Attaching wooden tie gargraves to roadbed (screws or nails)

[lckiii]

This is a very rudimentary question, but after all this track talk I have made the switch from O gauge to gargraves tubular track and am thinking about the best way to attach the track to cork roadbed.  I thought about glueing it, but want to have some flexibility to change things later.  (Therefore screws would probably be best, but do they make them small enough?)

  

 

[sir james I]

Use screws with starter holes thru the ties, then changes are easy. Atlas sells them in packages and with a little hunting you can find smaller ones. The problem with nails is you can damange the ties and track when you try to pull the track up.

[trigtrax]

Atlas O makes a small diameter ( I believe it's a #3) wood screw. You will need to drill clearance holes in the gargraves ties, #36 drill.

Don't dismiss gluing your track. An old woodworkers trick is to glue things together with newspaper in between. Tapping the joint with a sharp chisel will separate the parts. ( newspaper is weaker than wood). So you'll get your flexibilty with a lot less work.

[A&Y Ry]

If you glue-ballast your track later you can remove the screws, fill the holes and color the hole filler and tie with brown/black Sharpies.

If you are reaching thru tie, cork and s 1/2" foam or other underlayment---about 1-1/8" in total, cabinent screws are just slightly smaller than a #4 and have small heads that receive a #1 phillips driver. The big box stores have them---black in color and the ones I used are 1-9/16" long.

Be cautious to not screw the track down too tight---the objective is to hold it in place to secure formed curve arcs and prevent side-to-side movement of all sections.

[phillyreading]

I am using # 6 size sheet metal screws to attach the track to my plywood base.  Have drilled holes about 7/64 of an inch in the ties than put the screws in, even a small pilot hole to put the screws into the wood or other material helps. I found my screws at Ace Hardware as the larger hardware stores don't carry this size.

Like sir james mentions nails will make track removal very difficult, even installation can be damaging to the ties.

Lee F.

[jefelectric]

Gargraves sells black track screws in #4 up to 1" in length.

http://www.gargraves.com/accessories.php

Scroll down near the bottom.