Gray foam roadbed help/questions

If you cut  slits along the outside of the curve you'll be able to lay the foam flat.  The spacing of the slits depends on how tight you need to make the curve.

Jan

Thanks Jan I’ll try it   

Cut it down the center into two halves. Then glue each half down along the center line of the track you're going to lay.  Most foam track bed comes pre-scribed down the center for easy separation.

Hal

If you Google "kerf" or similar you will get a bunch of ideas like Jan suggests. I have wondered about this and hope you will post pictures of your work.

Laying track with roadbed

Pictures maybe but I’ve ripped up the track 3 times today already and still looks like it was laid when drunk

I remember it being considerably easier 

Follow up 

Thanks all  for the help on gray foam roadbed  I sipe cut outer as suggested and to a lesser extent inner came out like a champ lays flat looks good 

Congratulations!

You MUST split it to make a radius. Also, overlap the edges when you make your cuts with a razor to prevent ANY gaps between pieces.  If you want to make it look REALLY good, try this. After you glue it down, primer it with light gray. Mask the the plywood near the foam. Spray the foam with FleckStone spray paint. It looks fantastic! The primer step isn’t required, but it’s saves money. The FleckStone paint isn’t cheap. I used this method on my first 0-27 layout and it was a beauty. Sorry, I don’t have any pics on this phone. 

I'm just now starting to use the foam roadbed, and CoolHand is right in that if you cut the sections in the curves into halves, it is much easier to bend and make cuts where needed on tight curves.  I don't use spray paint on the MTH or Fastrack, but a stiff paintbrush dipped lightly in dark gray first, then black after that dries.  First push the bristles flat against a board to clear off the paint, and then push the paintbrush bristle ends straight onto the roadbed, either the plastic or foam randomly and it will leave what looks like different color ballast on the gray background.  Once you get enough paint transferred to the board, it acts like a palette and you can just jab it on the board, going back to the paint can when the board gets sparse.   The technique is similar to Bob Ross when he is making "happy little trees".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...AYLpzE5&index=14

Eric Siegel of Eric's Trains has produced an in depth tutorial  video "Triple Whammy! 0-Scale Track + Street + Scenery How-To" . There is portion of the video that discusses and demonstrates how he works with gray foam roadbed. I followed his guidance and am happy with the results. Good luck, Mike