Put a cork in it
Having laid all my track down, and run trains a few times, I found they were a tad noisy. Not only that but the surface wasn’t looking too great. Some of the track was a bit higgledy-piggledy, so I decided I’d attack it in two ways. Firstly, I’d rip it all up, and secondly whilst I was doing that, I’d lay down cork tiles.
I’d looked previously to try and find tiles, but drawn a blank. I was in Wickes a few weeks back and happened to stumble down an aisle where at the end was a pile of cork tiles – they were in a totally random place, next to shelving as I recall. I went back again this weekend to buy some and found they’d moved again onto some other random shelf, albeit closer to flooring than the last lot. I purchased a couple of packs – each covers 0.84m2 and I had just over that, so I knew I’d need a couple. They’re not bad at £7 a pack.
Today I pulled up all the track, and started gluing them down. Thing is, I’d gone through all the pain and heartache of putting in my point motors – the arms on some of them will still reach (they were too long) but a couple will be too short. I think I’m going to have to make some sort of extension for them, which could prove fun. I have a feeling in re-laying the track nothing will line up anymore. That’s sort of a mixed blessing, as some of the alignments on the motors was pretty rubbish anyway.
I glued down the tiles with plain old PVA. They were pre-varnished, so I glued them varnish side down. They’re sticking fairly well that way. I was worried if they were varnish side up I’d have a lot of trouble getting scenic elements to stick down properly. I’ve applied a bit of weight using various nice big books. I might not have finished my CCNA, but the study guides have come in handy!
When I start putting the track down I’ve got a few baseboard joins to do, which I’ll do the old-school way with copper-coated PCB. Should work well. Once I’m happy with the track, I’ll finally stop procrastinating and wire up the point motors!