Hand Spiking into Pine - bad experience.

[Anonymous]

Paul, I was thinking about that also. Do you think it would work well to paint the rail, then as you're laying it, using thinner to remove paint in small areas to solder to, etc.?

I was messing around with some wood in the garage - just poking spikes into different woods.

I'm starting to think it may be possible to be less frustrated with spiking if I could just buy the right wood - maybe high quality stuff with as few knots as possible.

Something else I've read about is making the roadbed from 1/4" thick strips of pine layed next to each other to accomodate curves, etc. If I were to use this approach, I could just rip tons of 1/4" thick pieces, then chop off all the knots and denser areas, leaving me with nice softer wood without a ton of waste.

Thoughts?

[Paul3]

CARRfan,
I dunno about thinner. If you spill it or use too much, it may be a bit of a pain to clean up (and what will it do to the stained ties if it drips?). I've had success just scraping it off with the tip of a jeweler's file. Some of the guys at the club have those micro-brushes made of metal that you can get from Micro-Mark. They advertise it as a track cleaner for soldering, and it works pretty well.

I haven't heard of that approach with the 1/4" strips. It sounds like spline construction (which is something we've done at my club), but that's something you want to use for subroadbed, not roadbed.

IMHO, I'd try buying different 1x boards of pine using different grades from different pumber yards. Just short lengths...enough to try them out. Then cut'em into roadbed and try it. Don't commit to the pine unless you're sure you've found something that works.

Paul A. Cutler III
*****************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*****************

[Anonymous]

I got the 1/4" wide strips idea from MR - Michael Tylick article from Sept, 1989.

I just re-checked it - he used 1/2" wide strips, and 1/4" wide for sharper turns. Seems like a good idea - then you don't have to do the little slices with a sabre saw to turn corners.

Good to know about the small brushes - I'll have to look into those!

[Anonymous]

After looking at the dimensions of HO track, it seems the strips approach could be problematic. You could easily end up in situations where you're trying to spike right at the seam of 2 stips. Not good. I'm not sure how Michael Tylick dealt with this exactly.

Been doing some searching at Lowe's online - they sell higher quality pine as "craft board". I'll have to get down there and check the stuff out, but I'm guessing this will be knot-free stuff. More expensive than slicing & dicing my own 1x2x8, etc., but possibly more spiking-friendly.

I've been thinking of the pro's & con's of spiking vs. gluing, and one item that Paul brought up is the adjustability factor. Spikes are easy to adjust. Glue - possibly not as easy.

I do like the bullet-proofness of spiked rail. That stuff is not going anywhere, that's for sure.

Still on the fence. Will likely try both methods and go from there.

[Anonymous]

I'm slowly being drawn back to spiking.

I've been doing lots of reading of people's experiences with gluing online, as well as spiking. With spiking, you know the spikes will stay in pine forever. The long term strength of the glue seems suspect.

My main problem with spiking is using all my might to drive the spike. This will have to be taken care of by finding good quality softer pine to spike into.

Also, I've been playing around with not using a pair of pliers to drive the spike all the way in. Instead, I could start the spike with pliers, then push it in with a block of metal (happened to have some blocks of brass lying around).

Using the block greatly decreases my chance of slipping off the spike and slamming into the tie that I'm spiking into.

I bet with some more thinking/experimentation, I'll figure out other methods besides the pliers to drive the spike in.

I like the adjustability of spikes, as well as robustness.

Thanks everyone for your tips.

[Anonymous]

Carrfan,

Hand laying track is time consuming and to do it right it will cost some money. For a contrarian view....

While there are those who use pine for roadbed in handlaying, the preferred material is homasote. There is a reason that it has been used for many years as the roadbed for hand laying... get some and see for yourself. You are going to spend a lot of time preparing your pine roadbed. Cookie cuttering homasote with a plywood subroadbed is going to be quicker and give you a more consistent surface to spike into. (Yes, I have used both methods) Just make sure that the pieces of homasote that you get are of even thickness...No humps and bumps....As to cost, Homasote is 25.00 for a 4 x 8 sheet. You have to cut it yourself, but it is pretty cheap.

As for trying to do this real cheap: What is your time worth??? It would be a drag to spend many hours laying some perfect track work and have it come out sub par because you cheaped out on materials.....

