Construction Report: June 12, 2017 Summer Slowdown

Layout work has been confined to building turnouts and laying track for Pine Valley Yard when time allows. This typical summer slowdown can be blamed as warmer weather, family trips and Little League baseball games all compete for time.

Because part of Pine Valley Yard ducks under the stairs (necessary evil and not a big deal as there shouldn't be much switching here), I knew I needed to have the track preformed and ready to glue down. To achieve this I didn't glue down the foam layout sections right away so they could be removed and rearranged on the floor. While on the floor I transferred my track plan to the foam and also to a paper template for cutting the rubber roadbed sheeting.

I then curved the code 70 Micro Engineering flex track (which is easier said than done) for the area that will run under the stairs.

The track then was painted with the same Rust-Oleum Camouflage Brown I used in my test scenery module. I taped off the ends so I could solder wire feeders and allow rail joiners to slip on the rail ends easier.

A simple block of wood was used to wipe the paint off the rail tops as the paint dried.

When the foam layout sections were glued down with foam paneling adhesive it was only natural the joint under the stairs was not level. With an agile hand I used DAP lightweight spackling to level the seam and fill any gaps.

Next the rubber roadbed sheeting was glued down with DAP Clear Kitchen & Bathroom Adhesive Sealant. The track plan was transferred to it with a silver Sharpie.

In the photo below I gathered all my tools I've used while laying track. I only soldered a few flex track joints, mainly the track labeled Y3. While I don't expect a lot of seasonal expansion in a layout built from mainly foam, rubber and caulking, I'd rather error on the side of caution and leave small gaps in between rails to allow some movement.

The Soup Can Express arrives in Dillonvale indicating some freshly glued track. All my track is glued down with a thin spread out bead of DAP Clear Kitchen & Bathroom Adhesive Sealant.

I built six #6 turnouts for the east yard ladder and engine terminal leads and used one previous built turnout for the Grocery Distributor spur at Dillonvale. For the east yard ladder turnouts I used the laser cut QuickSticks that came with the Fast Tracks #6 kit to see what those were like. These were glued to the assembled switch with a contact adhesive, then the sides were snapped off. I guess I was a little stingy with the glue as I had to apply more adhesive in a few spots where the ties fell off after removing the side supports.

How does all the junk pile up so quickly?

Over all I like the Quicksticks a lot for the time savings compared to working with individual ties but I got into the hand built turnout game to save money. The Quicksticks are $7.35 each and the equivalent of individual ties are probably under a dollar. With Fast Track's purchase of Mt. Albert Scale Lumber they'll get my money either way.

Here's a turnout with Mt. Albert HO scale cross ties stained with Minwax Walnut color and spiked down. A lesson learned here is since I'll end up spray painting the track my camo brown color anyways, I'll skip the Minwax stain next time. Perhaps if I know I won't paint the track in an area for a long time, I'll stain the ties with just a strong India ink wash. 

Also I could probably use a few more spikes to hold the rails down since the PC board ties don't drop low enough to touch the adhesive caulk. And yes, the wood tie/caulking/rubber sheet does hold spikes very well, I tested this about two years ago and the results have held up over that time.

To speed the process using individual ties I made a jig to help cut and arrange the ties. I then used painters tape to collect the ties and then set them in the caulking as seen below.

Either using the Fast Tracks quick sticks or hand laying ties, I've really enjoyed this part of track laying. I've often joked that I felt like the skills needed to hand lay track and turnouts must involve some kind of voodoo or black magic, but as with most things once you try it yourself it's not that bad.

Having everything fit together according to plan so far is a great feeling. There's some unusually hot weather for June coming in the forecast in the next few days, hopefully I'll get some more time in the cool basement for some trackwork.

Construction Report: July 2, 2016

I'll admit there hasn't been much activity lately here on the blog. I can blame the seasonal toll that summer takes on hobby time but not without also accepting my shift to a new career has also taken a bit of steam out of my engine so to speak.

But fear not! There has been some small progress to report.

In places were there wouldn't be a raised gravel profile typical of mainline track, I plan use a rubber sheeting as roadbed material for the flat yards, industry or sidings. I first used this material in my Scenery Test Module and a year later I've found no issues with materials flaking off or becoming unglued to the rubber sheet. As for it's sound qualities, it blows cork roadbed on plywood or "noisy" foam out of the water in sound deadening tests when glued down with adhesive caulk. I'm even considering using it under cork or homasote roadbed for areas where there will be a ballast profile. It makes that much of a difference to my ears on foam benchwork.

Luckily I came across a ton of this material for free when I worked for the local newspaper. The giant rolls of newsprint the press room received on semi-trailers used this rubber sheeting from Allegheny Industrial Associates called a Transmat to prevent the rolls from shifting around inside the trailer. After unloading the trailers this rubber sheeting was unwanted by the truck drivers and was piled up in the dock until thrown away or taken by my co-workers for various home uses. Typically around 2' by 3' in size and a 1/8" thick, I originally used it to cover the back cargo area of my old Jeep until I realized it could be used for model train roadbed! After that epiphany I collected as much as I could before the printing operation was shut down and moved to a neighboring newspaper.

I'm glad I had the forethought then because now years later I'm ready to use it!

First off I needed to clean a few pieces of rubber sheeting I'll use for this first phase of track laying. The floors of semi-trailers are really dirty so a good hosing down was in order.

Bath time

Hanging them out to dry

Next I cut at least one sheet into single track sized strips using a sharp knife and a straightedge. Several light passes were necessary or else the rubber would pull and stretch out of shape when cutting it.

Track sized strips.

I quickly discovered that the long 3' strips of rubber sheeting didn't really curve very well without slots cut into the strips similar to the flexible homosote roadbed sold by Cascade Rail Supply.
Since the rubber material was already a little tricky to cut and I had plenty of it, I plan on just cutting the shapes I need directly out of the sheets. Truthfully I did slot one strip, and said screw that idea, it was way too time consuming with a knife or scissors...

As a side note, one of the few things I discovered that could mark the rubber material for cut lines and track center lines was a white Prismacolor pencil I originally bought for making chalk marks on freight cars.

One pencil, many hobby uses.

The curve starting the Adena Branch off the mainline is an example of just cutting the shape I need instead of trying to slot a strip to make it curve. I found that a pair of good scissors can also be used to cut the rubber sheeting instead of a boxcutter. I can't say however that these are my good scissors, maybe now they are.

I followed the same procedure gluing the rubber sheeting down as I did in my Scenery Test Module using DAP Clear Kitchen & Bath Adhesive Sealant.

A small kitchen dough roller (now permanently acquired for this task) was used to make sure the rubber sheet was applied and flat.

Glued in place.

After gluing a few more pieces of rubber sheeting down, I began to focus my efforts of building up the foam layers to form the terrain that will make up the Adena wye area. I hope to have more on that in another update that shouldn't take as long as this one took to get out on the blog.