White foam for support? I'll

White foam for support? I'll be interested to see how that turns out. How's about a trackplan? I'd like to see it because I model in the same scale/gauges (only Eastern). Also, how will you reach said unnamed industry? White foam tends to be very unforgiving to those who lean on it and that looks like quite a stretch. (Of course, I'm short, so everything is a stretch, LOL.)

I used white foam on the Jake because I could get it for free, and I cover it just like you did with acrylics. I final-coat with Perma-Scene, mixed with real dirt, water and white glue. 

The modeling looks good Ben.

TAG

Personally after having put

Personally after having put some track (on homasote) on top of white foam. I will never do that again (and it has sense been torn out)  The reason I used white foam for the mountains is I get it really really cheep (read free).  

In the past I have used white foam below extruded foam and that is not to bad (about the same as jst using extruded foam. But the homasote on white foam is very loud. But that may just be the way my bench work is built.

-Doug M

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I look at White Beadboard this way: If it's good enough for Woodland Scenics [note: all of woodland scenics bulk foam products use the same extruded bead material] it's good enough for me!

The main matter is to get the roadbed down - the cork is the major stabilizing element.  Otherwise, I have found foam to be very stable.  You may notice, of course, that in the thinnest area there is one ply, but everywhere else, I have the the first level of tracks on a total of 6" of the stuff, the upper deck is in some places on top of 10!

What you don't see is the support structure, which is little more than angle brackets [$2.99 each] and shelving.  I used the expensive option, which means if I ever have to tear it all down, I have shelves for every room in the house!  Otherwise, I could have used a 4'x8' sheet of plywood ripped into 12" strips and built my shelves that way.

My foam overhangs the shelves by 8" or so; I could go deeper but I chose not to.

The biggest issues will be with switches, switch machines, and bus lines, because I don't have the luxury of an "open bottom."  I haven't ever really got to the point to worrying about such things, so this will be something I haven't contended with on the earlier layouts.  But this time, I have a plan on how to do it, so we'll see how it works out.I do have some ideas on how to make things all work out, but we're a long way from doing the experiments!!

The beauty of my setup, if you went with just one layer of foam, is that the total for all of the infrastructure needed to put the system up, including the drill, the handsaw, the razor knife And the tape measure, comes to about $250 for very roughly 44 square feet of railroad.  I dare you to find a cheaper alternative WITH the full cost of All tools included!!!

Cork, track and trains are then all on top of that, but hey, if there's anything I learned from the $500 exercise, it's just how expensive this hobby truly IS.

I just calculated the footage of my layout plan...I have roughly 50 square feet of model railroad...not including covered lower level HOn3 space...not bad for $250...

It's going to be a fun little layout!

I wanna see a twackpwan, LOL!

My curiosity is up now, I want to see the trackplan. 

Re: WS foam. It's not your ordinary beadboard. Like Doug, I get my white foam for free as well. The first and second M&WV branches used blue extruded foam (gleaned from construction sites) for scenery only and traditional wood for subroadbed with cork roadbed. The current Jacob's Creek branch has blue foam subroadbed on top of wooden framework. At the tipple, the track is laid right on the ground. As the branch extends further away from the tipple area, I will use cork under it. 

I take it your layout is about 7 x 7? 

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Woodland Scenic's foam is white beadboard. It may be a finer grain bead, but it is still polystyrene beadboard.  The tricks to using their products are the same if you're using the larger grain material.

Using Foam all comes down to this: people are trying to apply Dry Road driving conditions to Wet Road conditions, and while fine grain/blue/pink foam will support such operation to a limit, in the end the regular bead board is more akin to a snow covered road.  There is a different method to using it, but it is more than sufficient, once you realize it is little more than support structure and nothing more.

Those of you who like to lay/lean/load your arms onto the layout, well, you'll have to learn to stand up straight...

My room is 11'x11'

My layout is also my bedroom, and my tallest piece of immoveable furniture is 58," so the lowest my layout could be with the underlying shelving material is around 61".  The upper line is 65".

Here's the trackplan:

Lower Level is all narrow gauge, 24" minimum radius, though perhaps I should have gone with 26".  Oh well...

The upper level is 4 inches above the narrow gauge level, hence some of the narrow gauge is more appropriately "hidden staging" with a total or 3" above it.    The upper layer is removable, but very well supported where it needs to be.

My upper layer is standard gauge, with a 36" minimum radius.  Yes, this certainly limits what I can do between the curves, but I'm happy with it.