I know that homasote has its drawbacks and many here will tell you about them. For hand laying nothing takes spikes quite like homasote. Most of the expert modelers I know who handlay still use homasote.

[Anonymous]

Trainnut, thanks for the homasote info.

My time is worth a lot, but I also enjoy some painstaking things (I'm a mechanical engineer, with a love for tinkering with microscopic details until something is perfect.

I also will be building a small layout. So a lot of work for roadbed, etc. isn't necessarily a big problem.

Homasote sounds tempting, but I've also heard stories about spikes working loose over time, etc. Maybe I should my hands on some.

[selector]

Gentlemen, below is a photo of the CPR main in south central BC, at a ballast quarry in the hamlet of Wallachin (wall-ah-SHEEN). You can plainly see that the rail is rusted and grimy, as are the plates and ties nearest the rails. By painting your rails AFTER ballasting, you can, if you adjust your airbrush properly, or use a handbrush and washes, get the same effect. I believe that Joe Fugate favours this approach, although I cannot recall his exact method of application.

[Anonymous]

Selector - very true. I am trying to take advantage (if possible) of the ability with handlaying track to have the rails and the ties a distinct different color.

However, I think it could all still look pretty good even if the ties and rail end up the same color (say, roof brown, or possibly darker). Or, like you say, spraying from the right angle, etc. could achieve some color variation from rails to ties.

[jeffers_mz]

Joe's how-to advises using a fine brush, but not to worry if you slop "rust" onto the ties, for the reasons you posted.

[potlatcher]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CARRfan

I may also consider soldering to PC ties instead of spiking. The cool thing about spiking is that I could ballast first - which gives perfect-looking ballasting.

Soldering rail to PC ties and ballasting beforehand don't have to be mutually exclusive. When I handlay switches, I use both wood and PC ties. The PC ties are placed on my switch template only in the locations that are necessary to tie (no pun intended) the rails, frogs, guardrails, etc . . . together, with wood ties in all the other spots. Then I sand the ties down til they're level with the PC ties. With 0.062" thick PC ties, I don't have to sand too far. If you start to see that you are removing the copper from the PC ties, stop sanding. With medium to fine grade sandpaper, this also serves to poli***he copper on the ties.

Next comes the ballast. When it's dry, another light pass with the sanding block removes any residual glue from the PC tie surfaces. They I go to work with the soldering iron, and about an hour later, I have a finished switch. It goes more quickly than spiking, and I have greater confidence in the switch parts staying in gauge. If I choose to, I can always come back and add a few spikes in the wooden ties for visual effect.

Good luck with whatever method you settle on.

Tom

[Anonymous]

Tom, stop giving me more options!!![:D]

Where do you get your PC ties?

Do you then paint the rails and ties after you're done soldering?

Why do you think you have a better chance of the rails staying in gauge with soldering? Do you mean over long periods of time, or are you referring to possible rail shifting as you're driving spikes?

[fwright]

Have to concur with what others have said. Homasote is the best product to date for hand spiking rail. Spikes go in with a reasonable push of the pliers - even a ham-fisted person like me doesn't kink light rail with the spiking push. Force is consistent all the time. Spikes hold for years - I handlaid track on Homasote glued to plywood that was moved in a moving van 4 times and stored vertically for several years. Track was just as good as when laid after that mistreatment. You can get Homasote 3.5" wide strips (10ft long I think) at Home Depot for $3.79. They are in the concrete section where it is apparently used for molds.

Tried redwood for a glass display case. Most of the time it worked fine, but every so often would hit a hard spot in the grain.

Tried cork. Lasted a few years, then the cork dried out and crumbled. Even before it dried out, it would visibly "give" on turnouts and curves when a heavy diecast steam loco would go over the track. I will never use cork roadbed on a permanent layout, period.

I believe I will try Homasote on foam for my upcoming shelf layout. Foam should be more stable than today's plywood, and lighter weight. We'll see.

yours in spiking track (and hair if I had any!)

[Anonymous]

fwright, I've read that homasote varies widely in thickness. Is that your experience? Do you run it through a table saw on edge to get it to a constant thickness? Or is this even possible?


Check out this "Grade C" pine that Lowe's has.

