After the bench and or table has been built, what do many do next before the track bed installation?
I read somewhere about laying a foam type base. I saw some 4x8 sheets at Lowes this morning and almost bought a few…
Brian
For flat sections, I have used 1 and 2 inch foam with good success. It should be braced every 18 inches for 1 inch and 24 inches for 2 inch. For grades and mountains I use open grid work and fill in between with the foam. For yards, I lay the track right on the foam. For main line I use WS foam roadbed.
There are a lot of pics of this scattered around this forum.
I appreciate the reply as my benchwork is not 100% perfect… there are some very slight flaws and it is not smooth in all areas.
Guess i should have used a level instead of just a tape measure.
I was thinking that by applying the foam “base”, many of those defects would be cured before I beging to actually lay the road bed.
What type of adhesive to use? Liquid Nails?
Thanks again,
Brian
Brian,
I use Liquid Nails Projects - foam safe. You may want to click on the hyperlink in my signature block to see how I built my foam base. In fact, my construction page takes you step-by-step through building my layout.
Good luck.
Dave’s page is really good.
I use latex caulk for my construction glue and a low temp hot melt gun for building scenery. Liquid nails takes too long to set for my patience level.
Hey, what a great idea! We could have an “Imperfect bench builder’s club”, and we can be sure of having most of the members on the forum involved! [:-^]
If you have some low spots, or cross members that are decidely not level, you can always shim them with something…hard cardboard, lath, cardstock, whatever is handy and paid for is the best. Look for light between them and your foam, if you end up using it, and then you can mark the places that need some filler, remove the foam, shim, and relay to confirm. This would not be so important if you went with the 2" stuff, probably iffy with 1.5", and you would definitely need it with the 1" stuff.
Please remember that foam, by itself, will be noisy when trains are moving. You’ll be much better off with roadbed between the foam and the rails.