Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.
Most of the trouble I had with full size track plans was lining the pieces up. You should have a lot easier time of that compared to my array of 11"x17" laser prints. Still, the area where track moves from one piece to another is where little alignment errors creep in. A small move at one end can result in a lot of displacement at the other.
I used a pounce wheel and/or a stylus pushing down on tailor's transfer paper to get the plan onto my subroadbed. Next time I may just glue it right down and build on top of that.. undecided at this point.
Good luck!
Chris
I traced my 100% size drawing onto Velum tracing paper that I taped together to make 8'x4' sheets (same size as my plywood). By doing sections of track at a time, I was able to reduce the wood wastage to practically nil by careful fitting of the sections on the paper. I marked on the original plan each section copied. Since my sub'bed is a 2-layer glued sandwich of 1/4" ply, I did this twice, staggering the joints by at least 6" to avoid cusps at the joints. In effect, I now have a 11x14' cookie cutter layout that crosses over itself, made of a continuous sheet of 1/2" ply.
Since I'm not too speedy, some of the pieces lay flat on the cellar floor for over a year after cutting, and all fit nicely when I went to assemble them. The nice thing is that the grade changes are smooth and vertical easements were a snap to do. (I laid the lower pieces of ply onto their risers before gluing the upper layer to them. Use lotsa clamps!!)
As for line error, I can't say there was any, or none of consequence. The track centreline was drawn onto the velum and onto the ply as the final reference for the cork that would come later. I'd do a sight-check on critical turnouts like at yard throats before gluing the cork down. I have a lot of curved turnouts; they save real estate well. Flextrack is very forgiving if you make small changes later. My original drawing is still on the floor as a slop-catcher. I'd drop a plumbline to it occasionally as I was building to keep the centreline in place. The paper will disappear later after the paint and plaster are done.
George
I did the same thing as you taking a plan that was 1/2" per foot and blowing it up full size to 13`10" by 6`6". It also took 3 sheets to accomplish this at a cost of $25 per set. I bought 3 sets and have used every one. I first layed the plan on the floor and built the benchwork to the plan making sure that I did not space a joist over a turnout throwbar. After completing the benchwork I then layed another set on the table and cut the plan along the track lines and then traced the cut line to the plywood. I did have a little problem lining up the sheets as I lost some accuracy between the different sheets (about1/2") If I ever do this again I will go to a place that has a 60 inch machine as it will eleminate the third sheet and I will place sheet carbon paper under the plan face down to the plywood and run a pencil over the 60 inch sheets theryby forcing the plan onto the plywood. I left the set on the floor as I was able to take measurements off that set to check on the accuracy of the drawn plan on the tabletop and crossreference it with the scale drawing that I had blown up.
Bob D As long as you surface as many times as you dive you`ll be alive to read these posts.
No, my 'sections' were random length. What I did was to take the 4x8' sheets of Velum and roll them like (4' wide) scrolls, and then try to get the best fit of track bed to minimize the wastage of plywood. Some of my pieces were 8' long, while the others were somewhere from 2' and up. Remembering that this was to build the 2 layer sandwich, the tracing was done again for the other layer, and the criteria was to never have 2 joints within 6" of each other (that's why I marked the section-ends and numbered them onto the original drawing). I marked out the 3" width of my sub'bed and the centreline on the tracings, and transferred them with a stilletto point onto the plywood and joined the dots like in a kid's puzzle. Worked beautifully. For tracing accuracy, I unwound the scroll and taped it to the plywood sheet before poking the dots. Also marked on the upper layer were the turnout drawbar locations. If I get to do another, I might use 3-1/2" bed width, since in a few spots there was a bit of springiness because of the distance between supporting risers that I had to deal with- not a big fix, but it had to be done.
The plumb bob just kept me on the straight and narrow as I put the sections end-to-end. Funny how a thin jigsaw blade can wander just a bit, and after a couple of joints, that small error can add up, especially on a curve! The orig drawing is on very heavy paper I got at the local carpet/vinyl store. It comes in the rolls of flooring to keep skidmarks from scratching the surfaces. And it was free! It's strength means I can walk on it without stretching it too much, so it'll survive until the scenery is done, whenever...
The only gaps in the benchwork are where I knew there would be a long bridge across the end of the yard, and the other where there will be a drop-down leaf containing a Bascule bridge that will run across the entrance to the operating-pit. Any other bridges or trestles will be cut as I get to them. I wanted to get trains rolling now so I wouldn't get bogged down in construction. FWIW, the base of my plan is #62 from Lin Westcott's book "101 Trackplans", with some changes like a 4 track staging area with provision for continuous running, and a size change to fit the allotted space..
I work as a lonewolf, and often seem to reinvent the wheel. Glad to see another modeller who has done it this way also. Thanks for the vote of confidence!
I never have been able to plan anything bigger than a ping-pong table layout in great detail. My present layout 'plan' is a sketch drawn in Armstrong squares. Detailed track planning is done full size on card stock 500 scale meters (or less) ahead of the tracklaying crew. The card stock is cut out, tie-strip wide, and used to mark out the cut lines on whatever plywood I'm cookie-cutting that day. Then I lay it on some fan-fold underlayment (thin extruded foam) and spray it with grey rattle-can paint. The foam gets cut into roadbed and caulked to the cookie-cut plywood subgrade, which is wider than the roadbed base to allow attachment of scenery.
There is now a pink strip exactly the shape of the trackwork, right down the middle of the roadbed (the sloped sides of which are also pink.) If I was so inclined, I could lay flex track right on the foam, but instead I caulk down the cardstock template and lay my track on that - clear caulk under the template, grey caulk under the flex track.
As I see it, the major point is to make sure that everything in the roadbed/trackwork 'sandwich' is securely anchored to whatever is above and below it, unless that, 'Thing,' is air. Since I consider ballasting track to be part of second stage scenery construction, I can't depend on ballast glue to hold anything in position - except for the ballast itself.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - on full scale track templates)
I used XTrkCad to design my layout and printed out full size the areas that needed to be perfect.
these areas were the turnouts and curves etc and I left the straight areas in between so the flextrack could be added with gentle curves which I think looks better than completely straight track
I glued these areas down and built everything on top, with no problems.
trevor
I also used 1:1 printouts from Xtrk-Cad. I scotch-taped everything together. Xtrk printouts line up easily. Then I laid it all out, and used large-headed thumb tacks to hold it in place, and removed a few tacks in a section, slipped carbon paper under to trace (just using a dull pencil). Flawless. Perfect.
By the way, I use plywood, not foam. My thumb tack method probably would not be secure in foam.
Maybe a look at Fastracks new "Infinate Track System" would be usefull for you. They have a vidio of it on http://www.handlaidtrack.com
Jules