Prepping for new year track laying - Woodland Scenics underlay? Cork? Copydex?

[Lacathedrale]

Hi all,

 

I've got baseboards coming in the new year and track imminent. With my layout plan to hand I want to ensure I'm not sitting on my hands for a delivery of materials to get started laying track when it comes around.  The baseboards are 4" deep, 1/4" laser cut ply, with a four track terminus on two boards, and a double track viaduct on the other two.  I am modelling a pre-group era in an urban location, so there is no ballast shoulder to speak of that needs to be modelled - infact, ballast will likely be OVER the sleepers and point timbers using fine ballast of some kind.  Locomotive noise as long it is not excessive is not a major issue - I am not running sound locomotives, and the layout will hopefully have whistles and bell codes in due course.

 

I would have probably just laid the track directly onto the ply, using PVA to fix stone-type ballast, but recently I have been considering whether a woodland-scenics or cork-style roadbed or sheet, glued with Copydex (because apparently the rubberised glue reduces noise transmission?), and a walnut-shell based ballast. Is this going to make a meaningful difference, or am I just making work for myself?

 

Cheers,

[Ron Ron Ron]

Having experimented, I’ve found the Woodlands Scenics track bed plus a Latex based adhesive, such as Copydex (other brands are cheaper) is much quieter than PVA glue on cork.

With the latter, you might as well not bother with the cork unless you want the shoulder.

The use of decorators caulk appears to be a popular track bed and track adhesive in North America.

 

 

.

 

 

[brossard]

I can tell you what I did with my 0 gauge layout.  My decision got finalized after reading an article in MRJ by someone who did the same thing.

 

Underlay:  Woodland Scenics foam

Adhesive:  Tacky glue - looks like PVA but dries rubbery.  Used to fix the underlay to boards and track to underlay.

 

Theory is that the foam and rubbery glue decouples the track from the boards, reducing noise.

 

Nice side effect of the glue is that if a mistake is made, the track can be taken up cleanly and relaid.  I had to do that once or twice.

 

NB, there's a recent thread from someone who used foam and copydex but still had noisy running.

 

John

[Gordon A]

My personal experience with copydex is that it is not as good as pva or other impact glues. I will not use it again.

 

Gordon A

 

[Lacathedrale]

@brossard can you show me what you mean by tacky glue? I can see various items on amazon, ebay but they don't seem to describe whether or not they stay rubbery!

[brossard]

12 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

@brossard can you show me what you mean by tacky glue? I can see various items on amazon, ebay but they don't seem to describe whether or not they stay rubbery!

 

I used this:

 

https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/aleenes-original-tacky-glue-16-fl-oz-white/6000016940821?rrid=richrelevance

 

I daresay there is something similar in UK

 

John

[MalcT]

I used this product from Woodland Scenics on the DCC Concepts Track Bed.

Also used for their incline sections:

https://www.themodelcentre.com/st1444-woodland-scenics-foam-tack-glue-12-fl-oz

Edited December 18, 2021 by MalcT

[bike2steam]

I used to use pva, but the last 2 layouts I have used Copydex when laying the 1/16th cork (Charles Cantrill) to improve the track bed profile, flattened down, to get any possible air bubbles out, with a decorators 'seam roller'. Copydex again to fix the track on top of the cork, again flattened down using house-bricks with cardboard strips in between to prevent damage, when dried all is perfectly flat for superb slow running. Running at scale maximum speed of 50mph gives a little noise - but real trains make some noise!!!