Oh, You Lucky Eastern Folk

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

Apparently, 2" extruded foam is only sold back east. I even tried to get The Home Depot in Arizona to special order it and it didn’t show up in their special order catalog, even though it can be bought in Home Depots back east. They do, however, carry 1" foam here. This leads me to two questions. First, is 1" enough for an N scale base? It is over 13’ scale feet deep. Second, if not, would it work to glue two 1" sheets together?

2

Richard,

Yes, you can glue two 1" thick pieces of extrude foam insulation to make a 2" thick piece. Some folks use plain 'ol Elmer’s glue, which works. I prefer latex caulk because it remains flexible. The DAP Alex Plus Acrylic Latex caulk I use on foam, cork, track, wood - even plastic - and it holds very well.

Tom

3

Richard,

I buy it at Lowe’s here in Denver. ‘Don’t know what part of Az. you’re in,but here is a link to the 2"x2’x8’ Dow Blueboard at a Lowe’s in Phoenix…

http://www.lowes.com/pd_14538-46086-126749_0__?storeNumber=2421&Ntt=polystyrene&selectedLocalStoreBeanArray=[com.lowes.commerce.storelocator.beans.LocatorStoreBean%4067da67da]&pl=1&productId=3161249&ipTrail=71.229.173.82&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Dpolystyrene

It shows as currently unavailable,but maybe they can order it for you.

As I recall,I didn’t have any luck at Home Depot,either.

Mike

4

Mike: Thanks for the pointer. I am pretty sure I had already checked with Lowe’s. Odd thing, if I set my store location to Phoenix, search for styrofoam, no 2" foam is not returned in the results. If I change the location to Denver, wallah, it shows your result in the search results. For some reason it is not sold in Phoenix. I think I will have to make do with the 1" foam.

5

I was afraid of that,Richard,when I saw that all the stores in the Phoenix area showed it as “unavailable”. On the plus side,as Tom noted,two or more 1" boards can be stacked and glued.My layout is mostly 1/2" foamboard glued to 1/2"plywood,with another 1/2" foamboard cut to the shape of the roadbed and glued atop that.So far everything is holding together very well.

Mike

6

I inch should be sufficient for N scale.

Heck, I used 1" foam over 12" open grid for my HO layout with fine results!

ANd, as mentioned you CAN glue them together. I understand for some reason some come with a sheet of plastic film on them. Be sure to remove that before gluing if that is the case.

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