road bed

Squidbait

Recovering ALCO-holic
Depends. Are you talking about foam as in the pink/blue stuff? Or are you talking Woodland Scenics foam? I like the WS foam, because it curves easily and doesn't dry out. It's a bit more work to lay than cork, which you can just nail down, since it should be glued. I use spray contact adhesive to put it down - just mark the centre line, spray the subroadbed and the bottom of the roadbed, and stick 'er down!

Obviously the one drawback is that it's harder to re-do a section once the roadbed's glued down. With cork you can just pull it up and nail it down again.
 
I'm using 2 @ 3/4" pink foam covered with cork for extra quietness. I think its easier to use cork for the roadbed to raise it above the surrounding "ground".:thumb:
 

woodone

Member
mummert said:
When putting down your road bed do you prefer cork or foam and why?
I just finished laying down over 50 feet of the Woodland Scenics roadbed. It went super quick, used caulking for the adhesive. I liked the fact I did not have to nail the cork. I have plywood for the sub roadbed. Hard to get a nail in the ply. Guess I could have glued the cork down, but I wanted to try something new. Time will tell as I have not got the ballast down yet.
 

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
I prefer the Woodland Scenics track bed foam, it is very easy to work with and will never dry out, therefor you will NEVER have to replace it. Cork does have some advantages though, and one of those is looks when ballasted. My grandfather used cork roadbed when he build his layout.
 

mummert

New Member
Woodone I like the idea of caulk for glue. It would give me plenty of time to make sure everything is straight before it dries. Thanks to everyone for the 411
 

woodone

Member
mummert said:
Woodone I like the idea of caulk for glue. It would give me plenty of time to make sure everything is straight before it dries. Thanks to everyone for the 411
There have been several ideas on how to glue the foam. This works real good, IMOP.
You don't want to work with more than 2 or 3 feet at a time as the caulk sets up real fast. I liked the caulk because it seams to be flexable. Like I said before, time will tell.
 
I guess i am just picky i like the old cork better. It seems to lay better and give more support under the track to me. The Foam when i tack down the track it gives and lets the track sag where the spike is.
 

woodone

Member
trainnut65 said:
I guess i am just picky i like the old cork better. It seems to lay better and give more support under the track to me. The Foam when i tack down the track it gives and lets the track sag where the spike is.
If you use the caulk for holding the track you will not have this problem.
I used the caulk for holding the foam to the sub road bed, and caulk to hold the track to the foam. The caulk is flexable.:thumb: I am working in N scale so there might be some differances with differant scales?
 

Fort Kent Dad

New Member
I use both, depends on which is on sale this week.

Cork hold rail-nails, foam does not. Foam has lower profile and bit easier to shape. Cork you can sand (and I have a bag on my sander - the dust from cork sanding is a great scenic material). Hold both down with Liquid Nails - no problems. Glueing to painted high density builder's styrofoam.
 
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