I am going to make a spray adhesive to glue on my ground foam. What ratio of Elmers glue to water should I use (please use parts, not measurements). I also plan to do something similar to that with the ballast (using an eyedropper). What should the ratio be there?
Gluing on ground foam: Equal parts of glue to water.
Ballasting: Equal parts of glue to water, with a couple of drops of washing up liquid. (Note: I f using this solution on a steep gradient, add more glue than water (guess how much!), otherwise it runs everywhere - I found out the hard way and was mopping up glue solution from the floor for hours aftewards!
Ian
It’s usually done as a 50:50 ratio, and using liquid soap helps a lot. if you are trying to cover a bunch of ground at one time, get two squirt bottles, fill one with your mixture and the other with rubbing alcohol. first spray your scenery with the alcohol, and it will hold it in place (it won’t even blow it or anything) and then spray the mixture after that. hope this helps
50/50 glue to water with a few drops of liguid detergent is a tried and true method that has been around for a long time. Presoaking with alcohol not only holds the scenery materiel in place, it allows the glue mixture to soak right in without beading up on top of the material. When that happens, the ballast or ground foam float up and settle where you don’t want them. Instead of an eyedropper, I use an old Elmer’s glue bottle to hold the glue/water mixture. It allows me to work much faster.
I use a cheap spray bottle and I dilute mine about 2:1, water:glue. After each use, I pump some clean warm water through it or it doesn’t work real well after that.
MOST of my scenery has a thin layer of plaster on it. One thing I do to add texture to my plaster, is to spray the dried plaster with ‘wet water’ (water with a few drops of detergent added). While the plaster is wet, I sift dry plaster over it. (As I’ve mentioned in other posts, get your own sifter. Don’t use your wife’s). This adds texture to the plaster AND ‘teeth’ so that foam doesn’t get washed away when soaking with dilute glue. Another tip I’ve tried is to brush a thin coat of straight white glue on the scenery. While the glue is wet, I sprinkle fine sand over it, then a light misting with wet water. A good cheap source of fairly clean sand is the sand tubes that Wal-Mart sells in the Home and Garden center. We that live in the North or Midwest use them for traction in the winter.
TIP: If you’ve ballasted your track with diluted white glue, and you need to pull up the track. Just give it a good soaking with ‘wet water’. In less than 5 minutes, it comes right up. You can remove the rest of the ballast from the track by soaking it in warm water. It comes right off with a dish brush.
Great tip for removing ballast. Maybe next time I decide to make a track change to ballasted track, I won’t have to pitch the track.
I use Matte Medium diluted 50-50 with water for ballasting. I go over the ballast with alcohol first then the adhesive. I also dilute Matte Medium up to 5-1 with water (5 parts water per 1 part MM) and use in a sprayer to hold ground foam in place. I got the MM at Wal-Mart in about a one pint container and it looks as if it will last me a lifetime. I have read that MM is more elastic than dried white glue and will reduce the noise of trains on ballasted track. Works for me.
Woodland Scenics recommends you use their foam tack glue to adhere their track-bed (also foam) at $10 a 12 oz bottle. Can you substitute the 50-50 Elmers formula?
Will Elmers white glue hold track to foamboard? Also, if I want to take the track up, will it come up easily after the white glue is saturated with water?
I read an article somewhere that suggested using blue windshield washer deicer. I tried it and it works well and a lot cheaper than rubbing alchol
Regular FULL strength Elmers works great for holding WS foam roadbed to the base, and OK for holding the track to the roadbed.
Nick
I have already finished laying all of my WS Track-Bed and much of my track using Foam Tack Glue, and I recommend using that for the job. It’s strong, but yet is kind of stretchy, and you can easily pull up and reposition your Track-Bed if you want to. I’m not sure if you can say that about Elmers Glue. I’m not afraid of the Track-Bed coming up, especially since Track-Bed doesn’t dry out or anything. I’m not an expert by any means, but that’s my assessment.