Posted by TDavis Homasote is a good base and is available in sheets like plywood at many lumber yard, but there is also new homasote roadbed available (at some hobby shops or from Walthers) now that you place under the track. Of course, any lineside structures you have will likely also have to be placed on the same thickness of homasote so that it is at the same grade. Our club used 2-inch foam insulating sheets (available in 4'x8' sheets like plywood) on top of the wood. Get the yellow, blue or pink foam, not white Styrofoam. Then we used Foam compatible Liquid Nails to glue down regular cork roadbed. Just make sure use spread the L.Nails evenly so you don't have track going up and down. We then temporarily tack down the track (because you can't nail into the foam anyway) and let our ballasting and matte medium adhesive hold the track in place. The beauty of the foam is that you just continue to layer the stuff up to make hills, or carve into it to make streams to be crossed by bridges. We use a Stanley hacksaw ( the kind that lets you extend the blade beyond the supporting bracket) to cut our foam board, and then use a Surform tool (a small rasp with a handle) to carve it. Once we have the contours we want, we then use earth-colored latex paint as an adhesive and apply various colors and textures of Woodland Scenics ground foam scenery material. Put the paint on thick and get the foam on it when the paint is still wet. After it dries, uses a Dirty Devil to vacuum up excess. You can apply plaster rock molds to vertical cliffs if you wish by again using L.Nails.
on 10/9/2001, 8:35 am
Dear Peggy:
Half-inch plywood may be a bit thick. You don't have to be able to dance on the table and model trains are fairly light. Our clubs and myself have found that 1/4-inch is usually fine as long as there is support pieces every three feet or so.
The foam/cork doesn't cut sound like Homasote, so you could probably put Homasote roadbed on top of the foam.
To see the Luce Line Layout, check out some of the photos on this site, especially those under the Milbank show from 1999 that show the layout, and those of Dick Desen showing the layout.
I hope this helps. If you are from Minnesota, you can see our HO layout, a new 3-rail layout, and 12 others, as well as flea market tables of trains, clinics, a model contest and door prizes at the 7th Hutchinson Model Railroad Show, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, at the McLeod County Fairgrounds on the city's south side. Admission is $3.
T.Davis
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