As of now I have just a few days till I start to build my outdoor 12’X16’ shed. Fully insulated HO steel mill railroad to be housed inside. Now the question I have is…How do you glue down cork roadbed and track to 2" blue foam board ? This will be the first time of me using this method. I’ve built two layouts before ,but never used foam board.
I’ve heard on this forum and others,that {liquid nails for projects} is the way to go.Does this hold truth ? The whole layout won’t be covered in foam board,just the elevations. The highest part will be about a four to eight inch rise. Also a quarry made out of foam board,something like the copper mine out west.Can’t think of the name of this mine,but it looks like giant steps.
The quarry will go from the top of the layout to,just about the floor,with mining machinery,crusher,converors ect.Also it will be part of the massive slag works for the mill. Shoot I figure it will take about a week of building the shed after work to get it completed.So no rush on advice.
Guess I should have mentioned that the layout itself will be a rap-around dogbone type,with an island for the mill.The mill will take up about 3’X7’ foot island,including the port for off loading coal,limestone and iron ore.
As soon as the shed is built,I plan on a picture taking day to day work journal,to share with you folks.
Liquid Nails is much more expensive than the cheapest brand of latex caulk next to it on the shelf. The cheap stuff works no less effectively, so you can pay what you fancy.
Open the tube of latex caulk at the tip, squeeze out a thin wavy bead of the material, and then spread it quite thin with a metal spatula or putty knife…a flexible one is best. When you have it spread, it should not be oozing out from under the weighted foam where you are layering it, nor from under the roadbed. Oozed stuff is merely wasted, although, as I said, latex caulk is really quite inexpensive.
FOr an idea of how thin the caulk should be - if you draw a pencil line to guide laying the cork roadbed, you should be easily able to see the line after the caulk is spread out. It takes VERY little to hold securely. The tips on caulk tubes are marked as to where to cut them open - even the smallest marking is too big a hole. I nip off the tip with a sprue cutter just until there’s actually an opening. And a lot fo times I don’t even lay a continuous bead, as you draw the putty knife along there will be excess picked up and spread along. My layout is 8x12. I used ONE tube of caulk for all the roadbed AND all the track. When using the caulk for the track - again a VERY thin layer, it should not squish up between the ties.
I used liquid nail and it holds really well. I just put a very small bead down and pressed the foam onto it. It hold’s great. I also put a very small bead on my cork roadbed and laid it in place and used pins to hold it steady until it dried. I also did the same with flex track on the cork roadbed.
I’ve had to reposition a couple sections of track and roadbed and I was able to pry everything apart (very carefully) with relative ease. With a dremo tool and exacto knifes I was able to clean the glue off of the bottom of the track with no problem.
In another forum the question was put to me as to why I used liquid nail when white glue will work just fine. I haven’t tried that yet, but you might want to experiment with it.
I am not sure if this will apply to you but I have found it to be a great trick while planning and laying track work.
I built my layout on white foam board, 2" thick and the entire tracks system, track, cork to foam, is laid and secured entirely with long sewing pins. About the same in price as Atlas nails. I have a lot of reasons why my track is secured this way but for you… it can give you a great to chance to lay your track, even run ops with it and see if you like the lay of it. With out haveing committed to “forever” with the glue.
Also, while you are at the glueing stage, the pins can be great for holding the track while the glue dries.
Useing the pins is a great luxury that the wood guys cant use. MIght as well take advantage of it. Good luck with that, sounds like it is going to be one great layout.
As far as track adhesives, Selector got it right. However, there are additional considerations with a steel mill layout.
Do you have any track sections that run parallel to each other, into and beside buildings with very tight clearances (such as the blast furnace)? You’ll want to delay cementing/ballasting the track until you’ve put down ALL of the assembled structures. You might discover the tracks don’t exactly line up the way they did in the footprint diagram, and if the tracks are permanently glued, you’re screwed. The images below show how I learned this lesson the hard way:
Woodland Scenics has special ‘tee’ pins ~2" long (a.k.a. “foam nails”, p/n ST1432), that work really well as a temporary way to hold your track or cork in position on foamboard, I used them alot myself.
I built the first section of my layout on foam board before switching back to plywood for the rest. I tried several different adhesives and all worked well. Liquid Nails and Woodland Scenics are both good choices but are pricey. White glue and carpenter’s glue are almost as strong and much cheaper. I have used it to glue the roadbed to the foam and the track to the roadbed. I find that they were easier to pull up if I wanted to change the track configuration. The earliest track has been down for over five years and I have had none of the roadbed come loose, even though some of it still hasn’t been ballasted.
My entire 26’x24’ Yuba River Sub is built on 2" foam base, and after about six years of use, it’s still holding up as well as plywood.
I used plain old Elmer’s Carpenter glue to install both the sub-roadbed and roadbed, and Woodland Scenics “T” nails to temporarily hold the track while the glue dried.
One of the great things about using foam as a base is that the wood framing doesn’t have to be as heavy as you might need for a plywood base. I’ve used 1x2" framing for the base, and although the grids are smaller than normal–because of the foam–the layout is extremely sturdy. For the various levels (I have 3), I used WS foam risers for the grades.
Still works for me. Only problem is that here in California, the 2" blue or pink foam is VERY hard to find, anymore. Something about it being dangerous to Spotted Owls or Snail Darters, LOL!
I like the stuff–it’s remarkably easy to work with.
Thank you all for your ideas,they will be used. The only problem i have using blue foam board is the cost of this stuff. Here in coastal SC,foam board goes for about forty bucks a sheet,sheez kinda expensive,but much easier to make mountians and mole hills out of.
Ken…note taken, I figured the first two structures to be built {and the largest} the blast furnace & the scratch built BOF.These will have the most trackage ,not to mention the tightest curves. The BOF is going to be 2’ X 3 1/3’ X 3’,friggin huge structure…can’t wait to build this one.
I still don’t have a track plan,just figured on making it as I go.The layout will be a dog-bone type,with a island for the mill.
Any advise on the ws foam risers, my next step. Also what I am using is a 2’x4’x2" styrafoam (we need spell cheak) from the hd, any mountains are scrap foam you get for free, you can find sheets of it in any dumpster! Oh and by the way also in Calif.
RRebell: If you are using the styrofoam instead of the blue or pink foam board, you’ll need to brace it even more than the foam board, since it’s a lot more pliable. As to the WS foam risers, I used the 2% risers on the Yuba River Sub, plus their 4" level risers to build up the sub-grade. Everything is very light-weight, and my scenery is built out of a combination of foam scrap and WS plaster cloth. I did have to use the 2" styrofoam on a newer extension (after the foam board became next to impossible to find), and it works pretty well–but again, it’s much more ‘pliable’ than the m
Twhite, that why I am building it with 1x4 to form a 2’x4’ modual with bracing every 18" (stuff left over from my last layout but back then tou could get good lumber, might have to try 3/4" ply strips when that rus out as I got a large space now because of a move). Will try to set your site.
Just a modest correction. The blue extruded polystyrene foam board is Styrofoam ™, a product of Dow Chemical. Pink extruded is a product of Owens Corning. The white (usually) beaded foam (i.e. beer cooler) that we casually refer to as ‘styrofoam’ isn’t Styrofoam, nor is is extruded, its expanded polystyrene, which is why it doesn’t have near the structural strength as extruded.
For those who want to carve their LDE, here’s some serious chunks of Styrofoam…
