Thanks for the advice. I'll concede and cut.
I guess my real complaint is the totally misleading advertising on the Flexbed website. 031 is the most standard, classic, popular curve for O gauge, and the product doesn't work there as advertised.
I glad that I designed my layout so that I wasn't gluing straight down on the plywood top. I first cut and laid a hard "roadbed" on the plywood, where the flexbed would go down, consisting of the thin brown hardboard sold at at Lowes ($10 per sheet). I cut it to the same dimensions as the flexbed, but with an extra half inch of width on each side. (That took me almost a month!) The hardboard is just a little more than 1/8th inch thick.
I lightly stapled this down along its edges. Now I am gluing the flexbed down on top of this, using glue only under the outer edges of the flexbed. As soon as I lay it on the glue, I screw my track down right on top of it. The track screws go all of the way through the flexbed, and the hardboard, and into the plywood.
When I am done, I will pull the staples along the edges of the hardboard. The extra half inch of the hardboard on each side will give me space for the ballast to spill down from the tracks and flexbed and be glued to it, without having to glue the ballast right on the plywood. And, it is a nice medium brown color, that looks like dirt.
If I ever have to do any major track work, I can remove the track screws. The relevant section of brown hardboard (plus the flexbed glued on top), will just lift off of the table, since the hardboard is not stapled or nailed to it.
Thanks again.
Mannyrock
