Archive

Archive for January, 2009

Baseboards completed – Time to build a railway!

January 15th, 2009

Well I woke up this morning feeling a bit under the weather, I have been feeling a bit rough recently and have put it down to my friend and yours – Man Flu. I call it man flu but really its just a head cold and a sore throat. Despite my illness I decided that for once I was going to pull rank as the boss and take the day off to work on the layout, namely finish the baseboard.

Baseboard 

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Baseboard framework completed

January 12th, 2009

With milder weather arriving over the weekend I was able get about 7 hours of building time in the garage. I also had a couple of trips to B&Q for timber, ply, screws and bolts. For reference I used the following ingredients:

  • Smooth Planed Timber which comes in packs of 6. (L)2100 x (W)44 x (T)18mm
  • 4 x 40mm wood screws – I bought a 500 pack from B&Q, very reasonable
  • 4 x 40mm nuts with bolts to bolt framework sections together.
  • 6mm Brazil Ply. This stuff comes in huge sheets, so I get B&Q to cut it down to 2′x4′ strips for me.

That’s all the ingredients I used, I couldn’t tell you how much of each I used as I lost track. The most expensive part is the timber, it came in at about £9 per pack and I used a lot as I was also using it to make the legs, which I did by screwining 2 lengths together into a kind of L shape. The first image below explains this better.

Framework

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My Layout

Planning the garage layout track plan

January 6th, 2009

Having spent a few hours in the garage over the weekend building the baseboard for the new layout, I have actually put pen to paper today and started to plan what I was going to put on the baseboards. Being a very new modeller and eager to see some trains running past, while I sit back and sup my cup of tea, I am going to try and squeeze a two road roundy roundy onto my L shaped boards. Space isn’t too much of a problem so I can expand my plan in any direction really, I just don’t want to try and build a mega 14ft x 10ft monster that I will NEVER finish.

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Permanent layout baseboards get some attention

January 4th, 2009

This weekend has finally presented me with the opportunity to get some work done on my proposed main layout. We have a large double garage that houses just one car. The other half has been given over to Junk storage and my model railway.

Despite having rather a lot of space in which to house my layout I am struggling to decide what size this layout is going to be. Whatever it is, it needs at least one ’roundy roundy loop’ so that I and my 4 year old can watch stuff trundle by – plus I like the clickity clack the wagons and coaches make.

Baseboards framework

Baseboard Framework

Having already erected an 8 foot 3 by 2 foot board along the back wall I added one more 8 by 2 foot board to make it an ‘L’ shape. I also constructed the next 8 by 2 foot board but ran out of time to baton it to wall and attach it to the rest of the frame work.

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My Layout