I needed a longer headshunt if I was going to put four or five coaches behind a Hall, but beyond the bufferstop and under the bridge lead to a four foot drop and the way through to a spare bedroom, so it had to be a fold up or fold down design. I opted for fold down as its own weight would keep it hanging there, no hooks to forget, so this is what I came up with.
Stowed away
Ready for a train
Now how I did it-
The trackbed is made from cardboard L shaped beams. They've been in the loft ever since we moved back into the house, We had some flat pack tall bookshelves delivered and the edges of the uprights were protected by these L shaped cardboard "things". they were 4 or 5mm thick card covered in heavy brown paper, very strong and light, I put them in the loft and apart from a couple I cut up to make dividers in a draw there they have stayed for over a decade. Laid flat I glued a 4mm track bed into them. The hazard tape covering came from a roll that I blagged from my sons fireworks business and the plywood used for the support arm came from the back of an old wardrobe we threw out.
I cut up an old piano hinge two bits for the folding arm and one for the deck. The one for the deck is long enough to stickout either side, with the excess chopped away either side of the deck. The holes in the bits that stick out are oversized so that there's some vertical and lateral adjustment possible and the screws that hold the deck are fixed with Loctite. They protrude through slots alongside the track which is clamped down by nuts with washers, so that the deck can be moved forward and locked with the rails touching. The track on the baseboard is 30mm in from the edge, and the top surface of the deck overshoots the hinge far enough to meet up. When the deck is stowed the overshoot sticks up and forms a positive stop for any stock that might roll off the end of the track. The supporting arm folds and stows beneath the deck so the hinge is mounted on a block thick enough to span two thicknesses of the arm plus a bit for the hinge. A button magnet next to the centre hinge holds it against the baseboard side.
If you read all that you can watch it in action here
