Benchwork question.

[gouda]

I am going to start a N gauge layout soon. I plan on using Kato Unitrack on a interior door as a base. My question is: Should I put some sort of material on the wood before starting setting the track itself? Maybe cork or something like that? All my detailing, features etc. would be on top of that so appearance isn't very important. I was thinking cork may be quieter and absorb some vibration.

 

[jdetray]

A popular construction method is to glue a layer of extruded foam on top of the entire hollow core door (HCD). The foam is typically 1"-2" thick. The foam makes it easy to carve terrain contours, such as streambeds and other "below grade" features.

- Jeff

 

[Selector]

If you wish to have a bit of relief in the form of contours, say for a river bed or a body of water, or some hills, it might be a good idea to get some PL300 and glue extruded styrofoam board insulation atop the door. The PL300 is safe with the foam, and it adds a different sound-deadening medium between the hollow door and the foam above it. Then, you can gouge the foam here and there to make anything but truly flat terrain.

The extruded foamboard insulation comes in 1" thicknesses, but you can to all the way up to 3" if I recall, and even at that thickness it weighs very little.

 

[gouda]

The foam is a great idea, I didn't think about carving contours etc. Should I mount the track directly to the foam or what? I would think I would want some earth color under the track to start.

 

[Selector]

You "can" mount the track directly onto the foam, but you must first consider where your track centerline will be and ensure you do NO carving there...or you must make provision for a substitute surface of some kind to support the tracks, be it a bridge, overpass, or some other surface. So, with a blank surface, unmarred, carefully plan out your track arrangement, draw a centerline, and then either place the track and cover it while you carve where you intend to, or stack layers to get higher terrain, or you can just leave an inch on either side of the centerline, do the carving and stacking for hills, and then add the track layer.

You can use an adhesive on the foam, such as PL300, which is safe for the foam, and lay a very thin smear of it under your tracks. The idea is to keep your rail elements fixed, but also to make it relatively easy to slide a blade under the rails, slice a bit, and pry them up to free them from the foam so that you can use the rails another time. Thick gobs of the caulk, which is what PL300 is, will make that process very difficult and messy.

In any case, you really ought to consider using a cork or foam, or thin vinyl rug underlay, for roadbed to elevate the tracks, unless you are using the snap tracks with the plastic roadbed, such as EZ-Track or UniTrack. The rails should be supported in ballast and therefore be elevated somewhat above the surrounding terrain and drainage to look right.

 

[Beachbum]

There is also debate about whether track glued to XPS (extruded styrofoam, not the white beadboard stuff) is too noisy. I've used cork and Woodland Scenics roadbed glued with latex caulk to foam on hollow core doors and had no complaints about the noise level.

I want to try gluing some track straight to foam and see how that sounds. Of course, "too noisy" is pretty subjective - I have no intention of measuring the sound level with a professional meter or anything like that.

 

[Cjcrescent]

...
Of course, "too noisy" is pretty subjective...

The "quest" for quieter scenery has been going on since at least the 1940's according to some MR's and RMC's from the 1940's I have.

I believe that as long as we're using a binder, (glue), that dries hard, there will always be the amplification of some "train" noise into the scenery, no matter what is used.

Back in the 1960's and 1970's this led to many modelers quieting down their locos to try to reduce the "noise" thru the scenery. I have some brass from the mid 1970's that you literally can not hear running on a layout without scenery. But the second that they hit a sceniked layout the noise level goes up quite a bit.

 

[gouda]

I am not really very concerned about noise. I just want it to run smoothly with no derailing problems.

 

[Selector]

The plastic-ballasted track is quite noisy, but if you mount in on a layer of something that goes between it and the foam, the dual density should reduce the sound transmission substantially. That is the theory, at least. It could be fan-fold, homasote, cork, vinyl underlayment, a layer of acrylic latex caulk,...

 

[gouda]

The plastic-ballasted track is quite noisy, but if you mount in on a layer of something that goes between it and the foam, the dual density should reduce the sound transmission substantially. That is the theory, at least. It could be fan-fold, homasote, cork, vinyl underlayment, a layer of acrylic latex caulk,...

That's what I was thinking exactly. Just not sure what that material should be, but I have a few ideas to try out and see on a small scale to start.