rich16

Hi! Thanks everyone for their help and advice so far. Both in topic replies and the many searches I have made. Im fairly proud of my efforts so far in making a layout for my Son and the family for Christmas. I have made the baseboard and two 4x4 tables myself. Designed a layout that's fun and busy (this was the hardest part) I have stuck down cork, and lightly pinned the track in place at this point. I have cut the track and soldered to screws. I have fitted 3 point motors but not yet wired up. My questions are as follows. Will the pva glue/water and ballast be enough to hold the track down alone? Or should I remove piece by piece and glue it before hand. How close to the edge of the sleepers should I cut the cork? I have roughly followed it so far. Im a bit concerned about the corner edge of the cork showing through the ballast which makes me wonder if I should cut it right to the edge? lastly, the most difficult question! Any opinions on what to do with the areas of the baseboard that have nothing on? I dont want to mess this up and make it look tacky or fake. It's just an at home fun layout but I want to look at it and think I did a good job. On the only other layout I build for my son on a 6x4 I just covered it with grass. But it didnt look great. I had in mind there would be a road from the crossing to a carpark, a fence around the track from the turntable, a small square of grass with a play area. Then a footpath leading from here, over the track that lead to the turntable, and to the other small station. The sidings in the middle, in my mind Id love a nice shed scene, dirty track, spilt coal, water tower, etc etc. But I just can envisage how I will do it. Lineside fencing, I dont know what to do to make that look right. My mind is in a bit of a confused state! So many options and it's all fairly new to me. Id love to use the grass you use the machine to scatter (sorry not sure of the name) rather than scatter but as you can see I've already spent a fair few quid! Cheers! Andy note in the pics, the two halves are not joined but lightly pushed together hence the gap. And the stations are incomplete and just placed on there to get them out of the way. Ive just moved the lot in from the garage which taken quite a while. So left as is ready to start when I get home from work today*

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

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

Sorry for a silly question but to clarify, you laid the underlay on the whole of your board, and then also put cork underneath the track. Did you raise your platforms? And was it just glue or glue and pin. Thanks

https://www.homebase.co.uk/vitrex-4-star-sound-reduction-underlay-10sqm_p095250 Is that the one? Did you cut to go under the track only?

Hi guys. Had my head turned a little by the ballasted foam. It looks good enough and the sound deadening must be good. I see you glue that to the board and then glue the track to the foam. A little put off by then having to raise the platforms, and also my join in the board. Ive never done it so excuse me if it's daft but I cant picture if it would be harder to line up. I did think about covering the whole 8x4 board in a layer of cork or similar first. I have countersunk all my screws but I just thought it would be nice to have it all fresh and flat. Then either the ballasted foam, woodland scenics type foam and then ballasted on top, or maybe just glue to the cork and ballast after. There is almost to much choice. I guess it's great if your well into it, but my mind is literally boggled! I also liked the look of the wood sleeper track peco do. But I think (not looked much) that you can only get flexi track or points. I'm planning to have min double loop and then maybe another half a loop with an X crossing, so a train can start at a station, cross through the middle of 3 tracks and then end up back where it started a lap later (going for as much play factor as poss) Be a lot of messing with flexi track I think. We love all the gimmicks if you like. Smoke unit locos, electric turn table, electric traffic lights, fire box glows etc. I was looking into point motors etc etc. It's all good fun!

Thankyou all so much for your replies, really appreciated. I have built one 4x4 table. It went quite well, few minor hick ups but part of the learning process. I still want to take it apart again and glue the joints now I'm happy, work out a good way to secure the legs and then varnish it. I'll then pop it out the way and start the second one. Im hoping to pickup a job lot of good track on ebay or something. I may go peco this time. The brown sleepers are a nice touch also thanks again

