Bench work and pink or blue foam?

I've never walked on any layout I've ever built.  But, that never stopped me from using something solid underneath my track.  What is tying your L girders together? Are you putting in bridging or bracing underneath?  Seems kind of squirrely to just glue or screw foam to the girders.  Depends on your layout's scope and size, of course.  Not a foam fan here, especially pink.  Never gonna happen.

I was thinking L girders with 1x4 cross pieces spaced 12" to 16"apart.

 

You never know for sure??? That is 230 lb.with trains underneath.

Never could have finished the back corner. See hole to under the layout behind coaling tower. It became a pop out lake!

 

Follow this link over next few weeks!

 

http://www.jcstudiosinc.com/BlogShowThread?id=958&categoryId=

 

Hugh, I'm with you.    Foam is incredibly strong.

Great thread! So, for my next layout, I would like to add some graduated scenery. Every book I've read said you gotta grab the jigsaw and cut plywood risers to stick under the track (the traditional way of creating elevations). However, it strikes me I could drop a layer of foam on top of my table and simply carve out the grades. Am I completely off base? Will foam give enough support to track and roadbed?

Please don't for one minute think that I am just supported by that foam. There is a piece of 3/4" piece of particle board (2'x4') supported by 2" diameter dowels acting a columns between the trains holding it up. And that on top of a well supported table top with plenty of storage underneath. I will cover most of this in the blog I am building.

 

Mountain is complete so thanks anyway for the offer of the arch bridge.

 

 

Why discriminate against green foam?    That's what Lowe's is carrying in my neighborhood.

 

Seriously though, foam by itself is strong enough to handle the rail traffic and scenery needs of most of us.  Adding it to the top of well constructed benchwork leaves little room for worry in my book.

 

Nice job on the layout, Hugh.  I really like your mountain.

Thank you.

One thing lots of us forget about is making our layouts run 'QUIET'. No matter what one chooses for the base onto which they will attach their track to, they should first consider putting sound deadening material between the track and the base. My trains run super quiet because I cut strips of rubber backed indoor/outdoor carpet as roadbed.

 

You will notice that my 'super streets' are directly on the pink foam. The trolley makes so much noise, I rarely run it except to entertain visitors. I should have used my own advice here.

 

Some of the worst is MTH real track. I helped a friend by not only laying down the carpet strips but also taking regular fibreglass insulation and stuffing the underside of the tracks before fastening down. Also, the less screws holding the tracks, the better. On the carpet you want a 'floating' effect. Once you fix ballast and scenery in place nothing will come apart anyway. The more track is fastened down, the noisier it will be.

 

 

I had a few inquiries about table construction. Here shows gridwork It is a small room so two ends are on cabinets and two ends fastened to wall Underneath is hollow so gives me plenty of room for moving around and storage. Cabinets give space for everything from engines to rolling stock. Drawers for little stuff and manuals.

Layout pictures are from before the mountain conversion. A simple tabletop Lionel Layout

Can you explain what an L girder system is?  Any pics of what it looks like?

Thanks

Sean,

 

Here are some photos of an L-girder design on a model I built for an OGR article.

 

There are also photos and a description of L-girder benchwork in the current issue (Run 258) of OGR magazine in the Pinnacle Peaks article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jim

Good to know, Tim. Already planning my next layout and what foam I have used seems fully up to the task. Mtn. Goat.

L girder construction

It's amazing how many different ways we find to engineer our layouts. Some look like cabinet making, others look like house framing, but they all work. I'm going with L-girder with T-risers. It eliminates the need to make wire ways to pass leads under the layout. It also permits perfect alignment and level coupled with the ability to move something later on. For instance, I'm still deciding to put a grade on the back track, but not to work since it can be added after construction by just changing the risers. I'm going to use as much foam as possible and have a foam cutter which I can't wait to use. So far I've just used it to make school projects with my grandkids.

I used three sheets of 4x8 1.5 inch pink foam and 2x4 framing.
Dimensions are 6x8 one layer thick. The remaining foam was used for scenery.
My layout collapses down for transport. I kept the two 4x6 sheets separated for ease of moving.
I used woodland scenics HO 3 % risers for the up and over portion of the figure 8.
I did some custom risers out of pink foam to get the minimum 5.5 inch pass thru height.

Be sure you use the correct foam adhesive otherwise, the foam may melt.
I bought a caulk gun and applied 95% of the adhesive with it.

For sound deadening, I used Midwest Products cork roadbed. Glued it down to the foam with the same blue adhesive. Rock solid after it dries. Impressively quiet with the 0-27 conventional rattler grinding its way around the layout.
I used fleckstone spray paint as a ballast.
Then I used clear silicone adhesive to affix the Atlas track to the sprayed roadbed.
Everything sticks together like welded steel. But...with just the right amount of force and a box cutter knife, you can pop the foam apart at the adhesive joint. Role the adhesive off the foam and start over.
Pulling the track apart from the silicone worked just as easy. Once the track is free, you can roll off the silicone from the track and it looks just as good as new.