I’m not sure if I posted this before
I’m going to building and ho scale 12" x60" switching layout. Normaly I don’t use road bed I just lay the track on the painted foam. This time I’m thinking about hand laying track directly to bench work surface, which is finely compressed particle board. Is there going to be a noticeable difference in outcome between methods? Sound, durability. Yes the particle board will be painted with a flat Wal-Mart latex paint first.
kh25,
Speaking from experience (entire railroad with handlaid track and scratchbuilt turnouts), you will not be able to drive spikes through the soft wood ties into the particle board without bending spikes. Also, the particle board is not good holding spikes if you do manage to drive them home. I use homasote to lay ties on. This is the tried and true traditional base for hand laying track and is great for grabbing spikes. You can do a search here to find more on the subject I have covered in response to others asking about how to hand lay their own track.
Joel
I agree, driving spikes into particle board will be a non-starter. If you use a thicker layout of Homabed or other Homasote roadbed, or homasote splines or sheets, it will work out better.
Other people have used soft plywood, pine or basswood as roadbed.
Have you considered Central Valley tie strips? They offer several different versions, including ones for various turnouts and also kits for turnouts. These readily accept code 83 and 70 rail, and will also work with code 55.
You can still have the free-flowing track afforded by handlaying, with the added bonus of superdetailed ties.
Wayne
Why do y’all assume he is using spikes? I haven’t done a whole layout, but I have experimented quite a bit with hand laid track over the years. If I was going to hand lay today, I would use PCB every nth tie and solder instead of spike. I really think the track comes out looking much better that way and in my experiments I didn’t find it any harder to do.
Even with PCB ties, that will hold the rails in perfect gauge, most still use spikes. Simple reason being appearance. Why super detail everything else, while having zero spikes on rails? While it won’t be 4 spikes per tie, it is better to have some than none.
Because the spikes are too big and stick out like sore thumbs - especially when you don’t spike every tie.
IMO, the reasons to lay track by hand don’t include “more realistic appearance”. (unless you’re one of the few Proto:87 guys)
I hand-laid the track on my wood trestle because I wanted the ties to match the rest of the wood structure (and have no regrets). But there has to be a reason for hand-laying track vs using flex because it certainly is a whole lot more work.
I agree with others that spiking ties into wood will be very difficult. When I built the trestle I used Pliobond to glue the track to the ties, and used spikes every nth tie to help support it until the glue fully cured. It really worked out well. Three years later and the rails are still very firmly attached. Pliobond sticks to both metal and wood very securely, something you might want to consider.
Don’t remember where I read or heard this method of attaching rail to hand laid ties but using Pliobond on tracks and then sticking them down to the ties and then heating the track with a soldering iron to “vulcanize” the rubber to the ties and track. I have used this method to attach track to bridge ties.
I am hand spike all track to wood ties glued down with Titebond adhesive to homesote. I use 1/2 homesote roadbed cut from a 4 x 8 sheet using a table saw set up outside to deal with the dust and then chamfer the edges using a 45 degree router bit on a router mounted on a router table with a good dust pick up system. Use a cyclone seperate between the router and a shop vac. The shop vac filter still catches a fair amount of homesote dust. Saving the homesote dust to make some homemade scencery material using paper dust and gypsum drywall compound.
Jim
I stain my wood ties so that when you look at them, you know they are wood. It’s a very dark stain with hints of black.
The ties are glued down with a 50/50 mix of white glue and water on cork roadbed. I put weights on the ties until the glue dries. The track is spiked to the cork, every 5 ties with more near switches.
The payoff is when I had a 6 year old visiter looked at my work and ask ‘are the sleepers real wood?’
I would recommend Pliobond on any bridge or trestle. The ME bridge flex track is a great product for bridges with the thicker close spaced ties.
Hand laying directly on many types of plywood or hardboard is a real no, This was once done on a club industrial section, each spike needed to be “pre drilled” as most would bend of you have no control as to drive and keep gauged. Most hand laid sections should be on Homosote or clear pine (as we have used in both of the club layouts over the last 50+ years) We mill our own clear pine 1/4"roadbed, but it can be bought in any molding section of a “normal” real lumber yard.
This yard is a mix of glue/ spiked Walther/ Shinahara and hand laid and fast tracks turnouts
This is an elevator, all trackwork in this area