| Last updated on November 22, 2020
Members enjoy 15% off any purchase in our store. Join Today!
Milwaukee, Racine & Troy HO scale steel cupola caboose - road name 1407
Don’t miss this exclusive HO scale Milwaukee, Racine & Troy steel cupola caboose.
I still love watching these videos but I do have one question. The company that made homabed is now out of business. Is there another source for a similar product? What would you use if you were building the layout today? Would you choose cork roadbed? I would appreciate any knowledge you can pass along.Bill Perez
I LOVE the Homasote roadbed – it is much easier to work than cork. However, I am a BIG fan of sanding the roadbed after the glue has set and before laying track. This smooths out variations in thickness of glue and small height variances from one piece to the next. I use 120 grit sandpaper on a hand sander (the longer the better) and the job goes very quickly. Keep your vacuum handy!
Homasote IS super dusty to cut, so when I went to the lumber yard, I had already figured out my layout patterns, had them cut the main pieces, left them with the dust & mess. And it was a lot easier to transport, and to take downstairs to the layout room. Is that fair? Anyway when you tell them what you are doing with it, all of a sudden the lumber yard wants to get involved with your project.
I think this winter I'm going to add on a detachable 3×8 foot yard. I have a freezer that I'm always into in the summer month's. But would be a good place for another yard. I guess another trip to the lumber yard,!
Great video as always, what I did was cover the complete layout with 1/2" homasote, then glued my cork road bed on top. Later when removing a piece of track to to add or repair a section of track, the cork road bed and whatever else is on the homasote comes up very easily and you olny lose 1 very thin layer of the homasote.
When using Homa-bed (or cork roadbed for that matter) I prefer to turn a piece upside and match it bevel to bevel when I need to fill "special/difficult" situations. I find itt is much easier to cut matching vertical to vertical surfaces than to try to shave off this or that part of a beveled edge. That is also why I save the scraps because often it is only a small piece that you need.
Sawing homasote indoors is, as David and others have said, not recommended due to the truly amazing type and amount of fine dust it creates. When I simply had to do it (it was just too cold to do work outside) I set up my shop vacuum hose nearby and ran it while sawing, moving the hose end to follow my work. That was cumbersome but helped. So did using a blade intended for cutting metal because it has a very narrow "kerf." It went slower but the wide kerf blades that go the fastest create the biggest mess. I understand there are knife-like blades that fit into common jig and table saws that also help minimize dust because they have next to no kerf.
Homasote should and usually does hold spikes well but some guys dip the tip of the spike into white glue.
I think I will stick to cork
Good work, David. I use a lot of the straight, un-notched roadbed too. It simplifies things where the track runs straight, and actually it can bend in gentle curves, often enough to match up to turnouts and lead into easements (transition curves). You might as well use ALL the tricks in the bag. – Andy
Fantastic, very informative and very helpful for this beginner. Mr. Popp could this method be used for laying cork road bed?
Outstanding tutoral
David,
Greetings!
I have recently purchased a half dozen 4 x 8 sheets of Homasote through Menard's and have experimented with it by setting up some temporary oval layouts to test the material. While spikes are easy to push in, I have found they do not hold the track securely after running trains for a while. (30 minutes to an hour). Many of the spikes work their way loose even to the point of catching on trains. Both you and Tony Koester (and I greatly respect you both), have mentioned it's spike holding qualities but it has not worked for me. I have apx. 1/2" thick sheets and have tried assorted spike brands and lengths with the same disappointing results. Do you have any suggestions? I even tried long finish and paneling nails to go into the plywood table surface beneath the Homasote but they tend to deform the track even when I am careful to install them.
Help if you can!
Thanks
Mark
P.S. The sheets I buy carry a Homasote brand label/sticker. So they are not a knock-off or generic replacement.
Hello all,
Here are few answers to the questions that came in over the weekend:
Turnout pads fitting specific turnouts – California Roadbed has a listing of pads for specific manufacturer's turnouts, and I ordered the pads I needed for the turnouts on the Southbound. This is far more critical for working with curved turnouts, such as the Walthers and Peco units on the layout. Standard turnouts are more easy to work with – any no. 6 pad will work with most any manufacturer's no. 6 turnout.
Centering turnouts to the pad – This is an eyeball project, and you simply position the turnout's ties so they have an even amount of space from the tips to the beveled edges of the pad. There is some wiggle room here.
Centering the pads – Yup, use the centering lines drawn on your subroadbed surface to align the turnout pads. You can mark the pad with a centering line as well. I used small pencil dashes just at the ends.
Cost comparison – Manufactured Homasote roadbed will run about $1.00 a foot vs. $0.50 a foot for cork when purchased in case quantities. Turnout pads in either material cost a lot more than if you built them yourself from strips – but are great for speed and ease of use.
