I agree with Marlon. I have one little spot on my layout where the foam is on plywood. Working through foam on ply is a real pain. Working through either is fine but for some reason when the two are combined it is an issue. So use one or the other.
Is Lion not feeling well? Him not remain in third person in that last reply.[:D]
–Randy
Maybe the abbey cook put cheese on his wildebeast and the side effects are showing.
I have 4" of foam on 1/8" luan on part of my layout. Long drill bits are $8 at Ace Hardware. I widen the hole a bit in the plywood, with a countersink bit and insert an 1/8" piece of brass tubing through the hole. Then thread my feeders from the bottom and pull the tube.
I really like foam. I enjoyed mixing a lot of geometry with it a couple years ago.
Things have come a long way since then… I’m still not there yet.
So many decisions and such little railroad time[:(]
Well, … let’s see. We have about four days of Summer up here in Minnesota, maybe I’ll hit it again in the Winter[(-D]
TF
PS corsair. My favorite war plane of all times is the Corsair. Great plane, cool name.
Lion has old classroom for trains not a spare bedroom where noise of roaring train disturb family.
That’s a great idea! THIS is one reason I joined the forums. Good ideas come from all over!
Found a problem with my track plan and have to redo a module. I printed 1:1 drawings and marked the center line with a tracer wheel into the foam. Glued on a few pieces of cork but that has to come up now. After taking the cork off there are some spots where the glued pulled up the foam plus all of the pin holes from the tracer wheel that need to be filled. What is the best way to fill that with?
I’d use sculptamold for the big spots. It sticks well to foam. Maybe white glue for the pinholes or even caulk, if they were not going to get covered up later by ground cover or ballast
Corsair
What I have found works really well for patching foam, adding to or bridging in gaps and joints is Fast & Final or One Time, same thing. It’s a lightweight spackling. It has the consistency of Cool Whip or whipped cream. Very easy to work with and it doesn’t shrink. They do sell it in a gallon sized bucket or a much smaller size.
For future reference, when gluing cork to foam, use Alex Plus caulk. It is the cheapest caulk and is very forgiving. It holds well forever but if you choose to pull something up, it’ll stick to the most porous surface.
I had to pull the cork up after I built this bridge. The margin for error was always there from the beginning and I had to change the angle the cork came into the bridge just a little bit. I peeled the full length strips of cork back to the next seem. It did no damage what-so-ever to the foam. All the caulk was left stuck to the cork and the cork could be reused.
This is not my findings, I learned it from someone else here on the Forum.
TF
PS I use a wallpaper seam roller after I caulk a dotted line on the back of the cork to spread the Alex Plus. You would not believe the uniform consistency.
Hello All,
My pike is a 4’x8’ “Table-top” with limited access- -actually no access- -under the pike; it sits on the bed in the computer-/spare bed-/railroad-room.
The construction is 1-inch foam on top of 1/4-inch plywood over and open grid frame.
I adhere the foam to the plywood with wood screws topped with finishing washers. These washers prevent the heads of the screws punching through the foam.
For roadbed I use Woodland Scenics foam (add snarky comments here).
The foam roadbed is held in place by clear silicone caulk.
For the curves I use T-pins along the centerline to align the curves and then more T-pins to hold the roadbed in place while the silicone caulk cures.
I use #19x5/8-inch wire brads; available at any hardware or home improvement stores to hold the track in place for testing.
Once the trackage has been finalized I ballast, with the wire brads in place. Once the ballast has dried I pull the brads for reuse.
Hope this helps.
Use the foam. It will give you option in the future when you decide, and you will, to tweak the sceneray with a river, creek, bridge etc. In fact, us two inch foam. I used one inche and wish I used at least two inch.