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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by uptowntrain Question for Joe, Can foam be placed directly on L girders. I am thinking of 1 X 4 pine. How many girders for a 2 X 4' section of foam 2" thick? Thanks Jack [/quote] You're going to find as many opinions on benchwork with foam as there are people using it. You simply need to know your requirements and your materials. You would be surprised how much weight a piece of foam will carry if supported at a reasonable interval, "reasonable" being determined by whether it needs to support simple scenery or the weight of you and a dancing partner. Since I don't stand, sit or dance on it and don't need a skin of plywood for anchoring any hardware, in the past I've placed foam directly on the parallel girders. I keep the unsupported span short, maybe 30 inches or so. I haven't seen any evidence of foam sagging where I've used it and if it should sag some years down the road, I suppose a 1x2 brace screwed to the L girders would correct it in no time. For various reasons my new layout must be extremely light. I built the first section (30" x 7') out of a 1x2 perimeter frame with 1x2s 2' apart flat across the bottom. On top of this I laid 1" foam (yes, a single layer of 1") and built up from there with blocks of foam & with poured foam on bubblewrap & screen . If I press in the middle of the span it will deflect. A brick dropped from my 10' ceiling height would likely go clear through. It would likely also go through my glass tabletop in my kitchen so we simply do not drop bricks from that height. If portability was not an issue, I would simply build it the same way but with 1X4's and 2" foam. I would also anchor the layout to the wall as you indicated earlier. Unless you built your house for resale over the next few months, use it for your comfort and enjoyment. If and when you sell your house, it will take longer to clean the oven than to patch a few holes in the wall. The added stability will more than be repaid, expecially if you build a lightweight layout. Finaly, I don't paint the foam on all sides to seal it as was suggested in either this or another thread.The foam I'm using for the initial portions of my new N Scale layout has been kicking around unused for years. I got it 8 years ago and who knows how long it was stored before that. The last 3 years it sat on a couple of planks on the dirt under my cabin in the Northern Adirondacks, sometimes covered with drifting snow & subjected to temps of 40 below. It's working up quite nicely and I expect that it might last this new millenium before I have to worry about deterioration. Wayne
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