The trackbed.I’ve experimented with a variety of track beds with P4 track products on my “feasibility” project some years ago. I found Woodland Scenics foam to have quite a bit of “give”. This seemed fine on thick plastic sleepers, but flimsy for the thin ply product from Timber Tracks. I resorted to cork as I have had enormous difficulty sourcing C&L or Exactoscale track from this side of the pond.
In the cork line, I initially tried gasket cork. This is high quality, dense stuff. I bought a 2mm thickness, which in hindsight isn’t quite right.
I’ve now settled on Midwest Products cork. The advantages are that the stuff is 45mm wide. Perfect. You can use them “solid”, or split in two which will give you two bevelled pieces. The disadvantage is that the bevels don’t separate cleanly and one needs to sand the edge a bit. One needs to do this anyway, as the angle of repose is 45 degrees.
I made a small sanding jig to allow me to thin it down to 3mm for the turntable-MPD area. It tolerates sanding quite well.
The “No More Nails” is great for gluing this down. It has a slight flex, but importantly is immediately tacky and will hold things in place while you tweak the alignment. Great to work with! I made an error or two and could remove it with a sharp chisel even after it had cured.
Gluing FoamMy previous experiments included PVA glue, Gorilla glue, expanding foam sealer and high quality wood glue. The PVA is inconsistent in quality, and I would encourage you to buy the good stuff. I had a batch that didn’t really set up for several weeks. The expanding foam sealer makes a bond that can be compromised if you don’t weight it down well – because it expands like crazy.
The Aussie product - Gorilla glue is excellent. You also need to compress it evenly and dampen the surface before. It makes fierce bond that is a bit tough on foam cutters. Unfortunately, much like Aussie cricketers though, Gorilla glue can be extremely irritating. My delicate hands don’t like blistering redness….. So wear gloves. I chose not to use it beyond the first few baseboards I assembled. Even with gloves I found it foul stuff.
So I finally settled on high quality LePage wood glue. The stuff is activated by pressure, and won’t set without it. It is fantastic for gluing wood under a clamp. It was used throughout the layout and it made a great bond. It will sort of cut with a wire foam cutter, but I did break a couple of wires doing it.
