Any tips, videos or texts on methods to correctly mark the track centre line on your layout surface before proceeding with road bed and track installation?
How are templates prepared and used for various track radius.
Any assistance appreciated
There are various methods for marking the track centerlines on your layout surface. Some people like to use a grid system to transfer their track plan to the layout by scaling up the track plan grid squares onto the layout surface. I personally like to just lay it out dimensionally from my track plan. I first lay everything out using pencil so that I can erase mistakes.
You will need long straight edges to lay out tangent track. I use both 36" and 48" frame levels for this purpose but any strong and stable straight edge will do. I suggest drawing all of your straight track centerlines first extending them slightly beyond where they will meet a curve. You can then connect your straight sections with the desired curves.
You will need a means of drawing curves. There are commercially available tools for drawing curves but most are just fancy versions of a trammel bar. You can make your own trammel bar out of a yardstick or just a plain strip of wood. Drive a small nail with a sharp tip through one end, then drill small holes along the wood strip at every possible radii distance from the nail that your track plan will use. To draw the curve, locate the center of the curve and push the nail into the center point. Put the tip of a pencil into the hole at the desired curve radius and swing the trammel bar around the curve to mark you centerline. If your curve centerline is off the edge of the layout, clamp a scrap piece of wood to the layout so that the curve centerline will fall on the scrap lumber. To find the curve centerline, Place the pencil end of your trammel bar on one of the straight track sections you want to join with a curve. Estimate where the curve center will fall and press the nail into place. Now swing the trammel bar to the other straight track centerline the curve will connect to and see how far off you are at your centerline. Adjust the center point as needed until the pencil
One of the largest challenges I faced was going from a scale drawing to the actual layout. I used a sharpie to draw the center lines for the cork that would rest on foam sub-roadbed. Using a pencil wasn’t possible since that would slice into the foam. The nice thing with Sharpies is using different colors for types of track.
I agree with Hornblower, use a pencil and if you’re like me have a large eraser handy. For curves I bought a wooden yardstick from the local big box store. It came with a hangup hole in one end and I used a wood screw for the pivot point through that hole. I drilled ⅛” holes a ½” apart from 18” out to the end of the ruler.
I used Midwest cork road bed and after breaking it apart I glued or pinned the inside cork edge along the pencil marks. You can use the cork center seam as a track center guide when laying your track.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad