How do most of you build your sub-road bed for hills? Our current layout under construction used blue foam, with the layers built up and then cut down to the desired grade. We checked it with a straight edge and a template for the curves, smoothed off the top with a surform file, and did the best we could before laying the cork raod-bed directly on the foam. It looked great. After we laid the track (Atlas code 100 flex) we had to shim the track in places because it wasn't even. The foam wasn't as flat as we thought. I think next time I'll use plywood as the sub-road bed, either on top of the foam, or on pedestals and build the foam under and around it when I'm done. How does everybody else do it? Mark P.S. We built +4% grades on 22" to 18" curves. Pulling a 15 or 20 car consist on this shows any flaws in the track. Our Proto SD-7 also can't handle "twisting" track very well either, even if it does look flat.
Hi Mark - I use an open frame L-girder table with risers supporting 1/2 inch plywood subroadbed cut to whatever form I want the rail to follow. Pretty much standard procedure, but from there on it gets somewhat different: I use 3/8 inch foam-board, which you can purchase in 4X8 foot sheets from any art supply store, and after laying the foam-board on top of the subroadbed and marking it to follow the contour of the subroadbed, I cut the foam-board with a knife, following the marks. Then use white glue to hold the foam-board onto the subroadbed. I hand lay my own ties and rail, so I will use white glue to hold the ties, and then run a bead of hot-glue along the bottom of the rail to secure them to the ties (after sanding the ties to be uniform in height). This system has worked very well for me for the past 13 years. The foam-board does an excellent job in dampening the wheel-rail noise and the hot-glue is easy to work with when doing any work with the rails. The grade you describe would give even the prototypical locomotive a difficult time all by itself. That's quite a rise!! Hope this helps you out in some way.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ironhorseman: risers supporting 1/2 inch plywood subroadbed cut to whatever form I want the rail to follow .... laying the foam-board on top of the subroadbed and marking it to follow the contour of the subroadbed<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> So basically you use the plywood to control the contour and shape of the foam as well as for structural support? Sounds like a pretty good idea. That would eliminate the problems I had with uneven-ness and such on an apparently even track. I'll have to do it that way next time. I guess that's the advantage of doing a 4 X 8 layout before attacking the 9 X 16 two-level layout, right? Do you put cork on top of the foam? And how do you build your hills around this? Chicken wire or wadded up paper with plaster cloth on wadded paper on top or foam? I liked the ease of shaping the foam, but I can see it would be hard to inter-mix the foam with a more rigid sub-roadbed system. I'd probably end up putting cork on the foam like you describe, and then use plaster cloth on paper or such to build up the scenery. Maybe some foam mixed in for the more complex terrain? All I know is what I just did didn't work as I planned, even though it looked REALLY nice as it was going down... Mark
Mark, I use a plywood sub base to structure suport and cork roadbed. I use the plywood to form the grades etc... And put up mountains and the rest of the landscaping with syroboard (styrofoam) and paint it with arcylic paint. And in some places I used plaster to cover certain areas to make rock outcroppings and such. I didn't have any unevenness at all. I did have to roghly sane the areas that nails or drywall screws were inserted in the plywood to make it stationary, and it leaves a dimple even if you do countersink the screws and the nails do the same when you hit it the last time to "drive it home". I haven't had any problems with this technique yet and its running time now is 10 years. My mom and dad started it and I built onto it in the last 6 years so..... but everything is solid and runs great....
Guys, I'm going to move this to the Inspection Pit. It is more of a general subject, not a "Free Lance" issue. It will get more replies there.
