This weekend saw a start on the baseboard building process and a realisation. The baseboards are going to be built using the Barry Norman technique of constructing beams from two lengths of 4mm ply (5 foot long and 70mm tall) with 18mm block of 70mm square blocks of softwood sandwiched between them.

To start with progress was a little shaky, with some uncertainty as to whether this would be strong enough. The first 5 foot beam was made up, with a block at each end, two equally spaced blocks for cross members and three smaller packing pieces to prevent the unsupported lengths from flexing too much. The blocks are glued and stapled to one length of ply, and then the other length of ply is glued and stapled to the other side. The whole thing seemed a little flexible and not all that straight, so the first beam was weighted down on the kitchen floor and the glue allowed to dry over night on Friday. The idea to see what it would be like when dry before committing to making the other beams. I should not have worried, by the morning it was dry, reasonably straight and more rigid that I would have ever thought. Above all it was very light, just what I need for lifting the finished board up through the loft hatch. The last thing I want is to heave some heavy weight board 8 feet into the air every time I want to get it up or down through the loft hatch.

I learnt from this, and the other 5 foot beam and the 4 cross beams were clamped into the workmate to make sure they were straight before stapling. Saturday morning saw all the other beams made up and the top cut to allow for the two levels. At this point work stopped to allow the glue to cure before cutting out the drop in the side beams that will accomodate the river bed.

It was at this point that a realisation occurred, the proportions of the board, laid out in the garden, did not look remotely like the drawing I had - something had gone wrong. Going back to the computer it very quickly became evident that I hade made a stupid mistake. When doing the track placing I had been playing with how to cut up an 8x4 sheet and had accidentally left the length set to 8 feet and not 5. At this point I felt rather stupid and rejigged everything for the smaller size, sadly it looks less generous and open now, but I think it will still provide some entertainment.

Nothing was done on Sunday, apart from the purchase of many assorted bits and pieces to put on the layout - we spent the day in Alexander Palace! The evening did allow some time to complete some CBUS modules and also to start the building of a turntable controller, although that is for a different layout and is to repay a debt.