Anyone have personal experience with laying HO flex track DIRECTLY onto blue foam without any cork or homasote or whatever ???
What works … brads or glue or a combo ???
What type glue and what length brads ???
Also, what type glue is everyone using to glue pieces of blue foam together ???
Haven’t laid any track right on foam, but I use Liquid Nails for Projects to glue my foam down. They have a new formula just for foam out but it takes a long time to dry. Don’t use the original liquid nails. It tends to melt the foam. Some people also use caulk.
I can answer half of your question–as far as gluing the foam together, I’ve been using good old Elmer’s carpenter glue with a great deal of success. It’s a water-based glue, so it doesn’t attack the foam, and holds very well. My layout is about seven years old, and I’ve had no problems with the Elmer’s at all.
As far as laying track directly to the foam without a roadbed underneath, I don’t have any experience with that, but I would think that of the water-based adhesives would work fine–I’d certainly use track nails to hold the track in place while the glue dries, of course (and be VERY careful working around turnouts).
Just curious: Not that it’s really any of my business, but why aren’t you using some form of roadbed under the track?
Tom
I think you’re creating a real noise problem by not having anything between the track and foam. Styrofoam will act like a drum head and amplify the sound of your trains running down the track. If I were you, I would conduct an experiment with a couple of pieces of flex track glued down with latex caulking before doing the entire layout that way.
Quite a large number of us use the cheapest latex caulk you can find. You can get it clear or white or grey, whatever, but its use is recommended because it is easily taken up later without wrecking your tracks. The secret, though, is to use as little as possible. Lay a thin slightly wavy bead, maybe 1/8"-1/4" thick, and spread it thinly with a metal spatula. By thin, I mean like a coat of paint…no more. Press the track into it, and use your preferred method of keeping it in shape for the next several hours, depending on humidity. I have used nails, tin cans on their sides atop the rails, stacks of magazines, the heavy points jigs from Fast Tracks, your caulking gun, whatever. Just remember that if you use anything conductive, you don’t power up the track elsewhere to have fun while you wait. Thank God this is one mistake I have never made. Probably the only one.
There’s no reason it can’t be done but you are asking for some noise when you run trains. At the Cinncinatti NMRA convention one of the layout tour owners had a display of circular track with various roadbeds on different subroadbeds. Track directly on foam was one of the noisiest. The quietest? Good old homasote on plywood.
Yes; quite a lot actually. My last layout was a 7x25 triple deck layout, the layout before that was an 8x20 single level, and I’ve built something like 14 Ntrak modules. I’ve also helped design and build three foam-based home layouts for friends. My new layout, currently in the planning stages, will be a 11x25 triple decked, foam-based layout. All of the above layouts or modules have featured at least some track laid directly onto the foam surface.
The above photo shows a section of my old layout, with all the track laid directly onto pink foam. I used strips of 1/2" foam as my roadbed material, laid over a 2" foam base.
Brads or nails will NOT work on foam, as it’s not dense enough for the nails to keep the track in place for long. I did use push pins to hold the track in place while the adhesive was drying, but you MUST glue down track to foam.
I’ve used a variety of products (wood glue, white glue, rubber cement, etc), but I prefer latex adhesive caulk to lay track. Any brand will do, and only use a THIN layer of caulk. The caulk should dry within an hour or two, so you can test the track the same day.
Again, I’ve tried just about everything. I prefer silicone caulk to glue foam to wood, as it holds the best and has a slightly rubbery bond, which deadens sound transferrance. For foam to foam bonds, silicone or latex caulks generally work the best, but if you need to cut or sand through the adhesive bond, I recommend wood glue.
Yes, It is very noisy. I do not recommend it.
I had great success with Matte Medium.
Same, Matte Medium, also Elmers type white or wood working glue. I tried liquid nails and it can melt the foam, but the biggest issue I had was later. When I was carving the foam the liquid nails created a “ridge line” that constantly refused to shape with the rest of the mountain or valley.
Yes, I have some experience with this in that I put my main track on HO cork, adjacent sidings on N gauge cork, and spurs, yard/industrial tracks directly on the foam. For foam joints I use Liquid Nails Projects for Foamboard, and cork to foam I use paintable silicone caulk. For all the trackwork I use grey paintable silicone caulk exclusively. Never had any problems, and these are modules that get a lot of transport, and also occasional track revisions that are easy to do with a thin 1" to 1 1/2" putty knife. Give it a try! jc5729
I am experimenting with blue foam, but will use cork roadbed when I lay the track. I would think it might be a bit hard using glue on the small track, and I think the brads won’t stay in the foam good enough alone. Keep us updated on what you do because I’m going to do the same thing sometime. What did you use for benchwork?
-beegle55
Good dialogue from a lot of experienced guys - thanx all for sharing.
Conclusions :
blue foam to blue foam … elmers white
track onto blue foam … no brads or nails / use latex adhesive caulk - in grey … THIN !!!
noise … will have to find out for myself but I’m going to try it without anything
Again, thanx …
I just operated on a layout with multiple methods of construction. Most was 1 x 2 L girders with plywood, homosote, and cork. Another section was 1 x 2 L girders with foam and cork. The foam section was noticeably louder even with cork roadbed. You need to get plywood in there somewhere. Maybe put a layer of plywood down with the foam on top of that.
Eric–
When I was laying out my Yuba River Sub, I noticed that the cork roadbed on the foam tended to act almost like a ‘speaker’ as far as transmitting noise. I changed to WS foam roadbed, and the noise was cut almost to nil. Although I like your idea about using plywood under the foam, I was trying to construct as light a weight layout as I could (which meant that I used a lot more bracing under the foam than usual, but that’s okay), and the foam roadbed, even though it’s a little ‘spongy’ until you get the ballast laid, proved to be the very best sound ‘deadener’ that I’ve ever used. Now, all I can hear is the wheel-clicks on the rail joints. Works like a dream, especially with my sound locos.
Tom
use laytex based contact cement… brush it on to the blueboard where you want the track layed…and brush it onto the back of the ties on the flex track… let it dry…and then just lay it down and press… it works well for glueing blueboard to blueboard…but make sure it is LAYTEX… anything with any kind of solvent adhesive will desolve the blueboard
csx engineer
For the most part, I use cork between my foam and track, but I also have track right on the foam in a number of places, either small yards, industries or spur tracks.
I have never used the caulk, but may give it a try as many seem to have used it successfully!
I use PL 300 (kind of like the Liquid Nails for Foam) to glue foam to benchwork and foam to foam. I have also used it for cork to foam and track to foam and / or cork…But I wasn’t always happy with the outcome and so, I now use Elmer’s Carpenter (yellow or brown) Glue to put down my cork on foam, track on foam or track on cork…So far so good.