Layouts and layout building

  If you are going to 'hand lay' your trackage, Homasote is the best material I have seen for holding track spikes.  I hav built 2 railroads using Homasote that was 'glued & screwed' to 1/2" or 3/4" plywood.  I live in Minnesota, and there are wild temp/humidity swings through the year.  I only had one problem with a  'buckle' on a curve(I think I did not allow enough 'gap' in a rail joint).  Using lots of glue and screws seems to do the trick.  My current layout is built using 'Homabed' over 1/2" plywood.  It has been 'in place' since 1987 and I have never had a problem(20' by 25' layout).  I really like using 'Homabed' for several reasons:

• It is sanded to 1/4" thick and is consistant.  Sheet stock Homasote is usually about 5/8" thick and is not consistant.  Sheet blue/pink styrofoam is not consistant either(it is extruded, and many times the edges are thicker than the middle). 
• There is little mess.  Cutting Homasote really can make a mess very fast!  Your 'shop vac' will be busy!
• 'Homabed' can be sanded down with a power sander or a surform tool to match the 3/16" cork roadbed or the plywood subroadbed and it is very smooth.  I use 'Homabed' for the mainline, and cork for sidings/spurs & the yard.

  That price for the sheet stock is good.  Menards also sells it in 2' by 2' and 2' by 4' 'handy panels' in the store here in Rochester, MN.  When I lived in the Twin Cities, Hiawatha Lumber in South Mpls was one of the places that stocked the product.  I do not know if they are still around...

  'Homabed' is a little pricy, but I really like to work with it.  It was sold originally by B.O. Manufacturering, and now is available via mail order from California Roadbed Company.  Here is a link to their web site:

http://www.homabed.com/

Jim Bernier

Jim, I had some frustrating experiences bending homabed (which has "kerf cuts" to make it bendable) to radius curves.  My curves are broad but I still had some splitting.  Any tips?

Dave Nelson

desertdog wrote:

When the subject of Homasote comes up I have made it pretty clear in the past that I am not a fan and I am not going to bore anybody with my specific objections again.  But I thought I would share this tidbit with anyone who thinks they really need to use it: when we built our latest house, I asked the concrete crew what the material was that they had inserted around the edges of the foundation slab.  They said "Homasote."  I asked why and they said "because when it gets moisture in it, it swells up and fill gaps."  I leave you to draw your own conclusions. John Timm  Desert Dog I used 1/2" plywood with cork road bed and painted the plywood. recently I was conturing the rail yard with schulpamold afterwards I noticed a hump in the yard, above a joint in the plywood.Water must have soaked the joint and caused it to swell. Since it's ballested and landscaped I'm upset   and no it's not in a place  that I can use as a hump yard. I don't suppose it will go away and I can't see an easy way to fix it. Maybe this is not a question, maybe I'm just looking for sympathy. Lee

Cutting homosote for bending for roadbed requires your cutting kerfs into the roadbed about every inch or so. These cuts may need to be about 2/3's of the way across the width of the road bed. That was how it was explained to me.

Try one piece and see how it works out. If you can't get your bend you need, try more kerfs closer together or deeper cuts in to the width. Are you puting cuts on both sides of the piece of homosote? That way one side can expand and the other side can compress for the inside of the curve.

If you can cut homosote outdoors the mess disappears with the wind. Homosote dust is almost as bad as dry wall dust in my opinion.

Dave,

  I use the 'curvable' version which has the diagonal 'kerf' saw cuts in it.  I have been able to bend it down to 22" radius with no problems.  When I ran out of the 'kerf' stock, I took some of the remaining 'straight' stock and cut my own diagonal kerfs in it and used that material with no problems. 

  I lay out the centerline on the plywood subroadbed and glue the Homabed down(using wire brads to hold it in position).  After the glue has dried, I pull the wire brads and sand the edges to get  a rounded surface, and run by B&D 'mouse' sander over the surface to even things out.  All of my sidings/spurs use standard 3/16" cork, and I lay about 12-15" of Homabed into the siding and then start laying cork.  I use a sureform tool to sand down the 1/16" difference between the two roadbed materials.  Watching a train 'drop' down into the siding from the mainline looks great.  The 12" or so of transition caused no derailment problems.

   As I mentioned, the stuff is more expensive than cork.  It runs about .85/ft, and cork is about .60/ft(MSRP) and a lot cheaper discounted.  The advantage is that you can 'spike' the flex track down using large spikes and it will hold.  No track nails going through the roadbed into the plywood and transmitting 'noise'.  The cork roadbed sidings on my layout have a lot of noise compared to the Homabed mainline when running a train at track speed!   BTW, I use M-E track spikes to attach the Atlas flex track to the Homabed.  The have several lengths of spikes.  I tried spiking the track to cork roadbed, but it does not have enough 'grip' to hold the track in place - I wound up using track nails or the longer M-E spikes. 

Jim