I'm building a 2'x6' diorama out of extruded polystyrene (XPS) to practice scenery techniques. I also want to practice handlaying track. The original plan was to glue the ties to cork roadbed glued directly on top of the XPS, but it occured to me that trying to push track nails through the ties may crush the XPS. Anyone have any experience with this? Is there any way to avoid using wood for the sub-roadbed? Mike [ 19. June 2003, 20:52: Message edited by: LCSO_927 ]
If you use cork roadbed and glue wood ties on top of it, you will need very little force to push the pike into the bass wood ties, assuming you are talking HO. O scale ties might be harder but I still don't think it will take that much pressure to push in the spike.
Not trying to be "cute" ... it's a lot of work, but you can drill holes for the spikes to fit into without applying much pressure. I have done it at one time or another.
Ironhorseman is correct. To prevent damage when using a soft substrate under basswood ties, you do well to use a Moto-Grinder and chuck a drill in it that mike's out one or two sizes smaller that the spike measures in diameter. Because you will be putting one on either side of the rail in the same end of each tie, try to off-set the holes to prevent the wood from splitting. After you have glued the paper tie plates on, you would not be able to "see" the splits, but they would leave your rail loose. On a diorama, you may wish to put two spikes on each side of the rail in each tie for realism. It would then be best to run a bead of glue along the underside of the rail, use straight pins to maintain alignment centerimng on the tie plates until the glue dries, with a weight on it. Then you could remove the weight and pins, and drill two holes side by side and put in The tiny HO Narrow Gauge spikes if you can find them. (1/8" long off-set head) The smallest I have left are standard for HO, but I am using them on my track and they would be too large for a diorama, anyway. If it is just a diorama anyway, why not use Balsawood for ties? Then you can push the spikes in by hand? Besides, the balsa stains very well too. Besides, I'm stingy! [ 27. June 2003, 04:54: Message edited by: watash ]
