This is concerning indoor construction. I’ve read the article by Paul Race about raised bed outdoor construction (http://www.btcomm.com/trains/primer/fence_posts/fence_posts.htm). In the article he uses straight pieces of board with 15 degree cuts on the ends to make curves.
I remember an article in Model Railroader back in Sept '93 (p106) about making curved roadbed much the same way (I have a database of articles not a great memory!!). You have some formulas that take into account the radius you want and generates the length of the outside edge of the board and angle at which the ends should be cut.
My old issues were damaged in a basement flood and had to be discarded. I’m wondering if anyone has a copy of the article and if they could provide me with the gist of the formulas used to calculate the lengths of the boards.
Thanks,
Dave
Hi Dave -
Sorry to say I don’t have that article. This subject has come up before and our collective mathematical genius came up with: Draw it out on paper, then make your cuts 
I used the trial and error method when attempting to build a curved roadbed from lumber. I got it done, but wasted a lot of wood in the process.
Ill be interested to see what comes out of your question.
Jon
Dave,
I used a paper pattern to create the exact template of what I wanted and then transferred it to plywood. I’ve got a number of large templates like this that are made to all the different radius curves and transitions, plus turnouts and other clearances that I use. They take a little room to store, but they sure make laying out new track allignments easy. Did the same thing back in HO and I guess I was just stuck in that rut or way of doing things. Like Jon said, you waste some plywood, but you get a lot of scrap for other projects or a good bond fire.
Aha!! I just found a thread on this very issue. http://www.largescalecentral.com/LSCForums/viewtopic.php?id=5746
It gives the formula needed. I put it together into a spreadsheet and now can calculate the angles. Here’s the formula in Microsoft Excel format-
=DEGREES(ATAN(A2/((C2*2)+B2)))
[NOTE-EDITED FORMULA- THE ENDING /2 REMOVED AS IT WAS INCORRECT- go back to the original thread to see where the ending /2 originally came from and my input]
I have a column for length (A column), a column for radius (C column) and a column for width (B column). The D column in the spreadsheet has the shown formula. The D column generates the angle out to one decimal place. I’ll just round up or down to the nearest whole degree as cutting 10th’s of a degree is pretty hard to do.
I’d attach a copy of the spreadsheet if I could figure out how to do that here. But hopefully my explanation will assist anyone in generating their own spreadsheet.
Thanks for the replies,
Dave
Theirs always my dumbass way, I just made a full circle of selected diameter track, layed it onto a sheet of plywood, and used a felt tip pen to mark the outsides of the track and used a scroll saw to cut it.
On my indoor layout I used even a dumber dumbassed method. I used flat tabletops. 
For roadbed I used 2’x4’ x 1/2" ceiling tile. For the curves I cust straight pieces and notched it along the edges so it would flex.
Yea, I’ll be using some “traditional” methods for the wider, scenery switch area of the layout. I’m looking to do a narrow shelf (6-8" wide) around the other end of the basement to provide a venue for a nice long run. This narrow shelf area won’t have scenery and I’ll probably try to dress up the shelves a bit.
Dave