I’ve completed my basic benchwork. The subroadbed is 2" extruded foam on top of 1/2" plywood. I haven’t glued the two together yet. What is the best method (or any method) to construct risers to elevate and grade the roadbeds as well as adhering them to the foam subroadbed???
Once I got them in place with pins, I used a hot glue gun on the outside edges and had no problems.
Why did/would you bother the expense and effort of putting foam over the plywood?
Mark
Hot-glued cardboard strips, plaster cloth, and some earth “goop” would complete the basic landforms.
No foam needed or welcomed here!
Mark
I have to side with Mark on this one. If it were my choice I would remove the plywood and put it a side. get a piece of 3/4 birch plywood and trace out your track plan on it and cut it out with a saber saw at last 2" wider on both sides, there’s your subroadbed, take the other piece of plywood and cut it into 4" wide strips the 8’ lengths to be used for cross bracing spaces 12" to 16" apart for strength and the remainder to be used as risers. clamp the risers to your now open grid bench work and screw your subroadbed to the risers with drywall screws once you have the grades and such just the way you like them secure your risers to your bench work with dry wall screws, use cork or Homabed roadbed glued town with silicone adhesive caulking or yellow carpenters glue. and your ready for scenery the way Mark mentioned. Some screen wire or cardboard strips and some plaster of Paris or sculptamold or hydrocal and your in business. The one thing guys neglect to tell you about foam is once it’s down it’s down for goo. you can’t change your mind without ripping it all out and starting over and that stuff ain’t cheap.
I can say I honestly gave it a try and what old is new agin for me. I threw away all the foam scenery and have been making good progress with the old hard shell method. I think the truth of the matter is a lot of people are intimidated by hard shell and they think it makes this gigantic mess you have to deal with. I defy someone to tell me cutting and shaping foam is a clean process.
To deaden the sound and for carving out rivers, ponds, valleys, etc.
You must be talking about foam risers. I was thinking 1 X 2" wood risers with a 4" top plate and base. It would be more effort but much cheaper since I already have the wood from other projects.
I just finished what you are looking to do. I used plywood with 1" foam and glued the two together using liquid nails for foam. After drying for a day or two I used Woodland Scenic Risers throughout my layout. I used their foam tack glue, a little more expensive but works extremely well. I held the risers in position with T pins and then removed them in 24 hours. I was originally going to hot glue the risers to the foam but I had two tracks together, therefore I had two risers butted next to each other and could not glue the center seam so that is why I ended up glueing. For me the glueing was faster and I had no problems. Hope this helps
Sometimes terminology gets in the way for us. Risers are the vertical members that keep tracks on a grade, often elevated, but not necessarily. For example. they serve to keep spline roadbed off the rest of the terrain and benchwork. They can be adjusted up and down with all sorts of methods. I used 1.5" wood screws since the risers were 1X2 in most cases, and meant to be supported by wooden joists.
The foam ramp pylons that you can buy from Walthers and such are actually meant for changes in elevation, such as on a grade…up or down.
I don’t have a lot of confidence in hot glue. I would use wood glue, even caulking, before I’d use hot glue. Perhaps an unreasonable position borrn of my bias… As I said, though, wood screws are very positive.
-Crandell
Thanks. I will use plaster cloth for my scenery. I’ve already nailed down the plywood subroadbed and it would be a mess to tear it apart. And I fear going the cookie-cutter route because it looks damn near impossible! If I was to use wood risers on top of the foam, would gluing the base with Liquid Nails suffice???
I am not quite sure what you mean…you have plywood or some other material subroadbed, and then want to glue the roll-out foam roadbed and glue it to the sub? Use the cheapest acrylic latex caulk you can find, and be skimpy…you don’t need it oozing out at the edges. You just want a bond.
-Crandell
My risers, which will be used for changes in elevation, are 1 X 2’s but since I have a solid plywood subroadbed surface, I can’t screw them to open joists. I must put them directly on the 2" foam surface. I’m thinking of having 1 X 4’s at the top and bottom of the risers (shaped like an “H”) which will be spaced every 12-16" with a 2" wide subroadbed on top (1/2" plywood). I’ll have plaster cloth on both sides of the elevated roadbed. I guess my main concern is will the riser sink into the foam over time due to the weight of the trains. I’ve never done this before so I’m at a loss as to how structurally sound it would be.
My benchwork has a 5/8" plywood surface and 2" foam board on top of that. I wanted to know different methods of constructing and attaching wood risers on top of that foam. From the responses I’ve gotten, I may just have to bite the bullet and but the mucho expensive Woodland Scenics foam risers.
There’s your problem.
Why? Its only been used for 50 years before foam was available.
At this point you don’t want to use “risers” at all. Risers are pieces of wood attached to the benchwork that raise the subroadbed to the elevation you want.
If you want to use risers, build the benchwork, Install the risers, Install the subroadbed plywood and then put the foam (if you must) on top of that. (I have built a couple layouts using foam and so am not a big fan of foam).
What you probably want are Woodland scenics inclines and then build the upper levels wedding cake style, with layer upon layer of foam.
Why add material just to take it away and waste it? Use risers so the plywood base is above the framework and cut away the plywood where not needed. (The excess plywood can be used elsewhere on the layout or at least give you comfort in your fireplace. Try that with your foam if you dare! Please don’t!) And who ever sold you the idea that foam deadend sound? You’ve read too many WS advertisements or paid too much attention to foam junkies. Homabed/homasote will do it “much bettah.”
Mark
Let’s take stock of ourselves for a minute: you have a large slab, or several slabs, of extruded foam arranged in a large flat layout…is that correct? And you wish to arrange your tracks at some point so that they rise on a grade, level, run along level for a bit, and then descend…is that right?
If you are handy, you can use thin plywood, or 1/4" MDF, or lauan, or masonite…something to act as a sub-roadbed that bends so that you can have a vertical curve into and out of your grade. Use 1X2/3/4…something like that, in lengths, to act as supports under this thin sub, say every 6-10", depending on what you use for the sub. You can use long screws to drill up from under the layout and into the ends of these pylons, or put small blocks on the sides to give them more of a footprint and stability, and simply glue them to the foam surface under the sub…use caulk. The idea is not to build the Hoover Dam, but to build something functional and stable for your light HO trains. Once they are in place, you will use plaster cloth and more stacked foam fill around them to help keep them rigidly in place anyway…right?
Don’t pay money for stuff you don’t really need. Get a thinnish flexible material that you can cut to shape, flex it so that it forms the gradual curve into the grade, anchor it that way, and then continue on with supports every few inches to keep it constant…you do not want undulating tracks, not even for a half mm of vertical deflection. Cut the risers to the appropriate lengths so that they do cause the flexible sub material to make you a gentle vertical curve when they are glued or screwed together at the tops of the pylons/risers.
Yes, yes and yes! Your reply answers all my questions to a tee! I can’t thank you enough.
Merry Christmas!!!