cork

[rich16]

Hi, noob questions, apologies 

 

I have lots of cork, ready to go down on my sons 8x4 layout. It's currently sat at home with some weight on it. 

It's a busy layout. Two running lines, with an extra half a loop for the inside tracks-train to run on. So it runs through the main station on a centre 'express' line. With sidings, a centre turntable also. 

 

My question is, for laying the cork, I have been told to use copydex to glue it down, and the same glue again to glue the track to the cork. 

 

In a situation where I have 3 parallel tracks, would I just glue one large piece of cork to go under all 3? Or 3 seperate strips.  

 

Im laying the stations on cork too for the height?

 

I have surface mounted point motors (Hornby), do I lay these on top of the cork also? 

 

Im still worried about laying the track over the join, but one step at a time! 

 

For ease I didnt know if it would be easier to just lay the cork almost everywhere on the board, apart from the 4 corners and the centre area. Laying the track and then using a scalple/stanley to cut around. 

 

This doesnt have to be super realistic. My son's 7 but the whole family will have a play. 

 

Andy

Edited November 14, 2019 by rich16

[Dungrange]

3 hours ago, rich16 said:

For ease I didn't know if it would be easier to just lay the cork almost everywhere on the board, apart from the 4 corners and the centre area. Laying the track and then using a scalpel/Stanley to cut around. 

 

That's the approach that I'd take. 

 

Yes, you can cut the cork into thin strips, with each being the width of piece of track (ie around 40 mm wide strips), but if you're trying to then lay these strips to tight radii then I don't think you're going to get the cork to lie flat (because you're stretching the outside edge and compressing the inside edge of each strip).  This would be okay with large sweeping curves, but not the radii that you are using.

 

As for your other questions, I don't really know.  I'll guess that you may have to built the station platforms on top of the cork, so that you end up with the platform surface at the right height relative to the rails.  The platform surface should be about 12 mm (a scale 3') above the top of the rails.  I'd also envisage that you lay the surface mounted point motors onto the cork, but having never used the Hornby ones, I can't say for sure how they work.

[Pete the Elaner]

Do you want to glue the track down?

I have done...& I've used also used Copydex but I had experimented first.

Cork helps to soften the running noise, as well as providing a ballast shoulder. I used wall tiles (which I can't find in the shops any more). These were covered in a sealer on 1 side. I stuck this dies to the baseboard with a thin layer of PVA & also nailed it in several places to hold it while the glue went off.

 

I have used Copydex to hold the track in the scenic section because I prefer not to have track pins visible. These are especially noticeable on concrete sleeper track. Off-scene, I have pinned the track down.

The glue couples the track to the cork much better, which is bad if you want to keep the noise down. I can hear the noise increase when a train passes from pinned to glued track, then increase again when it passes onto ballasted track. I used watered down Copydex for ballsting.

PVA is used by many but this is much noisier than Copydex because it dries as a resin (ie rock hard). This is especially true once it has been diluted for ballasting because it soaks right through the cork & sets it hard.

 

If you are not worried about track pins & do not want to ballast track, then I would pin it.

 

[rich16]

Thanks for replies! 

 

I have found out there's so many ways of doing it and none seem correct. 

 

From research I decided I would glue the cork down with copydex. Make sure it's well set. Then glue the track down also with copydex. Someone on youtube said its a good glue as it doesn't dry hard so you still get the benefit of noise reduction. I think I would then plan on pinning the track in parts while the glue dried? To keep the spacing while Im sorting the other track out. And removing the pins after. As someone said even pinning the track to the cork would make the noise worse. I was then going to ballast the track and use watered down pva. 

 

On his old 6x4 layout I just pinned the track straight to the ply and then ballasted with pva and water. It looked good, I've seen worse around. And the noise in itself wasn't an issue with modern locos at a sensible speed. But you know what young lads are like, the trains would often find themselves at full chat and then you cant hear the tv at the other end of the house! 

 

I have a feeling Im going to do the above but leave the pins in. The std Hornby pins wont go into the wood I dont think. The cork is 3.3mm thick. With the thickness of the sleeper, Im sure it wont reach the ply?

 

Not to worried about track pins not looking realistic. I have purchased some sleeper grime paint Ive never used before Im looking forward to using. Its just a stay at home fun layout but I really want it to look nice.

 

Once the above is done, I have 11 tracks going over the join at the 4ft point. Im happy with the cutting process and the wiring process. But it's all new track and im a little worried about going ahead. The two halves have dowel pins but you know the feeling when your doing something new for the first time! I guess I should do this before I ballast in case I have to lift and move track again 

[Robert Stokes]

I've used ordinary white wood glue, both to attach the cork to the baseboard, and then the track to the cork. I lay some cork on small dabs of glue placed about 1cm apart, cover it with some plywood and weigh that down with food cans. After about 15 minutes it is set. Later I lay the track with a dab of glue under each side of about every tenth sleeper. (Peco track has small holes which can hold the glue), then again balancing food cans on it. The system seems to work O.K. and has one possible advantage - to make changes you can easily lift the track by carefully sliding a paint scraper under it. You only then need to clean up the surface of the cork and the underside of the track before relaying it. I'm not sure it would be as easy with Copydex. 

[PJ10]

Good evening.

 

On a now scrapped false start to a previous layout I used flooring adhesive from B&Q to stick the cork to the baseboard. Typically I ran out of adhesive before all the cork was stuck down and decided to resort to the Copydex I had in stock. Drilling holes for wire droppers and point motor pins through the cork secured with flooring adhesive was no problem. However where I had used Copydex, the glue wrapped itself round the drill bit making a real mess and causing the cork to rise up. As this made smooth and level track laying impossible I ended up ripping up this small section, buying more flooring adhesive and doing the job properly.

 

I'm not saying don't use Copydex for glueing cork, just be careful if you want to drill through it.

 

PJ10