I am asking for help in how to best glue a Blair Line wooden trestle to the scenery base. So here's what I have done so far. I have a foam base with plastercloth riverbed (unpainted). Which would be good to adhere to a plaster cloth riverbed? Sculptamold? Super glue? Wood glue? I haven't run across a resource yet that shows how to do this. Any experience in this area would be helpful. I have the know how or resources (MR Magazines are great!!!) to continue on with the river but am just stuck.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
The Blair Line trestle has framed bents, which are meant to stand on masonry footings. Rather than glue the trestle to the scenery, why not use two pins per bent, inserted in the inner pilings and stuck into the footings, to hold it in position? That way, if you ever decide to dismantle the layout, salvaging the trestle for re-use will simply be a matter of lifting the rails - trestle and all.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with concrete and steel bridges)
Great idea Chuck! As I would like to have the bridge salvageable, I think I will give the pin idea a try. I forget that foam accepts pins well and holds things in place such as trees very well. Thanks again!
You could carve some footings out of foam, insert a long pin in the bent, then through the footing into the scenery base. You can make the footing look like concrete or could scribe lines into the foam to make it look like either cut or natural stone.
Good luck,
Richard
I use hot melt glue, to hold it in place until I address each footing for the bridge
I have salvaged every trestle I have ever made. I use thin shims of waste stripwood, the kind used to make the trestles themselves, to serve as temporary footings to ensure the grade of the deck matches the grade of the roadbed. Then, I use some ground goop, which I also use over aluminum window screen for my scenery terrain, to serve as ground around and under the base of each pylon. I also have made the terrain and then used a rail nipper to trim the bottoms of pylons to get the same fit. I used wood glue under the stringers lying over the abutments to secure the ends of the tresltes to those abutments, so no wobble permitted on their account. The footings, or in real engineering terms, the sills, I just create by trimming or by placing more goop under them until it is all solid. Really only takes maybe ten minutes. Be sure to let it all cure for a few hours before you begin to lay track over it.
-Crandell
I like to use basswood, but balsa would also work here. It's easy to cut or carve the wood, then paint it to represent concrete. While putting pins into styrofoam is easy enough, I'd be a little worried about how they'd stand up to track cleaning, maintenance, or just bumps. Gluing your wooden "concrete" (I like TiteBond III) footings to the foam or riverbed , then punching or drilling the pins through it and into the foam beyond if need be will be a little more stable than into foam alone.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
These are all great ideas and I appreciate the help. Looks like pins, footings, and further scenery will be the way to go. I may go with styrene footings as I plan to add Woodland Scenics Realistic Water in the river in the future.
It all depends on the particular bridge/trestle and the look you want.
This trestle has frame bents (as opposed to pilings), and received concrete footings made from stripwood.
Nearby is this bridge supported by cast plaster piers. In both cases, I built the scenery base first, scratchbuilt the bridges to fit, and shimmed them in place under the track using scrap material. The shims are invisible once the rest of scene is completed around them.
Rob Spangler
Lots of good input here guys.
Lynn
Present Layout progress
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/p/290127/3372174.aspx#3372174