Curved baseboards
Entry posted by number6
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Been working on the turnback at the south end today, drawing it up full-size and trying to get the right compromise between minimum radius and space used. I tested lots of my argumentative rolling stock and found that pretty much everything would go around an 800mm curve [just under 32in]. I've made this the inside radius and designed these boards to be three tracks wide - the actual width of the board is 165mm with 50mm track centres. These will not be scenic boards and removable when not running.
I hope to build three sections to turn through 225 degrees. There is a convenient point to spring off the wall at the very end of the room, where one join can be, the second is above a big table so a short leg and foot can stand on this. The last section will have some conventional trestle legs or a single leg 'foot' before bridging back to the wall section in a long transition reverse curve. I want it to be as lightweight and unobtrusive as possible.
I may have a go at building these in foamboard with thin ply outers as I was really impressed by Chris Nevard's use of this material for his baseboards. I've used it for small scenic sections and I can source lots of scrap material for free. If this doesn't work: conventional cut ply top with ply 'walls'.
To trace the curves I drilled a few holes in a long piece of scrap ply and ran a bolt through a block with some double sided tape on the base. This was then easy to draw the arcs required by sticking a pencil through the hole and tracing a line. You can see some of my amateur trigomometry on the wallpaper... after three tries I never did get my O-Level maths.
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