Glue Confused

[jacon12]

I'm a bit confused whether or not now is the time to glue the 2 inch extruded styrofoam base to the plywood benchtop..

Do I glue it down before I start laying out the trackwork or do the trackwork and then have to take it up to glue it down?
What would be the pros and cons?
Jarrell

[selector]

Glue it first, Jarrell. It is the 'land', and it is there first.

You can then cut down if you want a downward grade, or build up if you want topography and rising grades.

Your track plan will take care of itself as you build your topography. Lay out your 'ground-level' track to see how it all fits. Then, try the cardboard grade trick to get a feel for where your hills and other features will be, how tall they'll be, and what shape, with what size footprint over all.

Mark the outsides of your ground-level track, all over the layout; you'll have two parallel lines curving here and there, and should meet somewhere with the start of your lines. Those lines ar your prime reference for you as you now begin to cut and stack foam tablets for hills. Where you need to place tablets over the rail lines you drew, you know you also need to build a cut possibly, and certainly a grade there, so shape the tablets accordinly. Us a rasp or surform or wire bru***o get that worked out.

[jacon12]

QUOTE: Originally posted by selector

Glue it first, Jarrell. It is the 'land', and it is there first.

You can then cut down if you want a downward grade, or build up if you want topography and rising grades.

Your track plan will take care of itself as you build your topography. Lay out your 'ground-level' track to see how it all fits. Then, try the cardboard grade trick to get a feel for where your hills and other features will be, how tall they'll be, and what shape, with what size footprint over all.

Mark the outsides of your ground-level track, all over the layout; you'll have two parallel lines curving here and there, and should meet somewhere with the start of your lines. Those lines ar your prime reference for you as you now begin to cut and stack foam tablets for hills. Where you need to place tablets over the rail lines you drew, you know you also need to build a cut possibly, and certainly a grade there, so shape the tablets accordinly. Us a rasp or surform or wire bru***o get that worked out.

At what point does the base ground color painting of the base 2 inch foam come?
Could you elaborate on how to construct the temporary carboard inclines? I'm going to use Woodland Scenics foam risers for the finished product and I was think about going ahead and buying them to experiment with.
Thanks for the help!!
Jarrell

[selector]

Painting will be done after all your track-work is proved, and you can only do that after all of your topography is in place (glued), and the grades all smoothed and ready for track. Painting is done as you are ready to do the ground foam scenic stuff. By that time, your track is in place, wired, proved, and covered with green painter's tape to keep it clean while you slop on the latex. Painting is done even after all of your rock moldings are in place; you'll paint around them. In fact, my tunnel portals were already in place (cuz I proved the track, remember, and the portals are notorious for making unwanted contact with longer rolling stock, especially if, like me, you have a curve right there).

Use the WS risers, mainly because that is what you are going to use! Just find a way to jury-rig them for now, so that you can satisfy yourself/locos, that they work. You can permanently install them later, when you have done the rough grade or topography on which they will be placed. BTW. I have never used the risers; I just carved and cut foam inclines on the side of my mountain, and laid the track on them. They worked, eventually, but I had to do a lot of wire brush planing to get the track sections to meet flat enough to keep bumps out of the joins.