Any one use wood for roadbed? Not sub roadbed

[WP-MOW]

Have a look at this company here in N.California , homabed.com (California Roadbed co. inc. This has worked quite well for me, Before you say anything,I'm retired have no table saws etc to cut homsote . Mostly peco #8s on the main , the switch pads make laying a switches a breeze.

 

[logandsawman]

White pine, that have little to no knots are what I cut my ties out of.

The "secret" to hand laying, is to fine a substructure strong enough to hold spikes very well

When you are talking about white pine, are you talking about a generic term or the specific term applied only to Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus)? I have heard the term used on the forum before and wonder if it is just being applied to a pine board that has a white appearance. Your man at the Lumber yard may not have this knowledge but may pretend to.

The specific species is not considered to have good nail holding abilities and is a soft pine. If the term is simply applied to a pine board that is free of knots or white appearance, the real specific term does not apply.

However, maybe that is adequate since the model railroad is not a heavy application.

If you are using the White pine lumber manufactured by Northeastern Scale Lumber or some reputable manufacturer, I would be relatively certain that is your Pinus strobus. Confused about this because considering doing some hand laying of my own and would like to know.

We have some other pines here, in fact if purchasing from a lumber yard here and ripping your own, you would get pine, spruce, or balsam fir under the same label and not differentiated. Each species has different properties, but considered similar enough for the building trades.

Thanks, lasm

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Clear, almost no grain, Redwood makes great sub-roadbed. It's s good as truscale, can be planned down to as thin as 3/32.
Holds spikes very well, and fairly easy to drive into. Slightly harder than Sugar Pine.

 

[ianc]

If you have a specialty wood store nearby, Sitka spruce or White spruce are soft enough to take spikes, and quite stable.

 

[Cjcrescent]

LASM,

Don't know if it is that species or not. About 8 years ago, I bought an 8' piece of white board with a label on the end that said White Pine, Knotless. Paid almost $12 for this board, but I've been able to cut so far between 25,000-30,000 ties from it, and it will probably be more than adequate to finish my layout. The board came from someone on the label known as Southern Lumber Company Distributors, and was bought at my local Ho Do. Whether or not it's that species or not, I really don't know. I would have preferred using basswood, or sugar pine, but I can't get something like that in this area in the sizes I needed. I even went to the only specialty lumbar store left in the state, and they didn't have anything affordable.

 

[logandsawman]

Very useful information here, thanks for your expertise,

lasm

 

[ianc]

LASM,

I would have preferred using basswood, or sugar pine, but I can't get something like that in this area in the sizes I needed. I even went to the only specialty lumbar store left in the state, and they didn't have anything affordable.

Boy howdy. Our local lumber dealer, not a specialty shop, sells basswood for $4 bd/ft. How much do you want? Shipping will cost more than the wood.

 

[Cjcrescent]

Boy howdy. Our local lumber dealer, not a specialty shop, sells basswood for $4 bd/ft. How much do you want? Shipping will cost more than the wood.

I appreciate the offer, but I only have about another 25-30' of ties to go on the entire layout. Besides the basswood at the HoDo here costs beyond my allotted track budget. I have enough blanks, ie ties that are a real 18" long and they just need to go through the 4" table saw to be cut to the required scale length, for another 10-12' of ties. Plus I'm pretty sure that I have enough strips left from the initial cutting to finish the layout, (about 75 strips). I just have to run them through the 4" saw and then again to get proper ties. Then I probably have enough white pine board left for an additional 50' of track or so. All I got to do is cut it, if necessary, and that isn't hard. The white pine was a 1x4 and I cut the strips off of the 1" side, and I can get 6-7 actual tie blanks off of that 1",(actually almost 3/4") wide strip.

I'll run 7-10 blanks at a time through the saw to get regular ties. For switch ties, I'll cut the blanks to a 4, 5 or 6" length, (depending on the turnout #), and then cut the ties for the turnout to length as they are placed, with a very sharp utility knife.