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Honey, it's snowing! (Or how I build boards!) - Part 1


SouthernRegionSteam

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After having played around with bits of old N gauge track, I came up with a vague idea of the space needed to fit in all the track work and buildings. I decided the best way to set up the boards would be to have a central triangular board, with 3 separate boards for each of the 'blades' of the 'propeller'. I mean it's not exactly the right shape for a propeller, but it's as close as I can get!

 

I settled on an equilateral triangle with sides of 1m for the centre board, which left me to work out the 'blades' from there. I realised I would probably need just shy of a metre length and at minimum 60cm width. As the centre board had sides of a metre, it would need to taper from 60cm to a metre. Having drawn it out, I wasn't happy with the aesthetics - and the boards certainly weren't looking anything like a propeller. So I decided to make the boards taper from 80cm to 60cm instead of 1m to 60cm. I could easily sacrifice 10cm from each end of each side on the centre board to trim it down to 80cm per side.

 

Thus the final result is this:

 

AGWI%2BBaseboard%2BShape%2BDiagram.jpg

 

POLY%2BOverall%2Bview.jpg

 

 

The board design will be very similar (if not the same) to those on my layout The Old Road. For those that haven't seen; the polystyrene will sit on top of 33mm battens. The sides are then faced with 5mm ply which will be glued to the polystyrene for maximum strength. Then on top of this will be a 5mm ply trackbed (so that point motors can be used). Leftover polystyrene will be used to build up relevant scenery.

 

Quick notes:

  • The trackplan hasn't been finalised, and I'm debating on adding a second triangle by the pub to allow me to run a train round on its own on lazy days.
  • The buildings here are all place-holders from The Old Road project, and new buildings will be constructed.
  • I am still undecided on building placement on the left hand side (see photo above).
  • The 3 'blade' boards will be stackable for ease of storing, and are identical.

So that is my progress for today!

4 Comments


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  • RMweb Gold

As Pete says, an interesting design! Will the layout be viewable from all sides?

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  • RMweb Gold

Ah, now this is an interesting question Mikkel. The answer is: Probably.

The photo above shows where the view from the control area (this will be on the small section of the centre board as the points will be cut off). I will probably have the backscene on a seperate movable board (although I am unsure). Basically there are two options as I see it:

 

1) Viewing on all sides, movable separate vertical board for a backscene

2) Viewing restricted to a few sides, permanent backscene board attached to the layout.

 

The former is more likely though, but I'd be interested on hearing people ideas r.e. the backscene.

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