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productList&No=12&Ntt=craft%20board&Ntk=i_products&N=0

I could make 128ft of .313 x 1.4 roadbed for $26.60. That's 20cents/foot, and includes waste for blade thickness.

I have a scrap in my garage that I think is this stuff - leftover from some home project. They call it "craft board", and it's pretty knot-free.

Check it out - this is sweet. Lowe's has a site explaining the grades of wood.

Looks like Grade C is good stuff. You gotta love the internet. Some 20 yr old kid at Lowe's would not have known this stuff (well, maybe 2% of 20 yr old kids who work there, but that's about it...)

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=howTo&p=Build/StrtWWood.html#4

[potlatcher]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CARRfan

Tom, stop giving me more options!!![:D]

Where do you get your PC ties?

Clover House

QUOTE:
Do you then paint the rails and ties after you're done soldering?

That's the plan

QUOTE:
Why do you think you have a better chance of the rails staying in gauge with soldering? Do you mean over long periods of time, or are you referring to possible rail shifting as you're driving spikes?

The solder seems to hold the rails pretty rigid and I expect it will remain that way for a long time. In the short term, any spiking I do after soldering the rails is purely cosmetic. I usually don't apply much side pressure with the spikes that would force them out of gauge.

Tom

[jondrd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Paul3

As I'm in the same club with Bob K. (Hi, Bob!), I agree 100% with what he's saying. In fact, I liked what my club's been doing so much that I did it on my home 25' x 50' layout (Bob helped me cut some).

Paul A. Cutler III
*****************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*****************

You've got a 25' x 50' home layout and you joined a club? What does the club model? Wyoming at half scale?

I know, it's the knowledge sharing and camaraderie. Temporarily overwhelmed by home layout dimensions. Forgive me...........25x50 wow...........25x50 holy cow................25x50 mutter, mutter, mutter.........25x50? [sigh] [sigh] [sigh] [8D]

Jon

[Paul3]

CARRfan,
If your still concerned about the grip of your pliers on your spikes, consider getting the specially cut pliers from Micro Mark. They are the plain jaw Xuron spiking pliers with a "T" shape cut into one side. This allows one to place the spike either way, with the head on one side or the other. At my club, they've been doing this for decades with regular needlenose pliers and a Dremel tool.

The trick with me is that I first grab the spike so that only the bottom 1/8" is sticking out. I then set it in the tie. Then I let go and regrip the spike about halfway to the head, and push again, now into the roadbed. Next I close the pliers, and simply push down on the spike to seat it all the way. Since I've started doing it this way, I haven't bent too many spikes (it still happens if you push unevenly).

Trainnut1250 wrote:

QUOTE: While there are those who use pine for roadbed in handlaying, the preferred material is homasote. There is a reason that it has been used for many years as the roadbed for hand laying...

Oh? I've never even seen anyone handlay on homasote before. My club, The South Shore Model Railway Club of HIngham, MA, has been handlaying on pine for over half a century, and our "sister" club, The North Shore Model Railroad Club of Wakefield, MA, has been handlaying on pine for the last 30 years. Oh, sure, other clubs around put their track on homasote, but only flex track, not handlaid.

QUOTE: You are going to spend a lot of time preparing your pine roadbed. Cookie cuttering homasote with a plywood subroadbed is going to be quicker and give you a more consistent surface to spike into. (Yes, I have used both methods)

Cookie cuttering is faster? Not for me. I can cut a lot more wood on a table saw than I can with a saber saw...a lot neater, too. And then there's the dust factor and the dulling of the cutting tools to consider...

QUOTE: Just make sure that the pieces of homasote that you get are of even thickness...No humps and bumps....

That's not a problem with pine. You can simply sand out any differences in height if you had any. And pine is not as sensitive to moisture as homasote is.

QUOTE: As for trying to do this real cheap: What is your time worth??? It would be a drag to spend many hours laying some perfect track work and have it come out sub par because you cheaped out on materials.....

Pine is a "cheap" material? I beg to differ. It's the quality choice, IMHO. Real track has real ballast shoulders, hard to do with cookie cutter homasote. A real ballast profile also follows the rails exclusively, and pine makes great curves that naturally flow into the easements and curves. It's also easy to superelevate the curves by shimming under the pine, tilting the whole ballast profile as it should be.

