It looks like Homabed is no longer available? What can I use for HO handlaidd track? Making my own is not an option for me at this time. Ideally, I would like:
- bevelled edges
- curves well
- holds spikes well
- sound deadening
Thanks in advance!
With Cascade/Homabed gone, there is no really good commercial choice for hand layed track right now.
I’m getting ready to start a new layout, and while i am not planning to hand lay track, except for special turnouts, I have beena long time homasote/homabed user.
Not sure what I will do when my stash runs out, but I can assure you it will not be cork.
If I had the time and the space, I would go into the roadbed business…
Sheldon
Many years ago I used pine as a base, back when you could get good pine. Once those spikes were in, they sure stayed!
I do not hand lay track, but I did cut 1/2" homasote to a 45 degree bevel with a leather cutting blade in a sabre saw. I got good results and eliminated the need for any roadbed material.
-Kevin
Wonder if there are good 45-degree (or perhaps other profile) piloted router bits that you could use in a router table or similar setup to cut these roadbed strips ‘upside-down’ without too much tearout?
I’m curious as to why you want to handlay your track. I can understand the need for handlayed turnouts in some instances, and have built a few, but with the selection of flextrack available today, along with Central Valley’s various styles of tie strips, you’ll likely get performance equal to any handlaid track , but with the detail of tieplates and spikes at every tie, too.
There was a time when I was impressed by handlayed track, as shown in MR and RMC, but commercially-available track nowadays is miles ahead of what it used to be. It is, of course, your choice to make.
Wayne
I am thinking along the same lines as Wayne but do understand a desire to at least say “I can do this” (and get NMRA achievement points in the process), and perhaps also achieve some complex trackwork in a high visibility area.
The old Tru Scale line had plain wood roadbed which held spikes through separate ties very well. Tru Scale also had a deluxe roadbed where the ties (and rather oversize “tieplates” of wood) were milled in place to correct HO gauge and whatever its other faults it was a good way to learn how to spike rail because you could hardly go wrong - the gauge was determined by the milled in tie plates. Problem is it didn’t photograph at all well and looked a bit clunky even in person.
Snce the bevel on most commercial roadbed, be it cork or homabed or whatever, is 45 degrees and thus not really the angle of slope of actual track, another option is to cut homasote into strips about as wide as the ties and let the bevel take care of itself with ballast, or use plaster or sculptamold or whateever to create a more accurate bevel.
Homasote holds spikes quite well, although once it is sealed with shellac to prevent warping it becomes a challenge again. I find plywood to be the very devil to try to spike into without using force which usually translates into out of gauge track.
There IS a product which hardly anybody talks about any more - Ribbonrail (the folks who make a variety of track laying tools and supplies) still evidently offers their prefab roadbed pieces of Upson Board, a very strong hard compressed paper product. It comes in tangents and a large variety of curve radiuses (is that the plural?), including rather broad curves for HO. For easement curves you could cut your own slots into the curves and let the kerf of the cut allow the curve to be enlarged, rather like homabed did.
I bought some pieces of it years ago in part for my clinics on track laying and easement curves and those piece
So, what is wrong with cork, you are after all spiking the ties and if properly done will hold the rail. Use spikes on occasion to fix things into cork.
I’m with Wayne. I did give handlaying turnouts a try, with Fast Tracks, but it’s just not for me. As for the rest of the track - there used to be all these really nice looking layouts pictured in magazines, all great details, the scenery looking every bit like the real thing. Then there’s be a low angle photo of a train and it sticks out - a spike every third tie or so. To me, that screams “it’s only a model” more than oversize molded in spike and tie plate detail where there is a spike and tie plate on every tie.
–Randy
I remember a photo in Model Railroader from when I was very young, so this must have been in the 1970s.
The image was of a double tracked hand laid mainline in a sweeping S-curve. The caption said something like These sweeping curves of handlaid track would be near impossible to create with commercial track components.
For some reason that stuck with me, and I used to think you could not make acceptable curves with flex track. How absurd. I even repeated that to people, and I am sure that made me sound like an idiot.
-Kevin
Will Cork roadbed hold a spike well enough? I had the imporession that it does not, but I’ve never tried it.I’ve always liked the look of handlaid track more than flex track.
What would be a more realistic bevel angle than 45 degrees?
