I am building a new layout and using Flexxbed for roadbed material. My table top is 2" think foam board insulation. A couple of questions i have if anyone has used this stuff or something like it. 1. What type of glue do you use to attach it or do you use the DEP caulk for foam projects? 2. I want to paint the foam board an earth color but should it be before or after i have laid down the roadbed?
I used Flexxbed when I built our display layout almost ten years ago. I glued it down using Weldbond which seems to be almost identical as Aleene’s Tacky glue. I also glued down the flex track with the same glue. Over that time, the layout as been in sub-zero to almost 100 degree weather without a single problem. Everything has stayed in place and there have been no effects from expansion or contraction. Flexxbed takes glue well for ballasting too and doesn’t dry out like cork.
I can’t address the issue of gluing it to foam since my Flexxbed is glued to a mix of plywood or Gator Board, but the same glues work well for foam too. I’d do the same thing again in a second if I was using foam as a base.
I didn’t paint anything before gluing the roadbed down. If you are going to ballast the roadbed, you can always paint right up to it after your trackwork is in place. Your ballast and ground cover will hide any places where your painting isn’t perfect.
When I purchased it, the name was Vinylbed and now it’s Flexxbed. Not sure what the difference is, if there is one, but it’s from the same people.
Jim
A friend used their Vinylbed roadbed at the time. He used a contact cement to attach it to 2" foam - It has not shifted since it was built(about 8 years ago). The only thing I did not like was that the roadbed is all one strip, there is no ‘slit’ down the middle. He made a jig to marke the roadbed edges so he could align the roadbed.
Jim
I used Flexxbed for the entire layout. I have about 500’ of track. I used clear Dap Alex Plus latex caulking. I unfortunately do not know if it is foam safe or not since my subroadbed is 1/2" plywood. It may be worth trying it on a scrap piece first. I would paint after laying roadbed because then you will be gluing your roadbed to the paint and not the foam. there is a chance that it will come loose.
Plain old cheap latex caulk will work, and also since it never gets really solidly hard serves as a bit of a sound insulator between the layers. Definitely foam safe. Both my last two layouts, one with WS foam roadbed and one with cork, were on extruded foam and used nothing but caulk as an adhesive, roadbed to foam and track to roadbed.
–Randy