New Baseboard

[Rowdyates]

Hi All,

This is my first baseboard build to go at the back of my garage, the 2 sides and the back will have a baton running fixed to the garage wall to support the board and across the front I'm going to put a removable baton with a couple of legs on it, the plan being I can then lift the board up to store it. I was going to build the base out of 3 sections, the dimensions in the attached picture. Each of the 3 sections for the outer frame I'm going to use 20mmx44mm wood and also for the centre piece of wood. For the shorter parts of the frame I was going to use 18mmx44mm wood trying to keep the whole thing a bit lighter (and cheaper). The 3 sections I'm looking to bolt together. Will I be ok using the 18mmx44mm wood, I know from reading various how to's the minimum they recommend is 2" x 1" (50mm x 25mm).

Thanks,

Rowdy

photo2.jpg (25.86 KiB) Viewed 3859 times

[thebritfarmer]

First welcome to the forum !!

Front to back the board is 4 feet correct? If so 4feet is a bit of a stretch to reach across. I am 6ft and find it a struggle and you run the risk of damaging scenery etc... when you do lean over.

[Rowdyates]

Thanks for the welcome

What I'm thinking is to not fasten the baseboard to the baton round the garage wall so I can pull the whole thing forward (bit like a drawer) then crawl underneath and get at the far side. Well that's the theory

Rowdy

[Bufferstop]

Rowdy - I think you underestimate the weight of that lot. For it to be moveable in any reasonable manner it would need either some very large wheel castors or mounting on substantial rails with roller bearings.
John W
aka Bufferstop

[Rowdyates]

Thanks for the comments John, I'm not to worried about being able to lift it, that was a nice to have but I really would like to be able to pull it out to get to the far side. I'm not sure how much this will weigh when done to be honest but I would have hoped it would be manageable to pull out? I guess an alternative will be to cut some holes in the middle to pop up through, although I feel I might lose a lot of ground for a town and scenery, my proposed layout is in the track/layout forum, would the norm be to have removeable sections, bit like manhole covers, I guess I could still build on these?

Cheers,

Rowdy

[Bufferstop]

I'd go for the pop up in the middle. Any sort of lateral movement, has an inherent risk of twisting, which does the trackwork no good at all. If you make an area with no track, just scenery, the "manhole cover" can be made from a thick slab of poly-foam insulation edged with foamboard contour profiles. If you need to lay plaster or the like on either side of the join put in a strip of polythene and lay up to it on either side. You can pull it out when everything is set. Then you can play the "hide the join" game, hedges get boring, a trench for pipelaying can turn it into a cameo and a reinstatement scar across the road are all good wheezes.
John W
aka Bufferstop.

[Rowdyates]

Just amended my layout to include an area in the middle, does this look ok, do you think I would be able to access all areas, back corners might be a little far?

Thanks,

Rowdy

[Gronk]

If this is to be fitted against 3 walls I think you would struggle to reach the corners, even with the hatch... Try measuring how far you can reach...

Have you considered turning the layout 90 degrees and using this: http://www.liftturnmove.co.uk/industria ... plications

[Rowdyates]

Thanks gronk, originally when I first thought of building this, that was the mechanism I thought would be good, but having done some extensive clearing up it the garage I can now get the space I want more permanently and the ability to lift it was really a nice to have. The only other thing is this would eat away my budget
Anyhow, taking on board all your comments ( which has probably saved me a lot of wasted effort) I've abandoned the 8' x 4' 3 piece baseboard idea and I've redesigned my layout to have a more modular baseboard setup. I've also incorporated a larger operating well in the middle and the stretch to the far corner is @720mm which when I tried in the corner of the kitchen I think I can reach ok. I've attached the new design there would be 6 baseboards in total, I just need to work out how best to get a big sheet of ply cut and work out the underpinning wood work. Have a look any comments again would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Rowdy

Piccy same as the one in the layout forum as I thought it would be useful to see my proposed track positioning (sorry for the repetition)

Multi Base 01.jpg (127.04 KiB) Viewed 3643 times

[Flakmunky]

That looks better... You should be able to reach things, but 720 is still quite a reach when you are building scenery. You will probably want to make the tunnel removable or have some other way of accessing those tracks in case of derailment.

[b308]

If you are intending to make it so you can dismantle it for storing then I'm afraid that you will have to modify the plan... You can't have points overlapping the baseboard joints as they would be near-impossible to cut and line up, you must only have plain track. If its permanently set up then it doesn't matter!

[Bufferstop]

You can't have points overlapping the baseboard joints as they would be near-impossible to cut and line up, you must only have plain track.

and cross at between 45 and 90 degrees, otherwise the joints get messy. If you are going for a permanent, non-demountable layout, investigate L girder construction, which originated in American basement layouts and has the advantage of free flowing edges. Pop up holes are then possible in the corners of the space, or the edge can be taken closer to the tracks to make things reachable.
John W
aka Bufferstop

[b308]

Good point, John... I like the idea of "pop up holes"!

[Rowdyates]

Thanks again for the comments.

Flakmunky maybe I need to create a mock up to see realistically how far I can reach
B308 - I think any ideas of portability or the ability to move the set have now gone, so I will be looking more at a permanent layout. So the joins and the points won't be an issue.
Bufferstop - I've looked at the l girder setup ( probably need to read again ) I can get my head around the l bit, the cross bars and then the uprights for the track, but I can't quite understand how you would then do the scenery or a town. Having said that in my layout the track uses a lot of the board surface so I can't see how I would benefit there. The baseboard to the right where the tunnel is has space as I want to creat a village or something, so I will use the space.

Cheers,

Rowdy

[Bufferstop]

With L girder the foundation for the scenery is wire mesh which can be pushed into almost any shape. I think a lot of American modellers use flyscreen material, avery fine wire mesh that is impossible to get in the UK. Roads and flat areas are created in the same way as the track base, but maybe of lighter construction. In station areas the girders can be sheeted over and used just like a conventional baseboard. Depending on the gaps to be spanned the wire mesh may not be essential, some time ago I used the risers and track bed of L girder construction on the frame of a conventional baseboard with its top removed. Spanning the gaps with bits of old carboard boxes I built the "ground" with layers of brown paper soaked with diluted PVA, supported by rolled up newspaper on top of the card. The brown paper came from 3 ply postal sacks chopped up into short strips. Once dried out I pulled out the cardboard and paper from below. A thickness of four layers was strong enough for our largish cat to walk over without it flexing. Tunnels of any length are accessible from beneath, the trackbed just needs low sidewalls to catch derailments.