IMHO, pine on spline is the best choice for the quality. Other methods are easier or cheaper or both...but nothing flows around the layout like pine on spline (hey, and it rhymes, too! [:)]).

selector wrote:

QUOTE: By painting your rails AFTER ballasting, you can, if you adjust your airbrush properly, or use a handbrush and washes, get the same effect.

While true, one would have to be a airbrush (or paintbrush) expert of a high order in order to reproduce that look with the rail on the ties w/ballast. Sure, the ballast is a little rusty around the rails, and so are the ties. However, they have a very light dusting of rust compared to the rail itself. How do you make sure you coat the side and base of the rail completely while only getting a teeny tiny bit of spray on the ties and ballast? I mean, the rail is less than a 1/10th of an inch high, and my hand ain't that steady...not for miles of rail.

To me, it's far easier to simply paint the rail first, stain and ballast the ties, then lay the rail. Last, you go back and add weathering like drips and such to give it variety.

potlatcher, I agree with your thoughts on PC boards in switches. My club's switched to this method as a way to carry power to the point rails, rather than relying on frogs or point contact or jumper wires. However, since we're building the switches in place most of the time, we actually solder the PC ties last, just before final weathering.

fwright wrote:

QUOTE: Have to concur with what others have said. Homasote is the best product to date for hand spiking rail. Spikes go in with a reasonable push of the pliers - even a ham-fisted person like me doesn't kink light rail with the spiking push. Force is consistent all the time. Spikes hold for years - I handlaid track on Homasote glued to plywood that was moved in a moving van 4 times and stored vertically for several years. Track was just as good as when laid after that mistreatment.

Well, I've got a section of yard (9 tracks, 10' long) that's from my old club (we moved 7 years ago). This yard was handlaid in 1953 on pine. Sure, the track is brass instead of N-S, but it's still in gauge and in use 53 years later, and that's after it was cut in half, and put back together again! [;)]

jondrd wrote:

QUOTE: You've got a 25' x 50' home layout and you joined a club? What does the club model? Wyoming at half scale?

Heh. [:)] Actually, we're sort of modeling Boston to Harrisburg by way of the NY&NE, CNE, L&HR, & RDG...with the NYO&W and the OCRR thrown in (plus little bit of B&M...sort of). Our layout room at the club is over 6300 sq. ft. with no posts. We got into the location in 1994-ish, and started building the new layout in 1998. We probably have one of the nicest club buildings in the country...which is pretty good considering what it looked like when we got it (30' hole in roof, no utilities, etc.). It's a former ammo depot build for the US Navy. Apparently, our building was used to house 16" Naval rounds when the battlewagons were in Boston Harbor.

QUOTE: I know, it's the knowledge sharing and camaraderie. Temporarily overwhelmed by home layout dimensions. Forgive me...........25x50 wow...........25x50 holy cow................25x50 mutter, mutter, mutter.........25x50?

Well, we're an old club (est. 1938), and we've got over 60 members. Both my dad and I are members, and have been since 1990 (I was a junior member at the time). I've spent over half my life in the club, and I've made a number of close friends and gotten experiences I would never have dreamed of in 1990 when I was just 15 (I've operated a B23-7, an S-4, and S-6...I've gotten cab rides in F40PH's...I've gotten guided tours "behind the scenes" at various locales...it's been great!).

But dad and I wanted a layout to call our own, and not have to get it through a committee. While the club can be great fun, it can also be frustrating. So we built a layout in the basement...but not at "home", in the basement of my parent's bookstore. So we did it. It's a simple design, about 200' of double track, fairly straight with 30" curves, three yards, etc. And we operate it once a week, 2 hours at a time. It's fun...and besides, my club is a 35 minute commute. [:)]

Paul A. Cutler III
*****************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*****************

[Anonymous]

Paul3, you have clearly been around the block and back when it comes to roadbed!

Today I saw some lauan plywood at a lumberyard. Have you ever spiked into it? Some people say it's good stuff. I don't want to purchase a 4 x 8 sheet of it if I'm not going to like it.

With the lauan, I'd likely need to go cookie-cutter style.

At this point, spiking into pine seems to be having the most "pro's", and fewest "con's" on my list.

Saw some 2nd grade or whatever you call it 2 x 12 x 8ft pine at a real lumberyard today - it's currently about $26. I could get a lot of roadbed out of that chunk, minus a few knots.