The plan is still moving around, but it is by and large static at this point.

I received an item packed in a cube of white bead foam...

Last week, an eBay seller shipped me an item packed in a cube of the white bead foam.  It is @ 9" x 9".  It was cut down the middle and had been carved to hold the item. It was secure alright, but what a mess!!! I ended up taking it outside.  White beads were all over everything including inside the house and me.  This pissed me off.

This is not the same stuff Woodland Scenics uses! I have used a lot of their foam products.

Den

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I have yet to be pissed off by white beads - I keep a good vacuum handy and I clean up after sessions.

If you cut the WS product with a dull knife, you'll get beads.  If you break it and look at the break edge, you'll see beads.  As I was saying, WS is a finer grain bead board than what you find in your local hardware stores, hence the higher price on it, but it is still ultimately white beadboard.  It is very easy to use and it has a far wider availability than blue or pink foam, but it has it's disadvantages like any other building material.

If you use a sharp razor knife, the local hardware board will cut fairly clean - not to say that there won't be debris at all. When I cut out the wash bottom, there was a fair amount of debris, but it was easily solved with a little cleanup afterwards.  Keep the vacuum handy and clean up after each session, there won't be any issues.

At this point I have the cork down, so I can safely say my days dealing with bead debris are quickly passing by.  Once the surface is coated [be it plaster, plastercloth], paint, dirt, white glue] the resulting surface will have no resemblance to what it was.

Someone told me that it's all

Someone told me that it's all a matter of density. The WS stuff is high density and therefore a better product. The ordinary stuff isn't as dense, hence little white balls everywhere. Shop-Vacs eat little white balls like a PacMan, but yeah, they can still get on yer noives.

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So I though I'd go ahead and do a demonstration to fully illustrate both woodland scenics and the common harware store material

I have both products here, for a side by side comparison.  The WS product is a fine grain Styrofoam, where the beads are more compact and tighter fitting.  The hardware store material is a large grain, loosely packed.  i didn't do any density measurements.

They're both smooth where they have been cut [hot wire, no doubt], rough where they have been broke.

Here's the roughage that comes off either one as it is roughed up.  The common hardware product looses beads easier, but they are larger.  The WS product is more resistant to shedding, but as you can see, beads can be brushed off - a finer bead, more likely a clump.  Either way, a vacuum solves both cases.

Here's the secret to cutting this material: A good sharp razor knife.  I realize the industry standard is a hot wire knife, but this method releases polystyrene gas, which will indeed do quite a number on your body - you're ingesting gaseous plastic, if you breathe it in!  Cutting and breaking is much healthier for us all.

The woodland scenics product surprisingly does worse under the knife than the big box product. Whereas the box on the left is mostly smooth, the block on the right is covered in little fuzzies. It makes sense, of course, seeing as how there's more edges that have to be cut, and some of them drag instead of being sliced.

The real impact is best expressed when we get to the relative cost of one foam versus another.

My 2"x6"x8' foam board cost $2.99 from Home Depot

My LHS sells the full line of WS Foam boards. 

• Product          Cost    Volume     Price per Volume
• 6"x2"x96"(HD)  $2.99 1152in³     $0.00259
• 24"x12"x0.5"   $4.99    144in³     $0.03465
• 24"x12"x1"      $5.99    288in³      $0.02079
• 24"x12"x2"    $10.99    576in³     $0.01907
• 24"x12"x3"    $13.99    864in³     $0.01619
• 24"x12"x4"    $15.99  1152in³      $0.01388

Now I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money, but I dare say it becomes obvious why I learned to take my lessons using WS products and applied these lessons to what is most widely available. I basically get 5 times as much volume per dollar at the big box than I do from WS.  I'll take those and use them on other things!!

And now we get to the use of this product.

If you look at woodland scenics scenery system, they assume you will cover your foam with plaster cloth and then use plaster-cast rocks on top of the plaster cloth. In other words, the foam is all just a large support structure. Track is on roadbed, though in some areas it will come down ot the foam surface itself. I don't foresee any issue with it, either way.

I will say this much: the inclines are worth every penny you pay for them.  There is simply no easier way to make a nice smooth grade.

In the corner I have a large heater/airconditioner.  I have decided to put a large removeable moutain in front of it.

I would not normally use any WS product, but seeing as how i got the profile boards for this demonstration [$9.99; I was not about to buy somethigng I could get at a much better price elsewhere!], I'll use them. Lots of shaping left, and then there's the hardshell to put over the foam.

That'll be it for now