What do you folks recommend using to glue your track to foam? White glue or clear latex caulking? I'm probably beating a dead horse asking this question, but a search of the forums didn't turn up any thing specific. Some folks seem to recommend white glue and others caulking.

Reason I'm asking is that a few months ago, I threw together a loop of track on a piece of plywood to be used as both a break in track and for a loop around the Christmas tree. I used Elmer's glue and first glued down cork roadbed then glued the track to the cork. It never got used under the Christmas tree this year, but has just been laying flat on the basement floor. The other night, I was going to use this as testbed for putting down ballast but found that the track was coming loose from the cork.

Since I'm about to permanently put the track down on my ISL and most of it will be glued directly to foam without roadbed should I use the white glue or caulking? It will probably be a while before I put ballast on the track and I don't want to find the track coming loose before I get around to ballasting.

This is the first time I've ever constructed a layout using foam and gluing track down as I always used Homasote and spikes before. So this is new experience for me.

I'm on my second layout using latex caulk as the adhesive. Both were on extruded foam bases. Last one I used Woodland Scenics roadbed, this time I'm using cork. I use the caulk for everything - roadbed to base, track to roadbed. It's a fast and easy way of building. In one spot I ended up with too sharp of a vertical curve, and it was no big deal to slide a putty knife under the ties and rais the low side with some shims under the track. I'm just starting to ballast, using rubbing alcohol as my dilution/wetting agent (soap didn;t work for me - I have hard water), and it has had absolutely no effect on the caulked track.

--Randy

I'd second te suggestion for caulking. Be sure to use the paintable stuff in either clear or the colour of your choice. Non-paintable is not compatible with water-based landscaping/ballasting techniques.

Andrew

Well that's two votes for the caulking! I'll pick up a tube or two of it and do some testing and see how it works out. Not very pleased with the white glue results!

Thanks fellows!

I've never glued/caulked my track down and never had any problems because of it. I glue my cork to the foam and then nail the track to the cork. The nails provide adequate grip to keep the track from moving around. Besides, once you ballast, that really helps hold everything secure.

Nails take longer

--Randy

I have had bad luck with white glue and the pink foam. It doesn't stick well at all. I don't use foam under the track, so I have had no problems with the white glue holding the ballast to wood, but where I have used white glue on foam it just seems to slide even after it has dried.
Charlie

I've had no problems like that to be honest, but then again, I don't usually glue straight on to the pink foam, I've given the foam a base earth color of latex paint first, so that no blue, pink, or what ever unrealistic color will be visible if the covering of scenery materials isn't completely even. This paint layer actually helps with the sticking of subsequent glue applications.

Koos

The caulking is good. You might also try Gorilla Glue but use it very sparingly -- if you don't, it bubbles up as huge, ugly bubbles. White glue, so I've learned (because it's water soluble), is not good because when you apply water -- say, during ballasting or something similar -- the water will loosen the glue & the track will come loose.

Whiter glue doesn't stick well to either plastic or foam, one reason that it comes in a plastic container. The effectiveness of it as an adhesive is due to the fact that it soaks partially into the materials being glued - the label on mine states that it's "for wood, leather, pottery, and other heavy porous materials". It also goes on to state "for paper, cloth, styrene foam, and other light, porous materials...". From what I've seen, the foam used on layouts is definitely not porous, especially on the factory-finished surface.

rrinker Wrote:Nails take longer

I dunno: I count 9 nails in a length of flextrack. At a conservative 10 seconds per nail, that's only a minute and a half. They also require no messy spreading of adhesive, no weighting (or waiting to run trains), allow easy viewing of track centrelines, and, until the track has been ballasted, easy re-positioning of minor (or major) irregularities. Of course, they're not of much use if the track is layed directly on foam. I use cork roadbed in some areas, but all track has a solid base of wood, either boards or plywood. I'm sure the caulk would work for my layout, but the spikes seem simpler: place them in the hole, push them home with the nose of your pliers.
As for securing the cork, I used yellow glue, only because I had a lot of it leftover from household jobs. White glue or caulk probably would have worked just as well. Partially-driven 2" nails (also leftovers from house construction - an almost-full 50lb. box) held it in place until the glue dried.

