Nik & he how thinks he's boss,
I use uni & fine scale Peco flex and use different wire gauges to US and I find wire about 1.5mm to 2mm thick run round a 15" or more curve under the outside rail of lightly pinned track it dos'nt look bad(some may say its terrible but it your layout who give a)and if you strip 3or4" of insulation off each end the easment looks ok too.
Try it, experiment a bit and if you are not ballasting straight away, a couple of VERY light dabs of water based PVA will hold it(just soak it to pull out).
Keep at it youngan
pick
Yup, I use the wire method. Haven't priced styrene for that application but I suspect wire is cheaper.
Use very sticky tape.
I figured an easy way to do it.
The only difference being my layout is in HO scale.
Since my other hobby is scratch building and flying RC airplanes, I used 1/16 inch thick by 1/8 inch wide balsa strips around the underside of the outer part of the ties, then used white glue from a hypodermic type glue gun to glue it onto the WS foam roadbed,using pins to hold it in place until it dried, then layed down my track. Worked just fine.
The track is shimmed up 1/16 of an inch or approximately .060 inches.
Used gray latex caulk to fasten down my track, and taking a tip from Joe Fugate , I used cans of vegetables layed on the track to weight it down until the caulk dried.
Then I hooked up power to the track, and slowly ran my BLI J1 PRR steamer around the curve( 34 inch radius), to check for any problems, and it went just fine!!!
Unit "leaned just enough" into the radiused turn.
Repeated the procedure on the other ed of my layout, which is 24 feet long, by 6 feet wide, a complete walk around setup.
Next comes the inside main track with carefully placed switches from the outside main to the inside main line.
I wil run my yard off off the inside main, with a reversal loop at one end of the train table. Actually my table is built in 3 sections, each 6 by 8 feet. My base is 2 inch pink foam, with WS foam roadbed, I also have a big supply of cork roadbed also.
Next comes the center background divider down most of the tables.
Still have a lot of work ahead of me, but having fun doing it!
The foam is supported by 1x3's on 16 inch centers, with an outside framework of 1x4's.
Each table has 2x4 legs(with adjustable height screw pads on the bottom of each leg), the entire assembly is wood screwed and bolted together, so if I ever decide to move it, it breaks down into 3- 6 by 8 foot tables, the legs unbolt, and up the stairway it will go!
Actually tried moving one of the tables up the stairs right after completion, less the legs, and me and my buddy Denny picked it up and moved it easily!
The balsa strips were cut from a larger sheet of 1/16 by 4 inch balsa, using a balsa stripper. They bent easily around the radius.
I took pins and pinned them in place, then used Elmers white glue to glue them in place, going very sparingly with the glue.
Once it dried, I used Joe Fugates method of laying flex track with grey latex caulk. Worked great!
I felt it was easier than cutting and using styrene strips, and since I have a large supply of balsa on hand( I buy it in bulk), I guess I have at least 100 pieces of 1/16 by 4 inch by 36 and 48 inch balsa sheets on my stock shelves, along with many more kinds of balsa lumber, and bass wood, and light aircraft plywood of all kinds and sizes. Comes in handy for making my own scratch built structures.
Now if I ONLY had a CNC laser cutter!
Santa Claus you listenening?????????
"And that's the name of that tune!"
TheK4Kid --- working on the Pennsy!
pilot wrote: Use very sticky tape.
I second this idea.
I use plain old masking tape -- cheap and simple. Ballasting will cover it all up.
I start with one layer under the outer rail along the tangent (straight) and gradually add layers until I reach the mid-point of the curve. Then do the reverse until I'm back down to zero along the other tangent. I try to make each "step" the same length -- about the same as my longest (passenger) cars. Don't forget to start the super-elevation a short distance (a car-length or so) before the beginning of the curve to create a vertical easement.
The beauty of this method is that the longer the curve, the more layers you use, thereby enhancing the super-elevation. The shorter the curve, the less (or no) super-elevation. I'd keep the maximum number of layers to 6 or 7. I use 4 or 5 on a 18" radius 90° curve (in N-scale).
For HO-scale, you'd just have to add more layers of tape (about double).