I cheated with the baseboards, woodwork is something I'm pretty rubbish at. Having sourced the 9mm ply and softwood with best intentions, a friend built the boards in his workshop.

It consists of four 4' x 2' sections in two 4' x 4' halves. I will be building the layout so the baseboard can be split in half without doing too much damage.

I made a decision to cover the boards in 3mm cork sheet. On my last layout, there was an appreciable increase in noise after ballasting, presumably because vibrations were carried to the baseboards by the ballast at the sides of the track and underlay. I know this approach could be cost prohibitive for larger layouts, but I sourced the six sheets of 2' x 3' cork I needed for £35 including postage from Footplate of Kidderminster. Not only friendly service, but the sheet arrived quickly.

Some more experienced modellers will no doubt wince at this, but in terms of tools I used a craft knife, a cheap (but true) metal ruler, a pencil, a couple of paint brushes and a wooden breadboard for cutting. I do most of the cooking in this household, so asking permission isn't an issue! I bought a big bottle of PVA from a car boot sale for a quid and I used baby wipes and kitchen roll to keep things tidy.

I took a few moments to see how well the cork sheet fitted the baseboards, double checking my rough plans and marking out the edges of the cork sheet onto the boards.

I then liberally applied PVA with a brush, making sure the edges of the cork sheet would be glued down from the marking out I did previously. An early lesson here was to stop using a cheap disposable brush as it quickly started losing its hairs. I spent good time making sure the cork was properly in position and flat while it bonded. If and when I do this again, I will have a pile of my heaviest books to hand to hold the cork sheet down.

It would have been neater to use a single sheet of cork sheet across the join at the middle of the boards, but I measured the remaining uncovered areas and cut the cork sheet into four 2' by approximately 1' pieces to fit. A square set would have been useful here.

Not exactly the most taxing or rewarding of tasks, but it's a necessary job completed.