Hi guys, first post. I built my then 4 your old son a model railway a few years back. I purchased a 6x4 board as flat pack with folding legs and assembled it. I pinned the track direct to the board and ballasted on top. It's a busy 6x4 with a lot going on. He loves it and it's had some serious hours gone into it! I had fun making it but learnt a few things on the way. We have since moved, and have a little more space. I purchased a load of timber on wednesday and I'm going to attempt to make two 4x4 boards that join together. Made a start last night but didnt get so far (no rush) I just have a few questions. I have searched on these but the info is quite conflicting and I just wanted to ask my own questions if that makes sense. 1. Our current layout is noisy! I always wished I used cork as it's pinned to the board directly. I've seen on searches this morning that using pins is bad. And using cork makes no real difference. I saw a great video on youtube where a Dad & lad we're using woodland scenics foam. Looked great. He glued the foam to the board, and the track to the foam. Any ideas on this? It also makes a shoulder for the ballast which looks good. 2. I've had a go with SCARM but it's driving me mental. With the 6x4 I purchased a load (more than I needed) of new - ex set track off ebay and just played with it until I was happy. This seemed easier, SCARM is free but I run out of track I was allowed to use for free on there! Are there any other free programs, or one's worth buying? Or was my first way of doing it the best. Which leads me onto the next question. 3. The plan originally was to remove all the track from the 6x4 and then sell the board on ebay etc. Then I'll have the majority of the track I'll need for the new 8x4. However, i'm now thinking it's going to be mega time consuming to remove the old track pins (must be hundreds), ballast and then clean the track sufficiently to start again. Would I be better off just selling the 6x4 as it is with the track fixed? It might make it easier to sell and it means I can start fresh. The 6x4 has two outer loops. With a siding down the whole of the opposite 6ft edge. Points the other end with two sidings. An inner branch line that comes off the inner loop and has points leading to two stations and a siding in the middle. And on the other side of the inner loop another small section of track leads to the other side of the station. I think it could be a big task removing all that. It also has grass in lots of areas, a road way I made out of skateboard tape (looks quite good actually but it's not an exhibition) And a pond. Im not sure what the board is worth with or without track but Im guessing there's well over £150 of track on there when new. 4. I think I'm ok with making the baseboard, the join and the wiring. But I've never made legs before. They need to be removable. I have enough timber to make 8 legs, about 3.5ft high (I'll confirm height and get more if needed) I've never built legs before. I thought if in each corner making two sides of a square with spare timber so the leg just slots in, and two bolts/wing nuts? Is this a good idea. Sorry for a silly question. 5. With my scarm efforts, I was struggling to picture it in reality. I was wondering if a platform over the join would be possible. Obviously there will be a gap but has anyone done this before and got it looking ok? Otherwise I feel a station may be squashed at one end. We also like the idea and novelty of a turntable! With sidings leading off it. We have a lot of engines because he has a few he's had for christmas's and birthdays and I've a lot from when I was young. Add to that I've accidently won a few ebay listings over the years! My son's 7 and at that age as I'm sure some of you know, he likes to change engines quite frequently. I envisiaged it would be nice have a few sat at the edge of a turntable rather than him taking them off the track and scattering them all over the table. But I'm worried about this join. 6. I will research this more. But in terms of ballasting, last time on the 6x4 I used one colour of ballast throughout. It looks nice and Im pretty proud of the job I did. I've seen a lot worse. But all been once colour, I guess it could have been more realistic. Where engines park in sheds/sidings and at the end of stations, often I notice in real life the ballast/track is black. Id love to do this to add some realisim. 7. The grass I used before was like a powder. I've seen some that looks literally like real strands of grass stood up. I've also seen some modelers put some overgrowing grass between track on sidings etc. What brand is this? looks fantastic. 8. This is an odd one! And again I will research this in more detail once the tables are built. My son is quite a competent motorcycle trials rider, his 11 year old sister rides to in the British champs. I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with trials (think Dougie Lampkin/kickstart etc) But with all the space you end up with on an 8x4, I thought it would be cool to make a mini' trials' area, a stoney/gravelly area with boulders and a couple of to scale bikes in mid wheelie up them. (the scale is oo btw) Im not sure if you can buy to scale rocks, but I think it could look really cool. Anyone modelled anything like this before? I also thought of a small area with some soldiers in. I served in the Irish Guards before my son was born and he's forever asking about this. I think it's important at that age for him to have multiple interests and not just be dominated by sitting in doors playing trains. But even for adults as I'm sure you all know, on a dark winter evening after some dinner, it's quite therapeutic to just sit and play trains and forget the worlds problems for a while! 9. Previously I've struggled to glue down small things like sheep, cows, people on a platform etc. Plastic glue isnt strong enough, I didnt want to use super glue but is that the answer? I think that's it. Sorry for such a long first post!