Bench work top

Hi Y'all,

I need a little help and y'all are so good at it, I knew I could ask. My question is about bench work, in specific, the surface.

When I was modeling 20+ years ago, it was 4x8 plywood, usually 3/4 inch, Birch, with cork roadbed. Now I know I was using plastic wheels back then, but the trains running made the plywood rumble which took away from the trains.

Now, there is foam roadbed, cork roadbed, tar like strip, and some still use plywood, while others are using foam board. What is the best option. I'm using metal wheels now and I want to enjoy the trains, not hear the board rumble to oblivion.

Thanks. I apologize if this is a stupid question, but I needed to ask it.

Manny

 

Many places to find debates about benchwork, which is presumably why nobody has chimed in in 23 hours. Personally, 1/2" plywood with 1/2" Homasote is plenty sturdy, if spans are 24" or less. I have no plans to get up on the layout to sleep, dance or build the Rockies in plaster.
This is another case of looking at other layouts (and maybe thumping them like a melon.) Plywood under roadbed only or solid sheets over the modules you were talking about? Some great layouts have used foam. You may want to look at the Layout Design forum on Yahoo. Bound to be old threads there with everything imagineable discussed.

 

Manny:

Model Railroader's special issue "Realistic Reliable Track" did an extensive test to answer this. They used various combinations and ranked them on
three characteristics.

Overall
High pitched noise (wheel to rail)
Low pitched noise (locomotives)

Ranking was from 1 (good) to 10 (poor). The top three combinations were:


Cork on top of camper tape 1-1-2

Homabed on camper tape 1-1-2

Flexbed on camper tape 1-1-2


The best using just one layer was camper tape 2-2-1.

Worst was Homosote on plywood 5-7-6

Hope this helps.

John

 

For sound deadening, the most common form I've heard is 1/2" ply wood, 1" of foam and then cork roadbed.

Ethan

 

There is a large group here in KC that swears by 3/4 plywood and camper tape, and they all operate a lot.

Kent in KC

 

Manny:

On the Wichita Sub (River City RR) I chose to use 1/2" Homasote on 3/4" birch plywood. I actually went one step further and put down the relatively new branchline thickness Homabed to raise my mainline higher than sidings and industrial spurs. A little known fact is that Homabed http://www.calroadbed.com/site/890800/ makes two thickness's of Homabed and two edge bevel choices (45 degree and 60 degree) in each one. The regular or original product is .240" thick and the branchline product is .125" thick. They also make sheets for yards, pieces for turnouts, etc. I chose the .125" thick version with the 60 degree bevel.

As the below pictures show, I first glued the Homasote sheet to the plywood using Titebond II wood glue. The next step was to paint the top of the Homasote with a beige water based paint. This step is very important as Homasote soaks up glue when one gets to the scenery stage. I understand that Homasote is now available pre-painted a beige color. I then glued the Homabed one with the same adhesive caulk than my friend Rick McClellan recommended that I use for gluing the track. It is available at Lowe's.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_178710-68-0...+caulk&pl=1¤tURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=adhesive+caulk

As far as the sound deadening qualities of the various combinations is concerned I have ran the same sound equipped loco of mine on my layout and on one with topper tape on 3/4" birch plywood and quite frankly couldn't tell any difference.

The first picture shows the mainline as it looks at the end of the layout. The second one clearly show the raised mainline in the middle of my classification yard.

Hope this helps.