For flextrack, what’s the best to cut out the plastic ties under the rails at the end so you can put on a rail joint? And how do people fill in the empty space where the ties have been removed to put on the rail joiners? Slide the cut ties back under to form continuous ties?
Thanks for the feedback, I’ll be thinking this over.
Cork, especially in a dry climate, is unstable over time. The cork material dries out, shrinks slightly, and no longer stays together - aka “crumbling”. I learned this the hard way. I had a wye handlaid on cork, and eventually the cork crumbled, and the turnout was no longer in gauge.
I personally suspect that bonded ballast and other methods that “seal” the surface of the cork greatly enhance its longevity. But I have no proof.
I do know that a full box of cork roadbed was nothing but crumbles when I opened it 6 years later. Another full box, opened 3 years after I purchase it, would crumble if I attempted to curve it. This was in the 1990s.
In the 1970s, I handlaid HO code 70 track with Homasote. The pieces of track I saved are still holding tightly in the Homasote over 40 years later.
I have seen wood veener successfully used as a roadbed for handlaid HOn3 track on top of foam for modules. With today’s much smaller spikes, a thick roadbed like Homasote is no longer needed. I may give wood veener a try in the near future.
Fred W
…modeling foggy coastal Oregon in HO and HOn3, where it’s always 1900…
I would not trust cork roadbed to hold spikes. I recommend Homasote. Even if you can buy Homabed anymore, you could buy sheet Homasote and cut it for road bed and for curves you can kerf it to allow it to bend. I’ve done this before.
45 degrees is roughly the ‘angle of repose’ for ballast rock, and steeper than this you would use a retaining wall or cribs for support. On the other hand, when tracks are physically installed and tamped, the prism is made wider. Plasser & Theurer recommended in the early 2000s that the angle be set shallower when running their ballast cleaners and related equipment, in the 1:1.25 to 1:1.5 range (remember 1:1 is 45%). They also note that over time the angle usually flattens, potentially to a greater degree in curves due to lateral angular acceleration going around them. The vibration from concrete tie contact with ballast is another potential source of displacement; oddly enough very few discussions actually indicate either the visible prism/shoulder angle or how it changes… except circumstantially.
As noted elsewhere, a reasonable angle for new-mount track will be in AREMA standards, but not many modelers will want to shell out for a copy.
For a given prism height built up with ‘outside’ rock, wider means more volume of rock … and more work for the ballast cleaner when it makes a pass.
You may find this reference a useful starting place:
This idea of crumbling cork got started because of the way they used to make it and the quality of the material. Was a time when they made cork roadbed out of better quality cork, just cork and binder. This stuff crumbled. Modern cork is made from cork leftovers like the very outside layers, much more stable and they mix in rubber too so it will remain flexable.
There is a product that works good and price per foot is slightly cheaper than cork. It is called Ezmat. It is a floor under layment Right height for profile. Has a peel and stick backing. You do have to cut it into strips. Holds spikes for hand lay track very well . I use it as my roadbed for my hand laid track. Never had an issue. Plus it deadens sound extremely well. There was an article on it about 10 years ago.
shane
Can you provide a link? I have tried searching for this product, but not sure I am finding the correct one.
-Kevin
My around-the-room layout is in an oddly-shaped room, with 10 corners, so there are a lot of curves (minimum radius is 30", most are 34", but there are a few at over 40"). When flex track is curved, the moveable rail will creep - the sharper the curve, the greater the amount of creep.
I’ve read here, and on other sites, that the moveable rail should be either on the outer side of the curve, or maybe it’s the inner side of the curve…personally, I never realised that it mattered, so I never worried about what side it was on.
Where the track is to be straight, I use a utility knife to cut a couple-or-so ties off each end of each piece of flextrack (simply cut the non-gapped web between ties at a point adjacent to a gap in the tie strip under the other rail, then slide the still-connected-to-each-other-ties off the end of the rails. You can solder-on the rail joiners either at your workbench, or lay the track on your roadbed, installing and soldering the joiners as you go.
For curves, I generally form the flextrack to match the already-in-place roadbed, temporarily tacking it in place to see how far the sliding rail projects from the end of the ties, then cut off the excess using a cut-off disc in a motor tool.
(I’m actually finding this harder to explain than it is to simply do it, as it’s been a while since I put down track). The point is that in most cases, the ties where the rails will be joined, whether on a curve or on straight track, should be removed to accommodate the joiners. This also lessens the chance that soldering the joiners in place will melt the adjacent ties.