Hiding baseboard joins

[Grafarman]

I often think it's such a shame that some super-cracking layouts (including one or two in some current magazine issues ) often have disaster-movie-type cracks running across platforms, tracks, fields etc. where the baseboards meet up, and wonder whether there are any tried and tested means of covering them up to make a seamless finish? My next project may require one or two joins so if you could share your experiences in this (or point me to the forum I couldn't find that has this in ) I would be most grateful...!!!

[Kris]

Try to put joints where there is something that is above BB height on one side of the board and not the other. In the countryside this could be a hedge or a wall (not a fence though). This will make the joint invisible from one side and should put the other side a little bit into the shade. I have always felt smooth surface joints e.g. platform and roads are a right pain to disguise. If you have a modern layout a road joint can be hidden with black masking tape and a manhole cover to suggest the utilities have been digging the road up, again.

[speedy]

Try something like a road overbridge, or medium sized building that blocks sight of the join from the viewing position.

[Ramblin Rich]

I'm going to try the foam strips sold for insulating around door frames - should compress between the joint & fill any gaps. I've managed to avoid having the platform crossing any joins though so can't comment on that (the beauty of having a short platform!)

I'll come back with some pictures when I get "a round tuit"!

[10800]

For platforms that cross joins the simple solution is to make the platform itself detachable but in one whole piece so that it straddles the baseboard joint.

[Mike G]

You could always make the board joins into a sort of jigsaw, so that the eye is deceived, generally we look for straight lines not lines that 'zig and zag'. Vincent de Bode's layout Flintfield uses a similar sort of idea...which works.

 

Mike

[norseman]

On my own portable layout Northam Central I have several buildings and sub-baseboard structures that sit over the baseboard joints. But allthough they disguise several of the joints, the downside is that you have to carry them seperately when you transport the layout. It is time consuming and takes up a lot of extra space in storage. So it is something I won't recommend.

[Kenton]

On my own portable layout Northam Central I have several buildings and sub-baseboard structures that sit over the baseboard joints. But allthough they disguise several of the joints, the downside is that you have to carry them seperately when you transport the layout. It is time consuming and takes up a lot of extra space in storage. So it is something I won't recommend.

Although this works well - it does introduce the new problem of "floating" structures, something else that is difficult to disguise.

 

The glaringly obvious is that the effect of both join and floaters is much more evident on smaller scale layouts.

 

My best suggestion is a fold over scenic cloth strip the strip can be variegated in width and textured. I tried it once but it wasn't very convincing (but then none of my scenic efforts are)

[Dave777]

I did have pretty good success with having two baseboards together, putting down sand as ground cover, fixing with a PVA/water mix, and then once it had started to set (30 mins maybe?) I took the boards apart. I then left it to set completely, and when the boards were put back together the join was practically invisible.

 

I have to say that on exhibition layouts the best method I've seen is to actually fill in the gap after the layout has been put up. Blindingly obvious really, but the simple application of some suitable ground cover really did make it invisible.