Hello, i recently went out to home depot and bought some of the 3/4 pink foam insulation board. After reading out it in Model Railroader, and seeing it mentioned in several other forums i have a few questions about the whole setup of it. If im now using foad ontop of wood, do i need road bed, or is that just whatever i prefir. Also what should i use, to keep the road bed in place if im using foam? and does foam hold track nails to keep my track down.
thanks tim
If im now using foad ontop of wood, do i need road bed, or is that just whatever i prefir.
Whatever you prefer. I used cork roadbed on my mainline and nothing under sidings and yard.
Also what should i use, to keep the road bed in place if im using foam?
I glued my cork roadbed down to the foam using Elmers Carpenter (yellow) glue, but regular white elmers would work as well. Some people like using caulk. I glued my flextrack down to teh cork roadbed/ or to the foam using white glue.
and does foam hold track nails to keep my track down.
No. Foam and cork roadbed together will hold long track nails enough for glue (white glue, for instance) to set up. But nails won’t hold well by themselves in foam.
Regards
Ed
You never “need” roadbed; it’s a scenic item, to make the track profile look more realistic. That said, roadbed is usually a good idea. You can either buy one of the premade kinds, or cut it yourself out of sheet cork or 1/2" thick pink foam. If you’re a relative beginner, I’d recommend the premade stuff.
Nails won’t work on foam at ALL, so you’ll have to use some sort of adhesive. I recommend latex caulk. It holds well, but not well enough that you’ll destroy the track if you want to move it later. Use a thin bead of caulk doewn the centerline of your track, spread it around a bit with a spatula, lay your roadbed, and weight it down for a day or so (books or coffee cans full of nails work great). Once the roadbed’s dry, lightly sand the top to create a nice, smooth surface, and add a layer of caulk on top to hold the track. Lay your track, and hold it down with pushpins. The caulk will be dry in a couple of hours, allowing you to test your trackwork the same day you lay it!
When you get to the next stage - scenery, the following might give you some ideas for scenery on the foam board.
http://www.ironpeng.com/mrr/srr_Nscale.htm
There are also some pics of the cork roadbed I used. I use caulk to put the cork down, then track nails for the track. I find it easier to make “mid-course corrections” that way.
Mike Tennent
ironpenguin:
Thanks for the picture link, very interesting.