For those using white glue to secure plastic ties to blue or pink foam, at least you have a built-in reason to not ballast your tracks.

Wayne

At least in Atlas code 83 flex, the holes for spikes aren't already cored - you have to drill them out. If I measure and fit my track pieces first, I can spread an awfully long bead of caulk in a short time and get all that trrack in in one shot. Ditto the roadbed. I usually position turnouts first since those are the most critical, then fill in between turnouts. The onyl messy thing about it is my scrap piece of wood that I used to scrape off the putty knife after I was done - that looks like some really strange outer space blob from repeated use.
And this 'waiting' thing - I use push pins to hold things in place, just a couple on a straight section, more on a curve. But no sooner to I have things in place then I will often run a loco over the newly laid track. Caulk has enough tack that there's no need to wait until it fully dries. Nice thing about the clear, it comes out white and turns clear as it dries, so when everything is clear, you know it's dry - that takes maybe an hour depending on humidity, but again, it's tacky enough right fromt he get-go that you don't really need to hold it down unless there are irregularities in the surface or it wants to straighten out on a curve. You can still nudge it around to get it lined up, but it's not likely that it will pop off before the caulk dries. I built half a dozen layouts in the past all using track nails and a nail set and a small hammer. Sure, they all worked fine, but last time I read the articles about caulk prior to starting it (and foam - all the rest had been on plywood - except one N scale layout on homasote) so I decided to give it a try and found it truly to be faster and easier, and also with no chance of the beginner mistake of driving the nails in too hard and altering the track gauge.

--Randy

You guys have this one covered pretty well. I've been using latex liquid nails between track and roadbed. I smear down the bead with a putty knife, so it doesn't squish up between the ties, then set the track section gently in place, align it, then secure it down with a rubber roller. Like Randy was saying, it holds very well right away. For curves, I weight down the section overnight. I definitley recommend using roadbed and as few nails as as possible. I glued track straight to foam once. Never again. Upon running the first loco over it, I could not believe the horribly loud AM radio-like buzz that eminated from the foam, which acts like a giant amplified speaker.

MrBill Wrote:.... For curves, I weight down the section overnight. .....

Ah! For me, that would be the "waiting" part, as most of my track is on curves.
And it never occurred to me to use a hammer (with a nailset, yet) - I've always used pliers, just like when handlaying track. Obviously, both methods seem to work well, although the caulk would be preferable when working on foam.
I did find, about two months after putting down the track, that there were several lateral "waves" in some areas of straight track. I'm uncertain as to the cause: The lumber had been in the layout room for a couple of years, so it wasn't humidity (or lack of it), and it wasn't temperature variation, as there's probably less than 10F degrees variation through the year. Some of it was cured by removing a few nails and re-aligning the track, while a couple of spots needed all of the nails removed. The "waves" were then "walked" to the nearest curve, dissipating in a slightly increased radius. Never had a problem with it after that.
I may use caulk on my second level's track, as I'm leaning towards Central Valley tie strips, but that's not in the near future.

Wayne

I use Alene's Tacky Glue for glueing cork to the Dow Blue foam and for the track to the cork. Alene's seems to be just a heavier bodied version of Elmer's. Anyway, never had a single issue with it, and have ballasted near 200 feet of Atlas HO Code 83 track, using alcohol as a wetting agent and diluted Elmer's. None of the track shifted or moved at all. Also, Alene's sticks the cork to the blue foam. On the areas where I have changed the track arrangement, I have to grab the cork with pliers and pull up. Sometimes the cork is stuck well enough that the cork tears in half and I have to get another bite with the pliers.