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Retro-fitting alignment dowels


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The Club's N scale layout is demountable and comprises five baseboards but they suffer from us not being able to keep them in good alignment with the adjacent baseboard. My own exhibition layout, Neely, uses alignment dowels which came fitted to the kit form baseboards so I know that they can provide a means of achieving good alignment.

However, what I would like to know is whether alignment dowels can be retrofitted?

If they can, what is the preferred installation method?

Regards

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I'd say yes, as I managed and my woodworking skills are not great. Right angles are things that happen to other people. I used alignment dowels like this one :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171980997758?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

The key thing for me was that they came with a drill bit of an appropriate diameter for the dowels.

 

The boards I retrofitted them to are ply on pine frame. I aligned the boards as I wanted them and made sure that they were firmly held by several clamps. I then drilled all the way through the frames with a small drill (3mm or thereabouts). I did actually remove the ply tops so that I could access the frames and drill them as squarely as my skills allow (so they are within 10 degrees or thereabouts!). I then used the supplied drill and drilled to the appropriate depth on the faces which have the two halves of the dowels, and then pushed the dowels home. One small ritual of crossing fingers and touching wood later, I put the boards together and found that they were perfectly aligned.

 

So if I can do it, anybody can :)

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It's not too much of a problem as long as you can get to drill through the baseboard ends when the layout is assembled in perfect alignment. Once you have the pilot hole it acts as a centre for any of the typical baseboard dowels.

 

The problem is that it's sometimes difficult to get the hole drilled, even with a right angle adapter on the drill, as cross bracings and the like tend to get in the way. In such cases I would go for the foundry moulding dowels, as they are cleverly able to mark out for you.

 

post-18627-0-66433800-1449617213_thumb.jpg

 

Once a position is decided upon for the dowel a pilot hole is drilled in one side of the joint and the plate area is taken out with a Forstner bit to the required depth.

 

post-18627-0-83084600-1449617339_thumb.jpg

 

The pilot hole is then taken out to about 6mm and the male part is inserted backwards into the board end. A small pip on the back then marks the other side for drilling once the boards are clamped together in the correct orientation.

 

post-18627-0-94434700-1449617296_thumb.jpg

 

This mark is then used to drill the pilot hole for the other side, the process is repeated and the female plate inserted. When the male pin is turned around the boards should connect properly.

 

It's a bit of a job, but well worth doing, as it makes exhibition set up and running much better.

 

The alternative is to put a ledge on one end of the baseboard and set it to level the adjoining board, then put front and rear plates to locate it laterally, it might be worth a try.

 

Peter

 

 

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My layout uses the foundry moulding dowels (mine were called pattern makers dowels but they are identical, obtained rom Eileens Emporium) and they do work well.

 

However, following a house move, I need to insert a new baseboard between station and fiddleyard. This is to turn the track through 90 degrees as my new railway room is not as long. Any idea how I can build a baseboard which will line up using the existing dowels?

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Colin,

 

You're quite right, the correct term is pattern makers dowels, my brain gets muddled (easily) by the fact that they are in the foundry moulding supplies section of the supplier :senile:

 

There are a couple of options when dropping new boards in, simplest would be to build the new board, turn the dowels in the existing boards, as mentioned above, to mark the positions of the joiners, and insert new dowels into the new board, otherwise you could fit the dowels to two suitable pieces of timber then incorporate them into the new baseboard ends as you build them.

 

If you're not going back to the original arrangement you could even just start again and fit dowels in slightly different positions to the board joints as described previously.

 

Sometimes an arrangement like yours will require alteration to the track positions on the old boards to give a transition curve for the corner, if that's the case it's even easier, you just make two new pairs of end boards and screw them onto the boards, it's much easier to build the new end plates, with dowels fitted, while on the bench. Indeed on my main project layout I built all the end plates first, over height, then cut them to size once fitted, to give an end contour to the board that matches the landscape. This saves scenery on the ends of the boards getting damaged in transit.

 

post-18627-0-13627300-1449668188_thumb.jpg

 

We managed to drop an extra 8 foot of countryside into our Club layout once it had been built, ( it looked a bit too busy with just the station and two curved ends), and extended the fiddle yard at the back by a similar amount. It's far less critical than retro fitting dowels to an existing layout, as you don't have to worry about aligning the track, this can be done after the boards are fitted together.

 

post-18627-0-94564300-1449666070_thumb.jpg

 

The advantage of using the existing dowel positions and transferring them to the new board is that you can always go back to the original scheme as long as you are retaining the original track positions on the old boards.

 

Peter

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