plywood and homasote is irrecoverable when you have to tear a layout apart as I am preparing to do. It (cork) has never given me a lot of trouble but I have had a few isolated experiences with it drying out and crumbling and and then having to watch the ballast cave-in at that point. You then have to tear out trackwork in order to fit a patchwork of cork in that gap and then you have to reballast and relay the track; it is suspiciously like a Volkswagen - you never really get it fixed. When I get ready to build a new layout - this one is going to have to be multi-unit portable - in a couple of years I am going to give this a try unless I read something in the meantime which says it just don’t work.
Geardrivensteam;
You said that a simple solution is, Don’t Use Cork! I know there are other techniques and procedures floating around pout there but I use plywood-homasote-CORK-ballast-and ME Code-55 FLEX-TRAK and it has given me outstanding service for many, many years and I am going to continue using it because it does give me outstanding service. Do not think that I am blindly content with the status quo; I am always looking for improvements in technique. In one of my recent woodworking magazines I encountered a procedure for flexing plywood which I am going to try the next time I need to transition a grade. There are all kinds of advocates of other procedures and, if they work for you, by all means continue to use them. But I got talked into buying a 1978 Dodge Aspen one time after having previous experience with a 1953 Dodge Deluxe; I should have known better. Both were virtual pieces of junk and because of that experience I no longer purchase domestics. I keep hearing this “Buy American” - good slogan and I do when my experience tells me that there is something of value in my forking out iron men. I am not, however, interested in even trying an
As long as the portion of track that stands out doesn’t cause derailments, just consider the area to be where major track maintenance occured after a derailment or for other reasons. I have seen many times a section of track that does not match the surronding area.