The guy behind the counter told me getting 2 x 12 x 8ft "clear" stuff would be difficult, and I shouldn't count on being able to get any in tiny quantities very easily. This is the biggest lumberyard within +/- 20 miles, so it's probably a decent representation of what's available in my area.

[Anonymous]

Ooops - just did a search on the forum, and found your answer to my question - in this very thread!

"Just watch out for Luan quality. In my own experience, some Luan is soft like one. Other Luan (that looks just like the other kind) is as hard as a rock, which makes it almost impossible to spike. Try before you buy. If nothing else, try scratching the luan at the store with your finger nail. If you can scratch it pretty good, it's soft enough to spike. If it's like trying to scratch concrete, go elsewhere..."

I hear you. I was at the lumberyard and saw this stuff, and thought, "That's that rock hard stuff!". I don't recall if I scratched it with my fingernail or not - was doing lots of wood window-shopping.

I remember hearing people saying it must be from the Phillipines to be the right stuff.

Part of my quest is to find a process that will be infinitely repeatable. White pine has two thumbs up in that regard. That stuff and a table saw will always be available.

Plus, you get that manly woodwoking thing going on by using wood.

I may just have to occasionally reach for the dremel tool to drill a tiny hole in a tough spot in the wood to be able to drive the spike in.

Tomorrow I'll be purchasing some smooth-jawed needle nose pliers and put the grooves in them to improve my spike-holding abilities.

[Anonymous]

Hi CARRfan I don't know if you can get popular or willow both are very soft woods. Here in New Zealand they grow along the side of the road and rivers. Bad wood for building of houses etc but would be alright for road bed

wish you luck in your search

cheers womblenz

[Anonymous]

Thanks womblenz - I saw Poplar at Lowe's (a popular "superstore" for home improvement here in the US). You know what? - I think that stuff could be perfect. Unfortunately, it's very expensive!

How about this? You and I are sitting here communicating - you in New Zealand, and me sitting here in California, US.

How about that? Crazy! My grandparents would probably not even believe me if I told them this!

[Anonymous]

I hand spiked my thumb once. I dont hand spike anymore.

[Paul3]

CARRfan,
Thanks for the complement. [:)] I've tried to learn as much as I can about the hobby, and when I started to build my version of the New Haven, I researched quite a bit about roadbed choices. I didn't like insulation foam (too weak and messy for my tastes), Woodland Scenics foam (I didn't want to glue this stuff...what if I wanted to move it later?), cork (pricey and long term drying-out problems), Tru-Scale (very expensive), Homabed (also very expensive), homasote (hard to handle to make it look right), plastic (I'm not doing sectional track ever again), etc. Only pine gave me a quality choice at a decent price...the major drawback being my labor to make it.

About Luan, I've used it in my yards, which is much better than trying to lay that much pine for something you'll want flat anyways. Just shop around, and you'll find some soft Luan...somewhere.

NOTE: Stay away from any 2" thick stock! Even clear 2" stock is not going to be as nice as the equivalent 1" stock. Trust me. And you don't need a 1"x8"...a clear or mostly clear 1"x4" is also acceptable. You could even get 1"x2" boards, but they tend to be more warped than the bigger boards. The trick is to get something that can be ripped into 1"x2" boards evenly, then sliced in half vertically to make approx. 1/4" thick by 1 1/2" boards that you can put shoulders on.

Oh, and when shopping for Luan, bring along a thumbtack and see if you can push it in the wood. If you can't, forget it. If you can, it's got possibilities.

Paul A. Cutler III
*****************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*****************

[fwright]

CARRfan

Even though I favor Homasote, there are plenty of success stories with clear pine and the Tru-Scale milled wood roadbed.

I've thought back on my experience with the redwood base for my display and realized part of my problem with hard spots may have come from hard spots of glue that I used to mount the ties.

With the Homasote, I used white or yellow glue, diluted 50:50 with wet water, and installed ballast at the same time I laid the ties. Never had a problem with hard spots curling spikes.

With the clear redwood base on the display, I was in a hurry and not at my own house, so I used white glue full strength, and no ballast. I may have created the hard spots with thick glue that hardened. Which means you might want to watch that the glue you use for the ties does not seal and/or harden the pine grain too much. Those who routinely use pine roadbed can probably advise better on what glue and glue concentrations to use.

