Anyone laid track using double sided tape?

[gordon s]

I'm trying out a new closed cell foam underlay, onto which I have stuck Templot templates with photomount. The underlay itself will be stuck to the ply baseboard with adhesive.

 

Thought as everything was so neat and tidy, I'd would use double sided tape to stick the track to the templates. It sticks to the paper template very well and is clearly holding the track in place. The only thing I can possibly see as a problem would be the PVA used to hold the ballast in place. My thoughts were that if the tape started to come unstuck after time, the PVA and ballast would still hold the track in place.

 

Has anyone ever used double sided tape to lay track and are my fears unfounded?

 

Edited December 6, 2011 by gordon s

[micknich2003]

I was using "Double Sided" tape in the '60's it works very weii, Mick Nicholson.

[Katier]

I found on my track that curves can sometimes put too much lateral force in to hold it reliably.. but for getting alignments right it's great. Certainly once you've ballasted I see no reason it won't be 100% fine and any areas you think might be a little flakey I would just force a bit of glue under the sleepers before ballasting as a 'belt and braces' approach.

[trisonic]

Try it whilst out gallivanting in the Bentley Mulsanne...........see what it is like over a couple of days - like Katier I think it will hold until the ballast adhesive finally holds it in place.

 

Best, Pete.

Edited December 6, 2011 by trisonic

[Guest stuartp]

I've used 2" carpet tape on Peco Streamline with no problems. In fact the only difficulty I've had was separating the tape from the track on a short length which had to be relaid.

[Campaman]

Same here, I use the cheap stuff from poundland, and as long as what you are sticking it to is clean, dry & not dusty it sticks very well.

[Kris]

It works a treat and once ballasted the glue used to do this takes over. What I have found in the past is that on non ballasted sections the stickyness can wear off which can cause loose trackwork.

[Kenton]

I use it in setting out but tend to then lift everything and relay using Copydex - my environment (train room) must be too dusty and found that it didn't give long term adhesion - though that was direct to ply.

[gordon s]

Thank you so much for all your replies. Just what I needed to hear as it really is so much cleaner and easier than gluing track down.

[TheSignalEngineer]

I tried double sided tape to knock up a photo background and it worked OK. It would need some more ballast and glue to get to the right profile for a final job, but in my case it was only cosmetic and the track is still stuck down after 7 years.

[westcountryman]

Hi, we have used closed cell foam on our club layout 'Tawbridge' (take a look on layout topics) but the only difference to your plan was rather than use double sided tape, we used copydex latex glue, when it came to ballasting, we again used copydex, but watered down + a drop of washing up liquid. This ensured that the trackwork & ballast remained flexible, thus allowing the foam to act as an effective sound deadening medium. It might be worthwhile taking a look at our club layout & it's construction just to confirm this.

Cheers,

Rob

[Stanley Melrose]

Hi,

 

Not quite a comment on double-sided tape but you might find the use of card strips interesting - see <http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/116/entry-7835-bristol-barrow-road-brian-morgan-tous-for-pointwork/>

 

Stan

[PhilH]

On Bodge I'm using the Fast Track method of making trackwork, ie 1 in 7 copperclad sleepers (sorry, ties) filled in with cosmetic wooden ones. I'm sticking the copperclad sleepers down with 1/8th" double sided tape, on really sharp radii (it is a US themed urban grot line layout) I simply drill through either end copperclad into the baseboard and hold in place with a 1/16" beheaded copper rivet superglued into place flush with the surface of the copperclad.

 

Any copperclad ties that look like they are going to lift are simply given a dollop of 99p for 10 superglue. Seems to work well.

 

I do have to point out that this method was evolved not because I thought it would work (which it does) but because I had the material lying around and, when it comes to building layouts, I am a skinflint.

Edited December 6, 2011 by PhilH

[gordon s]

I simply drill through either end copperclad into the baseboard and hold in place with a 1/16" beheaded copper rivet superglued into place flush with the surface of the copperclad.

 

 

 

Hi Phil, just a word of caution for you. I did something similar on an earlier version of ET and pinned the copper clad to the baseboard. Once I had a short that literally took me days to sort out. I lifted loads of track and it all buzzed out clean. Put it back and it shorted.

 

Eventually the penny dropped. I was using double sided copper clad with an isolation gap at the top, but the track pin I was using was somehow making contact with the underside of the copper sleeper and shorting out via the copper and across to the pin on the other side. As both pins were live from the top surface, the bottom surface just shorted them together. After that episode I learned you have to gap both sides of the copper or not use pins at all and glue the track down.

[PhilH]

Thanks for the heads up Gordon, but I am checking everything as I go. My c/clad is single sided, the baseboard is made from 6mm skipped plastic building site signs of the 'You must report to site office, wear safety boots etc' variety, bus line for the dcc is stripped from 2.5mm twin and earth of at least twenty years vintage roughly 6 inches below the baseboard and the droppers etc. are my usual bird's nest of every bit of gash reel end instrument wire that my profligate ICA buddies couldn't be bothered to use up. So the rivets aren't remotely near anything and roughly 2/3rds through tracklaying all seems to work.

 

 

 

 

 

No expense spared on Bodge City.......

[gordon s]

If they are single sided then you'll have no problem. It was the double sided ones that caught me out.

[Oldddudders]

No expense spared on Bodge City.......

Nah, sounds like a proper model railway to me! Long may your trains run!

[PWSlack]

Yep - ever since 1980.

[rab]

Resurrecting an old thread here.

On my daily browse through eBay,

I came across Busch double sided track tape.

The previous comments on this thread seem to suggest

double sided tape works OK, in the short term at least.

Has anyone  used Busch track tape?

Is it worth buying what is obviously a 'specialist ' item

or are there cheaper alternatives?

[roythebus]

Ordinary double sided tape will work just as well. 

 

the only warning, if you're using hand-built track like making points on a Templot plan, then moving the complete point to the baseboard, go very sparingly on the double-sided as it will pull the sleepers off the track! For these purposes I use a very thin strip down each side of the sleeper line.

Edited October 3, 2020 by roythebus

[Wheatley]

Likewise the new Peco bullhead (and no doubt other scale flexi tracks like C&L). Once it's stuck then it's stuck - lifting it by gently pulling the rails up works on code 100 but on 75bh it just gently pulls the rails out of the chairs.

 It is much faster than glue but with much less scope for adjustment - ie none. 

[Dagworth]

52 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

Likewise the new Peco bullhead (and no doubt other scale flexi tracks like C&L). Once it's stuck then it's stuck - lifting it by gently pulling the rails up works on code 100 but on 75bh it just gently pulls the rails out of the chairs.

 It is much faster than glue but with much less scope for adjustment - ie none. 

If you need to lift track that's fixed with tape then flood it with IPA, it will dissolve the adhesive and let you lift it safely. 

 

Allow a while for the board to dry again before relaying!

 

Andi

[Izzy]

I use the cheap d/s tape from Range. A wash of turps breaks the joint enough to lift something off but is just momentary and it becomes sticky again so anything lifted can be re-laid. I find it produces a very strong bond. But not all d/s tape is the same I have found, some being much stronger and longer lasting than another.

 

Izzy