Water issues – As long as you follow a normal scenery technique (soaking the roadbed with alcohol, glue, and even wet water), Homastoe won't cause you any trouble. Do not use the material for outdoor applications!
Larger sheets – Yup! you can get matching sheet material in a variety of sizes for making yards. In fact, I wish I'd ordered some for the team track area on the layout. I ended up using leftover material to build up the yard space. It would have been much easier to use sheets.
Thickness of material – You can get different thicknesses of the roadbed. I used California Roadbed's mainline material, which is .240" thick. Its branch line roadbed is .125". I used the thicker stuff for the project because I wanted to create some variation in the surrounding scenery. Both work well.
Providers – We used California Roadbed for this project. MR is working on their layout for 2016 at the moment and they used Cascade Rail Supply. We've both had good experiences with the materials we received from the suppliers. If you're concerned about delivery times, it's best to contact the supplier before you order.
And yes, I've used 4 x 8 sheets of Homasote before. It cuts easily with power saws, but it is a royal mess – do not cut it in your home. I set my table saw up on the driveway, closed the garage door, and then cut the strips. I did all of the curving slot cutting outside as well, using my reciprocating saw. Wear a respirator and eye protection, as the dust even a simple cut produces is unreal!
Thanks for your questions and comments. We've got a lot more great videos to come on the Winston-Salem Southbound!
David
Excellent! Very informative!
It was very interesting and educational to see how the turnout blocks were fitted to track plan on the plywood. However, I was left with several questions about the turnout blocks and and the actual turnout as well.
First, and very important, are the turnout blocks marked as to centerline of the track? If so, are the marks just on the ends or drawn on the top showing the centerline from end to end?
Second, are the turnout blocks specific to each turnout by manufacturer? Or are they generic?
Third, and by far the most important, how did you know where to position the turnout on the turnout block? Not that any of the other information given could have/should have been left out, but I wish some time had been spent on how the turnout's position was determined.
This was very good, I hadn't seen Homasote roadbed used for quite a while and I had forgotten all the special techniques about working with it.
Another excellent video. Could you comment on the cost difference between this maerial and cork?
One additional question about Homasote David. Since that material is made of paper, does it withstand being saturated with alcohol or a watered glue for laying ballast without coming apart?
I've heard on the forum that dealing with California Roadbed can be a nightmare. How long did you wait for your order?
Homasote is sold as a sound barrier in 1/2", 5/8", and 3/4" thick sheets. The 1/2" size comes in 4'x4', 4'x8', and 4'x10' sheets. To find a dealer near you go to http://www.homasote.com and use the where to buy menu option. As David said cutting it generates a lot of dust and is something you would only want to do outside!
This was very informative and enjoyable to watch. I use the 1/2" homasote cut in 4'-0" strips. I buy it by the 4'-0" X 8'-0" sheet at a local home store. I create my bevel by using hydrocale plaster and a form cut from a peace of styrene to form my bevels on side for my ballast. As for the creft I cut mine using a jigsaw with the homasote strip clamped to a 4'-0" long board. To cover up my holes, joints and crefts I use hydrocele plaster with white glue for strength. After it dries, then I will sand it to make it smooth. Then its time to lay ties for the track or flex track. When sawing homasote. Make sure you wear a dust mask even when your cutting out side. This product creates a lot dust. As for the track I use white glue for my wood ties since I handlay my switches and Liquid Nails for my flex track. I find that working with homasote is an excellent product to work with.
Thank David
David mentioned, or I thought he did, that the Homasote has sound deadening qualities. Can he provide any insight on how it compares to cork on plywood? Thanks.
Given how maddening laying roadbed can be, your segment David using Homasote was informative and enjoyable to watch. Does that roadbed come in bigger sheets for mass yard work?
Very informative. The Homasote seems to be a lot thicker than cork. Is this true, and if so, doesn't it take a lot more scenic materials to bring up the surrounding grade to match the roadbed?
Thanks, John
If you have a young helper or you don't want to use a knife, an X-ACTO razor saw blade is another option for cutting the roadbed.
This segment of the series was very interesting to me, as I have been hearing about the Homabed roadbed , but have never actually seen it or seen it being used. Years ago, I used some regular homasote on a small, mostly experimental layout, because that was what everyone was saying to use – plywood overlaid with a sheet of homasote. It is indeed a dense, solid material which holds spikes extremely well, and, as David mentioned, creates a lot of dust when you work with it. If wood ties are glued to it, it's ideal for handlaying track. Up till now, though, I hadn't seen the stuff shaped into specific configurations, such as turnout pads, etc. This video, (presented in David's usual laid-back & informative style) really shows off the qualities of Homabed. Might be worth a try! Thanks again, David, for an interesting and informative video. Looking forward to the next ones in the series!