Hope all goes well. And remember you can always try a small section of each roadbed material and see which you like better.

yours in handlaid track
Fred Wright

[Anonymous]

Paul3, have you used redwood before? My local Lowe's has lattice stock for $1 each - 8ft long. Nice!

I'm going to play around with some of it, as well as some good pine I just picked up.

[Anonymous]

Alright, scratch the redwood lattice. After taking a closer look at it after getting home, I realized it's pretty uneven stuff.

Working with the clear pine was interesting. However, I don't get how you would join sections of it at turnouts, especially if you bevel the edges.

So I began experimenting with spline roadbed (as I mentioned earlier in this thread - as done by Michael Tylick on both an MR project layout - a module, as well as his own O scale trolley layout).

I found this method also described in How To Build Model Railroad Benchwork by Linn Westcott.

It works nicely, with the one problem being having all of the splines be the same height. As hard as I could try, wood doesn't machine as accurately as metal, due to the deflection of the wood as I was cutting 1/4" wide strips on the table saw.

So basically, I could cut strips that are approximately 1/4" wide and tall, lie them side by side - make turnout transitions pretty nicely, etc., but then the tops are eneven.

Next, I may look into planing or sanding the tops until they're even. This may be a big hassle, causing me to abondon all methods other than cookie-cutter. For this, I need to find the right material (enter again, the proper Lauan plywood or homasote...)

Unfortunately, the lumberyard was closed today, so armed with my tack for toughness-testing, I was unable to get my hands on the stuff. Maybe next week...

[Paul3]

CARRfan,
No, I haven't used redwood, and I think you have figured out why. I'd also stay away from lattice board unless you can find some soft stuff. Most if not all lattice board I've found has been very hard...

To place switches, what I do at home is lay the straight roadbed down, then go back and place the switch where I want it. Once I know where it's going, I'll either cut out the switch area with a back saw (and then trim off the bevel where the diverging route goes), or I Dremel off the bevel with a disc. For the diverging route roadbed, I cut it at the same angle (I'm using No. 6 switches), and butt it up agains the spot where I cut off the bevel.

Of course, life would be simpler if one knew where all the switches were going in the first place, and could plan accordingly. I didn't exactly know, which is why I did it the way I did.

At my club, they have a planer and they make switch blocks to fit each kind of switch. They put down the switch block as they are laying out the other roadbed, so it's pretty seamless (or rather, a lot better than my method, but that's what you get for planning it all out first).

As far as spline goes, at my club we use pine spline and spacer blocks (it's more effiicient and easier to do). First, the center spline is laid down on top the risers. This spline, about 5/16" thick, is bent and moved about until the desired track layout is found (moving risers as need be). Once it's location is determined, we nail it down to the risers with finish nail or two, right down the center. Now we have our track layout.

Next, we lay one outer spline along the center spline, but we don't put them against each other. Instead, we glue approx. 1" long blocks made up of the same material the spline is made of (pine) about every 6" between the center spline and the new outer spline. We then use spring clamps or some homemade clamps to fix the center spline to the outer spline with a block between. When we're putting it together, make sure that the spacer blocks are flush or lower than the spline, and use a square to make sure that the outer spline is even with the center spline. Clamp tightly and let dry.

Repeat on the other side to the center spline, but alternate the spacer blocks with the oher side.

Essentially, the end result will be three continuous splines seperated from each other by spacer blocks.

BTW, why are the tops of your splines uneven? All we do at the club is cut them out of 1"x stock, and as long as they are unwarped, the tops and bottoms are reasonably straight. try the spacer block method before you give it up. It should work better than all-spline construction.

Paul A. Cutler III
*****************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*****************

[Anonymous]

Paul3, thanks for the tips.

I see how the spacer block method would be best for roadbed with risers. I don't understand all these people using the thickest plywood they can as subroadbe, when they could do spline (or spline with spacers), and make it much stiffer. (The mechanical engineer in me would prefer to see a tall cross-section spline, made out of as little material as possible - which the spline with spacer achieves). I've also seen this in Linn Westcott's old book.

