I just heard from the local model shop that my last Tortoise has arrived, so I thought I'd better get the other two ready so I can finish up the second board. Because the depth below board surface is only about 70mm (50mm Styrofoam plus 1x1 PAR timber) there isn't space to mount the Tortoise motors vertically. I saw an article in RM or CM a few years ago about mounting them horizontally using a metal bracket and a nut/bolt as a pivot/retention mechanism. My version is much less glamorous and uses a few bits of wire and some cheap modern Meccano:

The modern Meccano seems a lot more fragile than the stuff I remember when I was a kid - you have to be very careful when cranking the bracket not to snap it like a dry twig. The brackets go on the flat ends of the motor, with the aim to get the edge of the nut (and thence the vertical arm) near the centreline. Not that it matters too much - everything is bendy and the Tortoise fulcrum allows a fair bit of adjustment.

The pivot arm is soldered to the nut, and it can then be spun onto the bolt - only a couple of turns are required - the thread will keep it in place since it can't rotate. The end of the original Tortoise arm is then bend into a hook which slips over the new pivot. Because it's flexible it's easy to remove it and take the arm off - e.g. to trim it to length after test fitting.

The whole thing doesn't involve opening the Tortoise casing, so I doubt it voids the warranty - after all, they're happy for people to tape/glue them to boards since that's one of the methods in the instruction leaflet. I'm really happy with them - I used Peco solenoids on another project and while I like the satisfying clunk, I found they were tricky to adjust. The Tortoise motors are expensive but when you add the price of a solenoid motor and the accessory switch and maybe a mounting plate, it's not that much more. I intended at some point to try the SEEP or Fulgurex motors but I haven't found them for sale in NZ.

Hopefully I can get the second board up and running this week, then taking the German layout to a show at the weekend, then a big work deadline next week which is going to get in the way of fun stuff...