if i used woodland scenic foam roadbed can it be painted? if so what kind of paint? i want to match color of ballast. what do you use for turnouts? cork or are there turnouts made of foam? thanks lynne
foam roadbed can be painted with latex paint , same as you’ll probably use for the rest of your scenery . the WS roadbed can easily be split down the centre , so you can make turnout shaped pieces the same as is done with cork . AFAIK there are no precut turnout pieces available , but every manufacturers turnouts are different anyway so you’d have to do some modification
I’ve never used the foam roadbed, I use cork, but I don’t see why you can’t paint it. You can use any kind of cheap water based paint that would match your ballast color. There
are switch pads made out of cork for turnouts but they are somewhat spendy, or you can
make your own from your foam roadbed that you are using.
thank you both. just the information i needed. lynne
Do people paint their roadbed? I never painted mine. Why bother if it’s going to be covered with ballast? Just curious.
Trevor[:)]
I have never heard that either, that people paints their roadbed. A good way to glue track to the foam is to use latex caulk with the same color as the ballast. I think it was Joe Fugate that talked about that. He used gray latex caulk to glue the track to the roadbed. And then used Woodland Scenic gray ballast. I will try that myself some day. A little bit of topic, sorry. [:D]
I think the idea behind painting the road bed is twofold.
By painting it, you seal the road bed, which prevents soaking the road bed with the wet ballast glue, causing any deformation of the road bed from swelling.
The other reason is it will help hide light spots in the ballast.
Rotor
I have a question that relates to roadbed, well actually subroadbed. is there anyway to get away from using plywood? I’m trying to build my layout so it’s easily moved nd plywood is weighty. I was just thinking of forgetting about the plywood and using polystyrene sealed with polyurethane to stiffen it up.
A lot of folks use the pink or blue styrofoam insulation board sold at the home improvement place for the base of the layout. It’s lighter than plywood. But you will have to build framework to support it.
Rotor
In Model Railroader May 1988 I saw an article about using small diameter CPVC plastic pipe as the subroadbed. I don’t know any more about it then I could read in the issue. I have not tried it myself. But it looks cool and gives you free-flowing trackwork.
I use 2-inch foam and no plywood. It works great, and it’s very light. I built a simple box with a 1x4 exterior frame, and I’ve got 1x3 rafters spaced every 16 inches. The layout is 5 feet by 12 feet. The foam sits on the rafters for the lowest level, and above that on wood 1x2 risers fastened to the rafters. The whole layout is on casters, so I can roll it around to get at the back and sides.
And back to the original topic - One nice thing about the WS foam is that it’s kind of charcoal gray in color already, so it looks good even where the ballast gets thin. I don’t paint it. For turnouts, I usually lay the straight section, and then overlay the curve and make a cut into the straight to fit it in.
Is foam roadbed like cork roadbed, only it’s foam? If so, is it cheaper and easier to use?
Very similar to cork, although the foam isn’t already split down the middle. For 22-24" radius and bigger, you don’t need to split it anyway, although it does come scored where you could slice it if required. I find it costs about the same, but you can also get the foam in nice long 24’ rolls - fewer joints and seams between pieces.
–Randy
i have been told it is easier than cork because it comes in a 24 foot continuous roll. i’ve seen prices from 8.00 to 9.00 per roll. lynne
I just looked for roadbed on walthers.com and found this:
http://walthers.com/exec/productinfo/785-1474
Is this the foam roadbed you were talking about?
I’ve used cork roadbed for many years, but a couple of years ago began using the Woodland Scenics foam roadbed. I love the stuff! I’ve found it much easier to use than cork roadbed–especially in forming relatively tight curves–and I’ve also found that if I use ordinary white glue to affix it to the sub-roadbed, it can also be lifted and repositioned some time later without damage to the roadbed itself (before ballasting, of course). I ballast my roadbed, so have found no reason to paint it.
Doesn’t cork still come in 24’ rolls, too? Why glue the track to the roadbed? We use track nails to hold it in place till the ballast dries, and then pull the nails. The ballast glue mix holds the track in place, and it can be recycled by soaking it in detergent/water. Although the cork roadbed does lose its flexibility, so we usually discard it when we change the track.
darth santa fe yes, that is what i have been thinking about using lynne
mister beasley casters and your whole layout setup sounds perfect. can you post pictures? lynne