Gluing foam board to plywood question.

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I need to glue my pink foam board to my plywood tabletop.

Will I get a stong, long lasting bond if I use wood glue like Titebond. I have a fairly large bottle that I bought one time and have not used yet.

I also have a couple of tubes of Liquid Nails for Projects but have heard rumblings that the bond for LN and foam board/plywood can weaken after a while and the foam may come loose.

I would like to use one of the two and am looking for any suggestions.

Thanks

Ken

2

I used wood glue on mine and it is holding up pretty well. But mine is only a month and a half old.

3

Ken,

Either one ought to work fine. Just a note of clarification: The Liquid Nails does need to be for LATEX! (Otherwise, the other versions will eat the foam.) Some folks use silicone caulk to adhere the cork roadbed to the foam. That maybe another option for you.

Tom

4

I have read here that Liquid Nails takes a while to dry, but that was certainly my experience with PL300 in my dam(n)(p) basement.

Now that Tom has mentioned it, I have been wondering if a few dabs of silicone under track, used to anchor it and to keep if suspended off the ‘deck’, would help to silence the noise of running trains. I have found that track crossing my trestles and bridges, unanchored in each case, are many times more quiet than on the rest of my ballasted track. A bit of an aside in this thread, but it is partly relevant for a topic of adhesion.

I hope I haven’t transgressed, Ken.

-Crandell

5

Basically anything except foam-safe contact cement (which is expensive!) will take long time to dry between foam. Since there’s no air circulation, there’s little chance for stuff to dry. I’ve had wood glue take two weeks to dry in a heated basement!

I still like using wood glue to bond foam, since it’s readily available, inexpensive by the gallon, and is sandable. Liquid Nails loses on all three counts, and doesn’t hold for poo.

Crandell, try latex caulk for sound deadening. It does the trick, but doesn’t hold as well as silicone caulk…and that’s a good thing. Silicone will NOT let go, and you’ll end up destroying any track you have to move. The latex will peel right up with a little encouragement. I still need to experiment with silicone to glue foam sheets together, but it seems promising.

6

This is especially true when glueing foam to foam, but when adhering to wood the porous wood will pull the moisture out of the adhesive and allow it to dry more quickly. It still needs to set for 24 hours. I use foam on plywood a lot and have used wood glue, white “Elmer’s” glue, and hot glue all with great success (no, the hot glue is NOT hot enough to melt the foam, and I have done this a lot). Liquid Nails’ latex version should certainly work well too, though I have never used it for this purpose myself.

Ron

7

I just glued 3 inches of foam to plywood with Wood Glue. Holds like a rock! swear by it. and also use the wood glue for glueing the cork roadbed to the foam. I use White glue to glue the track to the roadbed because it drys colorless. All works great for me!

DON