Laminated floor board base construction

[GdanskDad]

I moved to Poland a couple of years ago, and my two sons are just turning 8/9 and I have a crate of stuff from the UK, so decided to build them a sturdy first layout. Materials here in Poland are expensive by comparison to the UK, and most of the decor will be scratch built. I cant get decent ply without a mortgage, and the pre-planed timber is uber- expensive or very dodgy, and will soon warp. However, I plan to build a trackbed out of foam insulation board covered in mod-rock, and since this is going to be built as a sort of shelf construction over the kids beds, to prevent their three yr old sister from geo-forming the construction, or kit bashing the locos, I needed it to be fiddle proof at bedtime.

I discovered that exterior softwood garden deck is half the price of planed timber for the same length, and has wonderful rounded edges. its a full 95 mm deep trusses by 45 mm wide, and I can get 2700 mm lengths easily. I will build my frame from these, and since the trackbed will sit on a foam base, need only to insert a thin supporting base board. Hence the idea to use budget MDF floor laminate. Again, its under half the price of any other board, cut into small sections laid across two truss beams, it will be quite solid, and any sag can be removed with a few pieces of 60 mm, which can be sunk into the trusses without any loss of strength.

The whole structure will sit in the bedroom, but since the walls are re-enforced concrete, and frankly a nightmare to drill, plus its a rented apartment, I plan to raise the structure on a series of free standing shelving l frames. I will post a few images as it grows and tell you if it works for baseboards.

stage 1 is to build the first of 5 board supports to go under a window which the kids can run a few trains on - its 2200 mm long by 400 mm wide and will sit 1 m above the floor. The middle section corresponds to the window, which will be behind the truss and thus unable to open fully, but can still tilt open for fresh air. Quiet a bonus with my two 1/2 year old starting to learn how to undo child locks and undo widows and doors too.

the last layout (6 yrs ago) was an exhibition layout for Yeovil Model club, in O gauge, and restoring a Ho layout of the old town junction, all very heavy traditionally built transportable layouts lol.

Dave. Gdansk

[Bufferstop]

Hi Dave welcome to the forum. It sounds like Polish houses aren't too railway friendly. it will be interesting to see how you get on.
John W
aka Bufferstop.

[GdanskDad]

Polish accomodation here in the city is somewhat compact, the price of accomodation is sky high and most Polish folks sleep in the living room on comfortable bed settees... I have not managed to get a lift yet to the diy store - my English car is out of action, and my friends are all social distant lol. may try to carry the stuff back on tram - which would be hilarious, lots of space now with COV 19, but I may be breaking some rule. I may even have a go at modelling the trams, they are super here.

[GdanskDad]

The start of planning, I prefer paper, but my kids like SCARM 1.7.0 because you can get it free. and add one train to simulate what it will look like with four carriages or 4 freight trucks... This is version three, the plan is to build two loops raised on two sheets of insulation foam board, carved in for some details like streams and roads, but built up to make a very hilly layout. A bridge under the widow at one end of the U shape, and a connecting removable bridge to complete the circuit, with a single incline ramp branch, to a coal hopper (hornby) that will sit at the end of one U shape. Kids love tunnels and bridges, so lots of foam scratch building. Picture upside down?

[GdanskDad]

The design has been modified by the kids who want to have a castle on the layout, and a waterfall, so design is going to be a bit deeper in foam, and I will strt posting the plans in the plans section under the name 'Castleford Halt' It may magically turn into 'rzeka zamkowa' - castle river if the kids get past the basic scenery building, but for now I have mainly Early BR maroon rolling stock from the GWR and Midland stock, from a Herefordshire layout, but I have started to build some nice polish ex DDR double decker carriages, in brass a few years back, and may eventually build up a rake. They sell them here in the shops, but 200 zlotty each (40 quid) and I have yet to train the kids to be careful? I will start to post the baseboard construction photos here, and test it to see if its going to survivr my children and the track operation, but move details to the correct topic.