IN THE LATEST ISSUE OF MODEL RAILROADER, THERE’S AN ARTICLE THAT SAYS TO SAND DOWN ANY HIGH SPOTS ON YOUR ROADBED, AFTER YOU LAY IT. BUT THEY JUST MENTION DOING IT ON CORK ROADBED. SHOULD YOU ALSO SAND DOWN W.S. FOAM ROADBED?[?][% ]
If the conditions for which you’d sand cork apply also to foam when it is in place, yes, absolutely.
I don’t think I’d sand the WS roadbed. That foam is really soft, and any imprefections will be smoothed over by the stiffer track. Plus if you sand it, you’ll probably just tear up the foam. But I’ve never actually tried it - I just bought a few pieces of the foam, then decided it was way too expensive and went to cork.
I didn’t sand any of my WS foam roadbed. Since it’s already made witht he twoutside bevels, there’s not much place for the same type of imperfections to form - the main ones in cork come from the fact that it’s made square, with an angled cut down the middle, which you break or cut apart, and then flip one piece over to put the bevels onthe outside. What they are showing you sanding down on the edges is almost like flash on a plastic kit and would make for a rather ugly ballast shoulder if you didn’t clean it up some. If there’s really high spots in the overall surface, I think you’d be better off looking at what’s UNDER the roadbed and making sure that is smooth and flat.
–Randy
The article also suggesting using a level to check the evenness of the surface. I personally found it useful to use a small bubble level on top of the track after it is installed on top of the roadbed. Moving the level along the rails would reveal any unevenness in the track by causing a shift in the bubble position.