I thought I’d share an interesting discovery I made today concerning tracklaying on 2 inch foamboard.
I originally used Ws foam roadbed glued down to my 2 inch pink foam tabletops ( 3 of them,each 6 feet by 8 feet for a 6 foot by 24 foot layout.My outside mainline is WS foam raodbed, and I originally used Elmers white glue to glue it to the pink foam,then layed down my track with grey latex caulk.
I ran into a unique noise problem,with my tables resonating with what I thought was too much noise.
I was very unhappy and had used this method thinking it would be quiet, strong, and lightweight if I ever need to move it.I did some more research on the forum, and found someone else said that white glue dries hard,and acts like a sound conductor, where latex caulk dries soft and pliable, and is less of a noise conductor.So I carefully pried up 8 feet of WS foamroadbed, and gently reglued it with clear latex caulk.Then I ran a train across it, a IHC 4-8-4 mountain steamer.
As the engine traversed the first 6 by 8 foot table(glued down with white glue) it was noisy, and as it rolled onto the center 6 by 8 foot table(reglued with clear latex caulk), it suddenly became much quieter!!!
Then as it rolled onto the last 6 by 8 foot table( still glued down with white glue, it once agin became noisy.
So I am convinced IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE which type of adhesive you use if you are building on foam like I am!
I will now slowly and carefully pry up and reglue all of my outside roadbed with clear laex caulk.
My track is glued down to the roadbed with grey latex caulk.
A lesson learned, but it does make a BIG DIFFERENCE!!!
Thanks larak, and I’m glad to share!
So many have shared with me, and made it possible for me to make it this far.
I felt it was my turn to give something in return.
This forum has been a wealth of knowledge to me,reading how everyone did things in so many different ways.Happy MRR’ing!
By the way, I ran that engine back and forth over that center 8 foot section quite a few times, forward, backward, slow, medium, fast, and each time it was quieter than the other two sections!
I’m dancing like Snoopy, nose turned high into the sky with a big smile on my face!!!
When I was deciding how to assemble my current railroad there were several threads extolling white glue, yellow glue, Gorilla glue - all with the subtext that caulk was somehow “unsuitable” for the job.
Happily, I decided to go ahead with caulk anyway, happily caulking thin foam (fan-fold underlayment) to plywood, and flex to the foam. There are also a few stretches where the foam is caulked directly to the thin steel of steel stud material positioned in the form of long through girder ‘bridges.’
In operation, my quieter locomotives have stealth capabilities. Some of my older locos sound like meatgrinders, but that’s the loco drive, not roadbed reverberation.
It makes sense, Elmers or a similar product dries to a semi hard state. Latex caulk dries but remains pliable and rubbery so it will absorb noise better. I tried the WS foam and didn’t like it, I seldom glue my roadbed down, I prefer nails, and nails dimpled the foam badly when they were driven too deep, so I switched back to good ole cork, it has better sound dampening quailties than the foam IMHO, and the place I get it from sells it much cheaper than WS foam.
The trick with this approach is that you have to also find a flexible adhesive for gluing ballast. If you use thinned white glue as in the typical bonded ballast method, you’ll be back to having a rigid connection between the track and the foam subgrade, and it will be noisy again. Some think acrylic matte medium is more flexible than white glue, but I’m not convinced it’ll make any difference. I’d say some further experimentation will be needed to maintain the low noise level with ballasted track.
(For those interested, Ed Ravenscroft conducted experiments trying to find a silent tracklaying system that were described in the July 1949 “Model Railroader.” See “Searching for silence,” page 10. He was limited by the materials avaialble at that time, but he did identify the challenges of avoiding sound transmission with rigid track structures.)
Why not put at least some of the ballest down whay the latex caulk is still uncured? Put the ballest down and press it in, so it goes into the culk.
Sure, it will be spoty, in places, but that can be touched up later. For that matter, why not use a flexable adheasive - I don’t know, but, I was wondering about rubber cement or simular adheasive, thinned down with ( I don’t know ), maybe acetone or toluene ( careful with the toluene ) to hold the ballest in place.
Thanks Andy ! What about this glue sold at Walmart known as Aleene’s “Tacky Glue”??? I have a bottle of it here in my shop.The bottle is gold colored with white labelling, and says it dries clear and flexible.Anyone have any experience with it? How about you Andy?
It says on the back of the bottle “water cleanup” so I assume you could thin it out with water.
I used the tacky glue mixed 2 parts glue 8 parts water on my ballast for a module and found it just like white glue but not as brittle. Yes its loud on the foam. But a modules environment is a lot different than a home layout.
Any other glue or thinner (acetone) might attack the foam. Stick with the water soluable glues. I have tried thinning clear latex caulk but did not get good results.
Okay, thanks for the info Pete.I have glued down my track to the roadbed with grey latex caulk, so there is a layer of caulk to put the ballast on.
Would it still cause the noise to increase again?
I wonder if liquid latex ( used quite often as a theatrical makeup to simulate injuries on stage, would work ) either applied full strength or perhaps diluted ( possably with water ).
It just occured to me, that there is a white fabric glue that might work, it’s made to alow the fabric to remain flexable, after it has dried ( it dries clear ) - I’ll have to check some frabric shops to see what the name or specific type might be.