Sorry, fundamental question. With a new layout, do I layout my track fully attached to turnouts (soldered), mark out the track paths, lift off major sections of this track, glue down the foam road bed in its place, replace completed sections of track on to the foam (hoping they will fit)?
I watched YouTube, read copious amounts of books & mags and none of them actually have an Idiots Guide to Track Laying. I know it is a basic question but what is the best technique for getting foam road bed down, in the right place and track & turnouts fitting neatly on top? [:$]
My method doesn’t allow soldered rail joints - with a 100 degree(F) temperature swing between annual extremes and a fifty degree swing in twelve hours being common, soldered rail joiners are a non-starter.
I lay out my trackwork full scale on cardstock about equivalent to the material used for saltine cracker boxes. Curves are drawn with templates of the desired radius, 28mm wide. I tack flex to form spiral easements and draw along the tie ends. Where I want turnouts I lay each route separately, mark the tie lines and use that information to locate points and frog. You might prefer to use actual ‘store-boughten’ turnouts - I assemble mine in place using raw rail, wooden ties, a big file and a soldering gun.
Once the complete track layout for the place I’m working on is laid out on cardstock, I cut it along the tie lines. That gives me a master template to use when locating sections of ballast form (cut from thin extruded foam. Cork is another non-starter given the climate of my layout space.) The foam ballast former is secured to the plywood subgrade with latex caulk. Then I install the cardstock template on top of the ballast former (also secured with caulk.) The final step is to install track on the cardstock template, which has been cut to exact radius and permits locating the proper alignment at every tie, not just at nail holes three inches apart. My fastener of choice is, again, latex caulk.
My method is somewhat slow and labor intensive. I am building for an expected thirty year layout lifetime, and I want everything to be as bulletproof as possible.
There are many different ways to lay track on your layout. If you are using sectional track, it´s really an easy game. Just put down your track, mark the track center every few inches, take away the track and draw a line between your markings. This line will help you position your roadbed if it is cork roadbed that splits into halves. If you are using foam roadbed that come in one piece, draw a line along each side of the track. The distance between the two lines should match the width of your roadbed. Take away the track and glue the roadbed to the surface.
Should you be using flex track, things become a little more complicated. You need to position the switches according to your track plan and draw lines from them, using a ruler, templates and a trammel.
LIONS just slap down tracks (no roadbed) when him comes to a switch him marks where the actuator hole will be, him usually makes that hole a half an inch wide, and then lays the tracks. If tracks not right, they can be moved.
Once all is in place, LION centers the actuator on the Tortoise by hand, puts a blob of silicone caulk on top of it, threads the actuator up through the table and into the throw bar of the switch. Him then can slide the Tortoise this way and that until the switch points are also centered and the throw bar is directly above the actuator. If necessary prop the tortoise up with something, usually a good GE silicone caulk does not need this as it creates its own suction to hold it in place until it sets.
OK, so LION is not world class model maker, and with age manual dexterity is fleeing from his paws, not to mention “frustrating eyesight” so him does what he can and is happy with it.
Lion, this is off-topic but I just wanted to say thank you for your perspective, outlook and spirit, including towards this hobby of ours! Though not new to the hobby, I am new to the forum, and I took great pleasure in visiting your site yesterday. I came away with something truly delightful inside! As a low budget modeler myself, it is truly refreshing to see one not only so outgoing and helpful to others in many areas of our hobby but being quite content and happy in your limited situation! Paul wrote that he had learned to be content whether abased or abounding, and you have captured and exhibit that wonderfully! Keep it up and may you be blessed!
One thing I do differently is, never solder a turnout into place. A turnout is the only piece of trackwork with moving parts, so if anything is ever going to fail it will be a turnout. If they’re not soldered into place, it’s much easier to remove and replace them.
In my case I used plywood subroadbed, cork roadbed, purchased code 83 turnouts & flextrack. I had planned my layout with (free) XTrackCAD software, so I had a drawing with specific turnouts and all track radii marked. I then drew a 6" square grid on my layout. I positioned the turnouts temporarily on the plywood, drew their outlines, marked the throwbar spot, etc. Then drew the connecting tracks pretty much per my diagram, making minor adjustments that seemed to work better. I used a yardstick trammel for measuring and drawing some radii. I also made brown paper arcs from 22"-36" brown rolled paper and used them to help try or adjust arcs. I wasn’t overly concerned about uniform radius on a turn, in some cases varying it where it made sense. I also created some transions (wider radii) into curves from straight to minimize train lurch into a curve (easy if using flextrack).
Then, I cookie cut the plywood to create height variations as planned. Then I started laying cork and track. I would lay an area or section or two at a time. First I laid the cork (using DAP Alex Plus caulk), and since split, it’s easy to lay one half along the radius, then the other. I used the 36" split cork to fashion turnout roadbed as described in many articles. Then I would prep for a turnout install by placing it on the cork, marking its outline, throwbar and frog, then drill holes, 3/8" for the throwbar wire (from a Tortoise to be added) and 1/4" for the frog wire (to be powered by Tortoise contacts). I also added a (lacquered) cardboard shim under the turnouts to get the Walthers-Shinohara height to match the Atlas flex track height.
I would then put the turnout in place. Most people like theirs to float, not solder to adjacent track. I did not solder mine but later added feeder wires to the rails. I trimmed a couple ties off the turnouts and flextrack ends to all