Low profile

You will probably need low profile ties.

I have been happy with Kappler ties (I use the full profile).

Do they need to match exactly?

The reason I ask is that I have used the wooden ties from Fast Tracks and they appear to be scale sized in their thickness. The wooden ones are definitely thicker but when they are painted and ballasted you will never know the difference.

I am currently using Cloverhouse PC boards with some times I cut from 3/32" basswood on a curved turnout. I do not think the difference will be noticed.

THinking

I guess wha they have to match, more importantly than the PC ties is the height of the ties of Atlas Super Flex code 100.

Atlas is over sized

Measuring a tie from a piece of flex, the ties are 7x12 whereas the manufactured wooden ties are 7x9. For my turnouts I'm thinking to get them to look "normal" I'll have to use similar sized width.

Shim under the wooden ties?

Hi Greg,

It may be easier to shim under the thinner wooded ties to bring them back up to the thickness of the plastic ties? You probably wouldn't need to shim out to full sleeper width, just the bit under the rails should be sufficient.

Once the ballast goes down no-one will know the difference 

Mt Albert

I buy ties in bulk from Mt. Albert scale lumber (their US distributor is Black Bear Construction).

These are much thicker than the Clover House PC ties I use for my turnouts. But that's not an issue. I let the PC ties float a few thousandths above the benchwork.

The Mt Albert ties ARE a good match for the thickness of Micro Engineering flex track, which in my opinion is more important than matching the thickness of the PC ties. Of course, I think so because I'm using ME flex track. If you're handlaying your track and need a different thickness they might not be such an optimal solution.

The Mt. Albert tie material is a delight to work with. Very fine and straight grain, it's not prone to splintering, and can hold ME micro spikes (if the ties are laid on something soft - cork, homasote, celotex, etc - so the spikes don't penetrate through the tie into something hard, such as plywood, below). When I lay hand-made turnouts on plywood instead of roadbed, I need to pre-drill pilot holes for ME medium spikes. Using the micro spikes and Mt. Albert saves this extra step.

I used to use ME ties but they no longer make switch ties so I changed brands and haven't looked back since then.

FWIW

Charlie

"I guess what they have to

    Yeah, since there are relatively fewer PC board ties in a turnout the easiest method is get your wooden ties that match your flextrack then shim under the PC board ties with wood or other material to make them match the height of the wooden ties. Once it's all painted the difference doesn't show up from typical viewing distance. 

Width of ties

The biggest problem I see is that the Atlas ties are 12" wide and the PC Board and Wooden ties are 9". Height is OK or shims could be used but if the turnouts are 9" wide ties and the flex is 12" that would look bad I'm thinking.

"if the turnouts are 9" wide

   You could use wider ties but you'd probably have to make your own as the commercial tie products I've seen are scale width. Personally I'd build the turnouts with scale width ties and not worry about the match or even better use code 83 flextrack instead which would match the turnout ties better.....DaveB

Code 83

I have a large supply of Code 100 flex. Enough to do this layout and probably another of similar size. I can't justify the cost of buying track when I already have this. 

looks like...

Looks like you're going to be buying HO 7"x12" stock and cutting your own.

Make Your Own

Unfortunately Atlas code 100 flex uses ties that are not only too wide at 12", they are fairly short at 8', rather than most flex track and commercial wood ties at 8'6".  The result is track with very odd proportions.

If you want to more or less match the look of the Atlas flex, you could try cutting your own ties from stripwood.  HO 6"X12" material should be close enough.  I've used 6" thick stripwood to go with flex that has 7" thick ties and had no problems with vertical misalignment.  Thickness of the glue layer can help with the scale 1" discrepancy.  Scale wood that's 7" thick can be hard to find, although there is (or was) a supplier.  My LHS usually has 6".

Cut your Own

As others have said, get some strip wood and cut your own. Not really a big deal since you would have to cut the commercial ties to different lengths to suit the turnout anyways.

If you already have them cut...

shimming with thin styrene between the ties and baseboard to make up the height difference is a whole lot quicker and easier

"I have a large supply of

     Hi Greg,   Code 100 certainly works fine and looks good in person.  Code 83 looks better in photos if that matters to you. My thinking was that using code 83 would simplify matching the track to the turnouts allowing the use of standard scale ties both wood and PC board. Cutting ties takes some time and is not fun so I'd be inclined to sell the whole amount of code 100 and use the money for enough code 83 to build the layout. Since you will build your own turnouts you won't be needing to buy any code 83 turnouts, just sufficient flex track to connect them all up. A quick estimate from you track plan of the number of pieces of code 83 flextrack required along with the total number of code 100 flextrack pieces you could sell would make the final  cost difference clearer.....DaveB

I've sent an email to a

I've sent an email to a friend who is building a layout with code 

100 if he'll take the track off my hands I'm going code 83. 

Wooden ties for the switches

Wooden ties for the switches (turnouts) needs to match height of the ties on your flex track. PC ties are usually thinner and the height in difference will not affect the operation of the switch. The height difference gap will be hidden when ballast is added.

"I've sent an email to a

    That's probably the easiest way to handle it if you can get a decent price for the code 100 track. If you decide to stick with code 100 you could use S scale PC material which should be close to Atlas code 100 HO tie width    ( I have some out in the workshop that I can measure and report on later). S scale wooden ties would probably be too tall but the wooden ties could be cut from scale lumber. I'd still try to go with code 83 but if it's not possible then code 100 should work out with a bit more work, lots of layouts have been built with code 100 over the years....DaveB

S scale ties with code 100 flex

 Hi Greg, Here's Clover House S scale PC board tie material with code 100 Atlas flextrack. The PC ties are a bit wider than the plastic ties but would probably match ok if they were painted. Wooden ties to match should be available as strip material from the scale lumber manufacturers. If you decide to go with code 100 track you might check the Fastracks website to see what dimensions their S scale switch ties are, I don't know if they are different than the Clover House product....DaveB

S Scale

The S scale ties do look like they match better. However despite the fact I have always assumed I will use Code 100, I think it is worth the hassle of selling off what I have and investing whatever I need to switch to Code 83. At one time I had a number of Mehano (IHC) steam locos with the deep flanges. I do still have one but this recent research and information from you folks has shown me how out of scale the Code 100 is. I was OK with the rail height but I am not OK with the tie size. 

FastTracks

Greg:

It seems as though you have a direction now but I wanted to throw in my two cents about ties - wooden or otherwise - for your consideration. 

Most of my layouts have been in relatively small spaces so I have always opted to hand lay my own track and turnouts. This is partly due to not having much money as a kid and later as a way to save money and extend my hobby dollar.

It turns out that money spent per hour of modeling time has become more important to me now even though I could probably justify spending money on better looking track. Hand layed track and turnouts does allow some curved turnouts at little extra effort as well as that nice flowing look that I really like. 

So, in short, the time spent laying track is part of the whole process and can be very enjoyable. Products by Cloverhouse, Kappler, Mount Albert, or Fast Tracks make the choices better than ever.  Have fun! 

I'm really enjoying the design discussion and look forward to seeing this progress. 

Mehano and Code 83

The code 83 does look better than code 100. I was able to run Mehano steam engines on code 83, just barely made it without bumping on spike heads, but it did run! I have since sold the Mehano's, but they were good running mechanisms, good fodder for bashing into something else. Just before they went under, they were producing them with RP25 flanges.