Nailing down track

[Anonymous]

What kind of tools do you guys use to nail down track? specifically N scale track. Also if you have another method of laying track without using nails what do you use? thanks guys!

Josh

[Seamonster]

I'm sure you'll get a lot of different ways to fasten down track, and they're all good methods. You might want to try a few different ones and see which works best for you. Here's how I do my N scale track. I use HO scale track spikes to hold it down. They grip quite well in the cork roadbed and don't go all the way through to the plywood. I can put them in beside the ties with the L-shaped head over the ties and not have to worry about drilling a hole through the ties for a nail. After I've glued down the ballast, I remove the spikes and if I miss a few, their black colour hardly shows. On turnouts I put a short brass pin through the ties at each of the three ends. The pins go through to the plywood and hold the turnouts more securely as they have less ballast holding them.

The most important thing when fastening down track is not to drive the pin or nail down so far that it pushes on the tie and distorts it. This will tighten the gauge and will be a potential source of problems later on.

[Texas Zepher]

When I was in N-scale I used 1/2" wire nails. I put them in holding them with a needle nose plier, hammer them to the rail head, then use a counter sink upside down to hammer them the rest of the way. The real trick is to pound them in just far enough to touch the top of the track. If you make them really tight they will "bow" the tie and make the track too narrow.

But I would not use that method today. I no longer nail track down. Today I position the track and hold it in place with push pins. Once I have it positioned, I lift it slightly, spread glue (matte medium) under it, and pin it down tight until it dries. I take the pins out test run the track and once everything is OK, I finish fastening it down with the ballast.

[jecorbett]

I just use 1/2 inch nails to hold the track in place until the glue dries. I only drive the nails about half way into the subroadbed. That way they are easy to remove. The glue will then hold the track in place until I am ready to ballast. I've used Woodland Scenics track adhesive but it is a little pricey if you are building a large layout as I am. I've switched to Elmer's white glue which works just as well but is easy to pull up if I decide to rearrange the track prior to ballasting.

John

[Anonymous]

Hello,

One dumb question ..What exactly do you mean by ballasting ? What are the pro's and con's

Kenneth

[Seamonster]

Kenneth, there's no such thing as a dumb question. For sure, not in these forums. I'll try to answer you the best I can. Ballast is the stones that railroads pack in around the ties to hold their track in place. That's all that holds real track in place--they don't use glue or pins or gigantic nails. [:D] It also serves as drainage to let water flow away from the track. In modelling, we use very fine coloured sand to represent that ballast. It serves much the same purpose, to hold the track in place. However, because our trackwork and the ballast is very lightweight, we have to glue the ballast in place. The glue makes a solid mass out of the fine particles of ballast and glues the ties, ballast and roadbed all together. The roadbed that most people use is either cork or some wood product with tapered edges to raise up the track and give a sloped edge to the trackwork to make it look more prototypical.

Pros and cons? Well, you don't really need ballast to hold the track down. You can hold it in place with pins or nails or glue quite nicely. The ballast then is just cosmetic--it looks more like the real thing with ballast. As a matter of fact, it's probably best not to ballast track right away until after you've run a few trains to make sure the trackwork is all good because it's a lot more difficult to remove and re-lay track after it's been ballasted. I think most people will hold their track down with pins or nails or glue until it has been ballasted then remove the pins or nails. The glued ballast will hold the track in place.

To ballast track, after it has been laid, pinned or glued down and checked for faults, you buy some ballast in the colour you want or the colour the railroad you're modelling used on its track, and spread it along between the rails, keeping it at or below the tops of the ties and off the insides of the rails. You also spread it along the sloped shoulders of the roadbed. Once you've got a few feet of ballast in place and smoothed down, you soak it with "wet" water (water with a few drops of dish detergent in it) or a water/alcohol mix or pure rubbing alcohol using a spray bottle that produces a mist. This makes the glue soak in. Then you dribble either diluted white glue or diluted matte medium with a few drops of detergent in it over the ballast and let it harden. You have to be careful not to get any grains of ballast stuck to the inside of the rails or in the points of turnouts. The reason for the dish detergent or the alcohol is that it breaks the surface tension of the water droplets and makes them soak in, otherwise the water or glue mixture will just sit on the top of the ballast in blobs.

I hope this wasn't too much information for you, Kenneth. I'm sure you'll get other answers to your questions as there are many ways to ballast track.

[Anonymous]

Bob,

Thanks a lot for the clear explanation. I took a printout of the explanation.

Thanks again for the reply.

[CrossTrack Trains]

I used a DAP All purpose Adheasive Caulk to glue my Woodland Scenics roadbed down and also used it to glue the track to the roadbed, held with pushpins only untill fully cured. Then I poured ballasted on the track and used a dry paint bru***o clear the track , sprayed with water first or rubbing alcohol (so the glue can seep into the ballast without the ballast clumping), and then used a large and small eyedropper to apply a 1/2 Elmers Glue & 1/2 Rubbing alcohol mix on to the ballast, carfulley not getting it on the track. Allow 24 hours to dry and then clean the track with an eraser and you're good to go. All the methods I used above were fairly inexpensive and the result looks realistic.

(Woodland scenics glues are rather expensive for what they are, so I use Elmers Glue or the 1/2 Elmers Glue & 1/2 Rubbing alcohol mix for just about everything on my layout).

Fine scale WS ballast would be good for N scale layout.

Note: be careful around the switch tracks not to get ballast and glue in the moving parts.

[Anonymous]

Right now I'm in the process of building a new N-Scale layout using Atlas Code 55 track and their # 7 turnouts. Since this layout will be a short branch line with a lot of industry switching and a small yard, I'm laying the track right on top of the plywood.
I'm pre-drilling very small holes in both the ties and the plywood and using Micro Engineering's smallest spikes. You have to take your time and, yes you will bend a few spikes, but everything has worked good so far.
The extra time you take laying your track will payoff down the road when you run your trains.
Good luck,
gtirr

[nbrodar]

I use 1/2 wire nails, and needle nose pliers. Homasote makes driving nails easy.

Nick