On an earlier thread, I made reference to trying stapling cork roadbed to substrate instead of nailing. Here is the sample. It worked quite well on cork to homasote, but may be not so good on cork to plywood as required air pressure to set the staple may be too high....(I didn't try plywood, just guessing). Air pressure was finally settled on 40 psi. The gun tended to misfire with pressures below 40psi. Sample shows unpainted staples on 1/2 and painted staples with cheap artist latex, scribbled on, with an Qtip other 1/2. 5/16" staples were plenty good....roadbed is very tight to the substrate. I may put this in practice just as soon as I get over this nasty virus/cold stuff......wash your hands after reading this!
Most often cork roadbed is glued to the substrate, held in place by pins and/or weights. It'd been a while, but I'm pretty sure I used simple ol' Elmer's Glue on my previous railroads.
OK I guess staples are one way to put down cork roadbed, but I've always used latex based adhesive caulk. Put a bead of caulk down, smooth it down with a putty knife, and lay the cork. Use weights to hold in place it until the caulk drys out. If you need to redo, just wet it down and the caulk will come up wih a putty knife. To each their own.
Staples cause distortion to the flat esu of the cork. Makes it difficult to sand. Then this waviness is transferred to the track. Not a method I would use. N scale track code 55 can be finicky enough without adding any additional causes to it. Just my thoughts on this.
Also use glue.... ... and love it. Quick and easy and I even pulled up a short section later in one piece that I could reuse. Agree that you ... ... want to end up with a nice flat surface to lay the track on so I flatten it first with a rasp and knock the loose cork and shoulders down and then hit if for a couple minutes with 80 grit sand paper followed by Spackle. That all goes really fast and love the end results. I did lay cork to the plywood as shown above as I didn't want foam on the track elevator but love the foam everywhere else and wouldn't build a layout without it. Sumner
Once again, it seems adhesive is the choice of many to secure roadbed to substrate. I think if the substrate is plywood or similar material, adhesive is just about the only option.....and most likely, the best However, on Homasote, removal of glued roadbed is a real adventure. Plan on filling in craters of torn out substrate. As a bonus, plan on throwing away cork roadbed. If water is used to soften water soluble glue....plan on throwing away a good deal of Homasote too. BTW.....correctly set staples do not produce 'wavy' roadbed leading to 'wavy' track.....(old wives tale). So...bottom line....if you like adhesive and it works for you, by all means use it! But, as another option, I have experimented and offer here, the results of a different way. Be sure to read my prior first post, 'nailing cork roadbed' on 'the inspection pit'. Staples, painted cork brown and correctly set, really do work well.
