[upnick]

Hi all,

I am looking for something to silence my baseboards when running my locos over it as it seemes to resonate the sound of the loco through the board even with ballasting, i have seen a product if i remember correctly like a compressed foam very dense but light but forgotten where,
i have an area of 6ft X 2ft 6" on one board and 6ft 4" X 2ft to cover and would like to keep cost down if possible.
Any ideas would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks

upnick.

 

[Richard Johnson]

***Hi

First, use thickish baseboard material - more than the 9mm most use. 12mm or greater will be quieter as the thicker board will have a lower resonance (actually its one good reason for MDF - its quieter because its denser/heavier).

As to the foam type want closed cell foam - a rubber specialist store will have it. It should be available in several thicknesses from about 3mm upwards.

Also use NO pins to hold the track (PVA or resin W works well) and use a good weak mixture to bond the ballast - say between 5:1 to 10: glue to water ratio (the better the glue, the weaker the mix!)

regards

Richard
DCCconcepts.

 

[alastairq]

foam bedrolls...[foamies??] of the better quality , from camping/outdoorsie stores work well...lots of material for your pennies?

Iain Rice went into some detail to cure the OP's very problem......one issue hilited was the tendency for modellers to encapsulate their trackage in ballast that sets as hard as concrete.

There is a Dutch firm who specialise in a 'flexible' type of glue for ballast...which allows movement and insulation.

Resin W is NOT the stuff to use.

In the bad old days of model railways, the late Ken Northwood [North Devonshire Railway]developed a system whereby the track was secured to a card base, shaped as per the ballast shoulder...[upside-down U]...with the ballast material stuck to the surface....the track was secured by pins, but not tightly, through the card, which had underneath a thick strip of foam rubber....ie it could 'float' up and down, but not move sideways.....the card was NOT secured to the baseboard, thus allowing the flotation to take place.

Also question the use of 'rock' ballast material?

Granulated cork offers a much more 'resilient' medium?

Rice also suggests, having secured the track itself to a sub-base......that sub-base might then be secured to the baseboard proper, with a thick foam rubber layer fixed between?

this might obviate the need for 'heavy' materials in theboards themselves?

Also, one could apply spray foam [urea-formaldehyde??? the stuff builders use, cna be bought at B&Q...I use it to 'fire-seal' my old car bulkheads??]..to the underside of the baseboards, between any framing..[avoiding wires, point motors, the cat, etc]] to have the same effect as motorcar soundproofing??

rubber wheels, anyone??

 

[upnick]

Very good advice, but could you clear up the type of glue resin W is please, have used resin glues but not heard of a variant "W"

upnick.

 

[Richard Johnson]

QUOTE (upnick @ 9 Mar 2008, 10:44) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Very good advice, but could you clear up the type of glue resin W is please, have used resin glues but not heard of a variant "W"

upnick.

**Really just equivalent to a high grade of PVA

Richard

 

[alastairq]

'Resin W' is a liquid,''PVA'' type woodworking glue......sold in the yUK......not sure what it's called elsewhere...[oh,the internationalism of the tinternet??]

it sets up to an incredibly strong bond......use it to secure track/ballast, and nothing short of a modest quantity of blasting powder will allow any alterations.......guarenteed NOT to go down too well with any 'domestic' authorities?

yet, folk use it because ''it's there''....and looks similar to ordinary PVA..

best PVA glue to use for ballast...if that's the way you want to go....is the real cheapo stuff sold for school use,and for kids..........ou really need to aim for nothing more than the most tenuous of bonds.....simply to retain the ballast, ''in place''

 

[80class]

Or dont use "wood" at all, use sundeala insulation board for your base boards! I find it absorbs sound so well that i've gone back to using pins to hold my track in place rather than glue.

Rob

 

[upnick]

Resin W sounds like aliphatic glue i have used before which is water based but can be sanded once dry to a tough finish,
More thoughts on the silencing of my boards has come from my diy store with the use of underfloor tile insulation used for woodfloors.

 

[Chinahand]

Has anyone experimented with the double-sided foam tape that you can get from DIY stores ??

