Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.
White Elmers in the gallon jug.
The universal glue. Benchwork. Templates. Ties. Ballast. Scenery.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I have been glueing down paper templates on the roadbed and handlaying switches over them for probably 2 decades.
I draw the track center lines down on the Homasote, spread white glue and then put the paper template on the glue, lining up the center lines. When it dries I glue wood ties to the paper and then spike the rails to the ties.
Howdy, Captain,
I go the paper template one step farther - my templates are cardstock. Also, they don't go under the roadbed, they go between the (fan-fold underlayment) foam roadbed and the flex track (or wood ties.)
My procedure is the exact reverse of the intuitive:
Some of our fellow forumites push ballast into the soft caulk. So far, I haven't ballasted anything, so I can't speak for that aspect. I will say that subgrade-roadbed-template-flex, all anchored with caulk, has already survived as much as three years in a non-climate-controlled garage in the Dessicated Desert without any apparent ill effects. I run trains almost daily, so problems would become obvious in a hurry!
Hope this has been helpful.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
do you mean simply gluing down paper templates for like turnouts, etc, and then laying the track on top of the glued-down template? If so, lots of people do that. I do that. Thats how I made some of my turnouts.... i glued down the paper template on top of some HO-cork-thickness basswood and laid the ties directly on the template, then laid the rail.
I'm not sure what else you might mean...... like do some people try to trace the template onto the actual roadbed/subroadbed and then lift the template off, but still have the track lines drawn? thats a whole lot of unneccessary if you ask me.