The reason my roadbed splines are of varied thickness is because I'm cutting their 1/4" height on the table saw, which has proved to be difficult to do accurately. Plus/minus 1/32" tolerance or so, and you end up with a 1/16" thickness difference from one piece to the next.

Now, keep in mind, I'm trying to create roadbed using 1/4" thick spline on top of plywood, as opposed to roadbed for open grid benchwork.

The nice thing about the spline roadbed is intersections at turnouts, etc. are not super complicated. That is cool.

What I need to do is purchase wood that is the correct roadbed thickness for me. I could, now, for example, make 3/4" thick roadbed quite nicely - because that's what the stock material is (1 x material). But if I want to make it 1/4" thick, I have to do the cutting to thickness myself. This is where the tolerancing of my "home tools" becomes problematic.

This whole fiasco has also got me thinking about going open-grid vs. table top (a 'la David Barrow's Dominoes). If I go open-grid, my 1x material could become my subroadbed and roadbed spline at once, and I'd have the advantages of open-grid benchwork.

In related news, I carried out a highly scientific test last night of walking around my garage and trying to drive a spike into all plywood in site - shelves, scraps, you name it.

I must say, spikes went into random plywood just about as easily as it went into pine. Which gets me thinking...

Maybe I could just spike right into plywood for flat sections of layouts, and for open-grid sections, do the spline thing, using 3/4" thick spline from 1x stock material.

I would likely need to keep the dremel tool with some tiny drill bits within reach for the occasional spiking into a tough spot or knot.

[bogp40]

CARRfan,
I am in the club with Paul3 as mentioned earlier. I don't know if where you live you would have the wide range of woods available to you that we do here in the Northeast. The pine spline method that we use does have many advantages as Paul3 mentions. As a finish carpenter by day, I really only offer my experience to our capable benchwork and trackwork members if needed. So I don't have as much hands on with the spline as Paul3 and others. I like to go to the club to enjoy myself doing scenery, building bridges etc, not to continue doing what I have all day long.
Paul3 mentions to stay away from 2x stock. most all 2x is framing lumber, with exceptions of specialty milled products as 5/4 and 6/4 pine etc. These would be cost prohibitive anyway. In the Northeast framing lumber is 90% spruce, 10% fir and hemlock. The south tends to use much more of the yellow pine and a mix of Douglas fir. Stay away from yellow pine. The Western areas use a considerable amount of Douglas fir.
Now as to the pine you need to look for. In the Northeast we have many very good quality lumber yards still available carrying various grades of 1x pine. Much of what I use professionally and for RR use is Sugar and White pine. It is graded in #2 common(select tight knots and some wild graining) picking through will yield some very decent stock. Good for benchwork and spline if selected. Then there is "D" select and Cor better. These clears are much more expensive, but for ripping roadbed or almost perfect splines, they can't be beat. Don't go by Home D. so called grading of what I would only use as firewood as to their #2 common. This stuff is #3 or utility at best. This crap almost always forces one to have to buy what they call "Premium" pine. It may be premium to them, but it is far from clear. (Wonder why they don't call it clear?) I can pick though #2 stack and come up with better than some of the Home center's good stuff.
Now, in you area??, other types of pine may be available, not knowing your local and experienced in only working in Ca and the eastern states, I don't know if Idaho White or the sugars are readilly available.
Clear Douglas fir(vertical grain) however a great stable wood would only work for benchwork. I would stay away from pnderosa as well.
If quality pine is nowhere to be found at a raesonable cost you could consider using the Masonite spline method, that I believe, Joe Fugate and others have successfully used for years. I have never built a masonite spline, but I bet you could almost walk on this stuff, like it was a balance beam.
I remember a link to a tutororial on masonite spline, but I can't remember where. Maybe someone can give it to you. It is definately impressive, and may be an alternative for you.
Happy spiking, Bob K. SSMRC

[Anonymous]

Alright - I continued my not-so-scientific plywood spiking experiment this morning, trying lots more plywood in my garage. Some was much harder than others - must have gotten lucky in my smaller sampling yesterday.

Also experimented with bending my spline material (1/4" wide clear pine) into tighter radii, and broke a fiew pieces. So the jury is still out.

I still have not touched on the Lauan plywood (aka doorskin possibly? - thanks mlehman for the heads up on that stuff).

Will likely get my hands on that stuff this week.