I don't mean the white photo mounting stuff but the grey platic foam. I sells here under the 3M Brand name and comes in 20 metre rolls x 25mm wide x approx 1.5mm thick which is ideal for N Gauge.

Expat.

 

[alastairq]

Sundeala, whilst once the recommended top surface for baseboards, can be quite finnicky when it comes to remaining level.

it needs very frequent bracing,in my experience........the US idea of a plywood sub-base,topped with ''sundeala'' for track pins is a well tried formula.....seeing as much US handlaid track required the use of spikes....therefore needed something that was easy to pin to.

the stuff was well advocated by Peco,I think...and was available in sheets as modeller's board.....I have several sheets still in their poly wrappers.......after more than 10 years....never got around to using them.....

sundeala will still resonate.....but the sound levels involved may well be acceptable to most??

I first started out using Peco's first recommendation.....wood fibre insulation board...anyone remember that stuff?

I found it useful since I used Peco's self build TT trackage...fibre sleeper strips, with FB rail spiked down like the US stuff....and wires soldered using an iron heated in an old ceramic gas fire.......probably using coal gas, as this would havebeen long before the discover of oil/gas in the North Sea....

 

[Dan Hamblin]

I have used sundeala for my new layout and I would recommend pleanty of cross-bracing, as I currently do not have enough on certain sections (but it is a bit late now). It makes it a lot easier to cut out slots for inspection pits and holes for turntables etc.

Regards,

Dan

 

[upnick]

Hi All,

I have found the solution to my problems, a trip to floors to go proved useful in the shape of underfloor insultation used on wooden floors it comes a metre wide and cut to any length you require of the roll, just over £17.00 for 13ft long.
3mm thick rubber with a silver backing.
Applied with loads of pva glue and stapled to my boards all that can be heard now is the motor no resonance from the boards, i did remove the staples from the boards once set to save problems later, as murphy's law always puts the staple where you need to drill etc for wires ..... lol

upnick.

 

[Brossard]

I had a go at the Ken Northwood system (as described by Rice) using engineered wood floor foam underlay and double sided tape. I made a pig's ear of the whole thing - it is deceptively complicated. Now I just stick to cork roadbed.

 

[Thunder]

I also have sundela boards, screwed down onto 15mm chipboards, works very well, but what i have found, is where the track has been ballasted, it becomes noisey, where its still not balasted, it quite, in my case it seems to be the balast thats forcing sound levels up ?

 

[Brian Considine]

QUOTE (Thunder @ 9 May 2008, 07:31) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I also have sundela boards, screwed down onto 15mm chipboards, works very well, but what i have found, is where the track has been ballasted, it becomes noisey, where its still not balasted, it quite, in my case it seems to be the balast thats forcing sound levels up ?

What happens in effect is that the noise is transmitted through the ballast/adhesive from the rails to the baseboard bypassing the cork - use of a latex based PVA adhesive helps to quieten things down.

 

[ebaykal]

For what its worth, I saw this material: Anti-Acoustic Balast stuff at Dortmund.

...but forgot the name of the manufacturer

Baykal

 

[Brian Considine]

QUOTE (ebaykal @ 9 May 2008, 13:38) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>For what its worth, I saw this material: Anti-Acoustic Balast stuff at Dortmund.

...but forgot the name of the manufacturer

Baykal

It's ER Decor of Belgium - for further details send me a PM !

 

[Chinahand]

Not wishing to steal your thunder Brian but they do have a web site at http://www.er-decor.be/

and their UK Distributor is :-

TASMA PRODUCTS
Unit One, College Farm
Nord End, MELDRETH
ROYSTON, HERTS. SG8 6NT
ENGLAND
Phone : ++ 44 (0)1763 26.07.16
Fax : ++ 44 (0)1763 26.29.26
e-mail address is [email protected]

Looks interesting stuff and they have quite a range of other scenic products.

Cheers,

Trevor

 

[Brian Considine]

Hi Trevor,

I am aware of the website but all I can say regarding distributors is all is not it seems - hence I did not quote it & suggested a PM.