Layouts and layout building

 I'm sure we are all familiar with the idea of ripping 1/4" masonite into 1" strips and laminating them 4 or 5 wide to create a type of spline roadbed, (I prefer the idea of 4 because the small overlay from the cork roadbed would help cover the seam between the chicken wire/cardboard strips/what have you and the actual splines. And you get more roadbed ) but my question is, why 1"? These days people tend to use 1/2" plywood as subroadbed, so why not 1/4"x1/2" masonite splines? Using 1/4"x1" splines, you get 384 feet in splines, if you laminate them four wide, you get 96' (yes, feet) of subroadbed, just under 77' of subroadbed if you laminate them five wide. But now why not cut them into 1/4"x1/2" strips? This doubles the output from 96 or 77 feet to 154 or 192 feet. Over 2.5-3 scale miles of subroadbed for a 5-10$ 4x8 sheet of Masonite? Sign me up!

Your thoughts?

--Jake

when you start laminating it, you will know.

grizlump

I had my sheet of 1/4" MDF ripped at 15/16" widths, and I liked how it all turned out.  I would worry about anything much less than a full 3/4" taking the vertical deflections well enough not to split.

-Crandell

Ripping is tedious, dangerous, labor intensive work! Joe F.'s recommendation of 7/8" width is from the fact that he has his gang-sawed at 1" centers. If you can find someone with a gang saw it is worth whatever it costs for setup and labor! If you are planning a lot of spline then buy two or three  or more sheets at one time to avoid extra set up charges for each sheet! John

 Do it right the first time and you will save yourself a lot of grief later. Ripping all my masonite into one inch strips was challenging enough and I had the right equipment. Much thinner than an inch and you will run into big flex problems as you build your empire. Same goes for number of splines used.

I am not sure why you would want to put cork on top of the spline as you can bevel the edges of the spline and save some money on cork. Run your scenery up to the edge and use various fillers to fill any gaps. I also used a rasp and some small levels to put built in super elevation into the spline and was very pleased with how it turned out.

This is my first layout that was built to be permanent after returning to the hobby after years away and I followed the advice of these forum members very closely every step of the way and have had no frustrations or setbacks at all. Here is a photo of my very first layout using spline. The track is now laid and I couldn't be happier. Good luck with whatever you do and keep us posted on your progress.

                                                              Brent