Baseboard

[ollie]

Hi folks this is my first posting. Complete beginner . Would appreciate the following answered

Size of baseboard to start with ,will be in my garage.
What material should baseboard be made of

Many thanks

Ollie

PS Will have lots more questions later

[Bleepy_Evans]

Hi Ollie, im Ollie too!

Im a total beginner to check out the tuts on the web pages, they tell you what tools you need to scenery.

Heres a quote on base boards.

Baseboard Construction

A word of advice!!! Please wear masks when cutting wood and cleaning up saw dust. All wood, especially man made boards (e.g. MDF), are carcinogenic (cancer causing) to some extent. Some exotic hard woods are as carcinogenic as asbestos, but don't worry as these types of wood are rare.

The most basic baseboard construction uses a soft wood batten construction underneath a large fibre board. You first construct the soft wood batten structure and then fix it to the bottom of the board with screws. The battens give the board its rigidity which is very much needed when using some of the softer fibre boards.



There are many types of fibre boards that can and have been used to serve as the base for a model railway such as paper board, fibre board, MDF, ply board, and chip board. They all have different weights and strength properties but remember it is important to keep the weight down and that the board is easy to work with (cut etc). Below are two reviews for the boards I have used.



The first board I tried was recommended by Hornby over 10+ years ago. Its a paper based board and is just about soft enough to push track pins in. This board needs support as it will sag at the edges. It does not produce small fibres and is easy to drill and cut. Being paper board it is very dense and so is reasonably heavy, probably twice the weight of the other board I have used. This board can take being moved about as mine has lasted over 10+ years being moved between two houses, being cut in halve for transportation, and It has great compression resisting properties, being walked over daily when it was on the floor when I was young.



The second board I used was a very soft fibre board that was used for notice boards. This was so soft that you could simply stab a hole in it rather than drill a hole. I used some light softwood (2cm X 1cm) to give it rigidity and strength. This produced an incredibly light base board that was strong enough to support a good amount of weight. The board in question is pictured above as a shelf layout. The only problem with this board is that it produces a lot of fibres when cut. To reduce this I used PVA glue to seal the sides of the board that were cut, sealing in the fibres. I will probably use this wood again on a static layout. but it is not suitable for a layout that will get bashed around.

Heres the link to the tutorials: http://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/bu ... ailway.htmfollow the links down the side.

Hope that helps, need any help. Dont ask me because I wont have a clue

[Bleepy_Evans]

Oh yeah, post the garage size and what shape you want the layout to be.

There are layout shapes like square, rectangle, L-shape and more, if you want you could have like an O with a cut out so you can controll your trains from the inside of the layout. Some look really mint but dont forget! the bigger the more the track will cost, as I realised yesterday

[ollie]

Thanks for the reply Bleepy much appreciated. As said I am a beginner and will be looking loads of advice. Am considering building in the house now after reading Marks postings re his first layout. Never considered this type of set up.

Maybe 8/10ft long and 4ft broad. 2ft for track and scenery and the remaining 2ft as a fiddle yard behind a backboard

Do you know what is the easiest to operate DC or DCC I believe DCC requires less knowledge re wires etc Is this correct

[Brianetta]

I've just got started. DCC seems to be piddly-easy, whereas DC seems to be what most people are used to (and so, it seems easy to them). One thing I love about DCC is the way you can start trains really really slowly, pulling out all the slack between your wagons before increasing speed. The one time I used DC, this was really difficult to achieve; there seemed to be a minimum starting speed for locomotives, although you could then slow down after it was moving.

DCC makes me feel like I'm more in control.

[ollie]

Thanks for the rely Brianetta

Does DCC do away with all the wireing which confuses me

[hobby boy]

Dcc doesn't have as much wiring as dc. All you just have to do is make sure the whole layout is live.
I would have my baseboard made so its 2.5 metres by 1.5 metres.

[Brianetta]

Ollie: It depends. For a big permanent layout, no it doesn't, although the wiring can be much less complex.

You can run the current through the track, just as you can with DC. Most permanent layouts would benefit from bus wiring, which basically means delivering the power to all parts of the layout using a pair of wires under the scenery, rather than relying on the rails. You don't need to break the layout up into isolated sections like you would with DC. DC trains move when there's power, and so must be on isolated tracks if you want them to remain motionless while other trains move. DCC trains move when their chip tells them, so you just power everything up. If you have points which would normally isolate a sidings (and you want to be able to move trains with the points set against, or you want your DCC loco's lights to stay on) you'd need to feed that sidings with the DC power, either through said bus or perhaps using Hornby's little electro clips.

It gets complex (just as complex as DC) when you use electrified points, and when you have anything that can turn a train around and send it back down the same track (teardrop loops, wyes, turntables). Just the same as DC, DCC fails if you short the two rail feeds together.

If your layout is just back and forth, or a roundy-roundy, DCC is extremely simple. Unlike DC, DCC allows you to run two trains into each other, head-on, at speed. Your locomotives have a brain, but they do not have eyes.

[Bleepy_Evans]

Hey im going for a 10ft by 4 ft too. But im going to use the whole 4ft as track and have siddings etc in the middle and possibly at one end of the board. This is so I can get some 2nd / 4th Radius Curved Track(explained below)

As your a complete beginner, some trains require a cerain radius of turn. The Virgin Pendulino (cant spell to save my life.) requires 2nd+ Radius Curves. But smaller trains work on all sorts.

As i want to collect 'moderner' speedy trains, a bigger radius will ensure a smooth corner and therfore less de-railing. Again this site gives you information on all of this. But if your more of a small freight guy almost any track will work.

Hornby tell you on their website which trains work best on which radius curves.

http://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/track%20layout.htm

(P.S Coz im also a beginner if you mint guys can tell em if I mess up then it will be much apperiated. )

[ollie]

Hi all

Really enjoying this Forum and learning . Hope this is not a stupid question .If I was to build my own houses,shops etc what scale would I have to work in

I plan to work in OO gauge As I still work in the old units answers in ft and inches please

[John Geeeee]

Hi Ollie,

Welcome to the NRM forums. If you are working in OO then the usual scale is 4mm to the foot. Therefore a 20 ft high building would be 80mm high as a scale model. Sorry but its the usual practise to convert the old imperial foot in real world into metric mm for model world. Or put another way its 1/76th of the real world.

Cheers

[sapper_k]

i beleive oo gauge is

4mm to the foot
or
1/76


hope that answers your q.


kye

[ollie]

Thanks folks much appreciated. Still at planning stage and still chopping and changing