Build #12: Track-laying Begins

In the rest of the world is today Father’s Day. Here in Germany, the Father’s Day is celebrated on 29th May each year, which is the ascension of Jesus to Heaven. I guess it is the Holy Father that we are celebrating then. Anyway, the German Father Day is a day where fathers (those of us who are on Earth) took out the beer cart and enjoy a full-day drinking.

As for me, I continued working on my layout. It was time to lay some tracks. Sometime back, I bought a pack of 3mm cork wall tiles from Hornbach. For a batch of 1.8 sq. mtr. it costed about 18 Euro, about 10 Euro per sq. mtr. I was able to cut 15 stripes of 20mm wide. This was much economical than those from Faller or other suppliers. Faller sold a pack of 2 stripes for about 5.50 Euro.

I secured each of sub-roadbed with wood screws at each of a module and made sure sub-roadbeds were level with the adjacent modules. This was important especially for the lower level since it would be invisible and hard to reach once the top level is built.

At some parts, the sub-roadbeds were loose due to excess cutting. I patched those gaps with the 3mm cork (here is another use of cork besides damping the sound from the tracks).

With a 50 water:50 wood glue, I spread the glue mixture on the marked tracks and attached stripes of cork over.

I had a few of the track alignment guides which were helpful to make sure adjacent tracks were always aligned, in this case 30mm apart.

There will be enough work to keep me going this weekend while waiting for the extra turnouts to arrive.