Track laying is coming on a pace. I have made two more sets of superelevated curves, so that is three out of four corners of the room dealt with. The final corner, however, is partly on the lifting flap.

I wanted to use copper clad on both sides of the baseboard cut for the flap, screwed and glued to the trackbed and then solder the rails to it. That is how my club, HWDMRS, do it and the tracks match up every time. But then the tracks are on the flat.

I, of course, wanted the curve superelevated. With the other superelevated curves, the tracks are glued flat onto the foam. The foam is then 'flexed' over the spacers under it when I glue it down. See the photo lower down. That's great, but as the copper clad was to be fixed flat onto the ply trackbed, how could the rails be canted? I can't 'flex' the copper clad.

This is what I did.

Firstly, I cut the foam to fit the curve as before and screwed it in place. I then put the two pieces of copper clad each side of the cut through the trackbed and baseboard and marked their position on the foam. I laid out the tracks and screwed them in place as I usually do, ready for gluing.

I removed the copper clad and glued the track to the foam, but not the middle sections where the copper clad would go. I then weighted the track down until it dried.

Once dry, I cut the chairs away from the sleepers for the length of rail for one piece of copper clad and removed the sleepers, making sure I did not distort the rails and the gauge.

I slid the copper clad under the rails. The copper clad is roughly the same height as the sleepers. One by one, I soldered the inner rail only onto the copper clad. I then did the other piece. This way, I kept the length without any sleepers as short as possible. I had already cut breaks into the copper clad to isolate each rail.

I turned it over and glued the spacers on in the normal fashion.

When that was all dry, I cut the foam away under the copper clad and glued some plasticard in place. This is roughly the same height as the foam and therefore right for the lower, inner rail.

I then glued the whole in place. The copper clad was flat to the trackbed and the same height as the foam and sleepered inner rail. The outer rails were of course higher - the superelevation. In order to weight that down, it was important to make sure the foam in the lower sections stuck to the trackbed just as much as the spacers under the higher, outer rail to acheive the cant. It needed lots of weighting on both rails, but taking care not to bend the still unsupported outer rails.

Once the foam has stuck directly down on the inside of each curved line, with the spacers under the outside, the cant is clear. The foam is the 'flexed' over the spacers. I am pleased with this. Just the right amount: not too obvious.

With the track now glued, the cant in place and the copper clad glued and screwed flat, the larger gap betwwen it and the outer rails could be seen.

I then flooded large amounts of solder between the outer rails and the copper, fixing it in place for the cut accross the flap and preserving the amount of superelevation. The soldering is not the neatest, but there's a heck of a lot in that gap! I am learning as I go along.

Finally, when all had cooled, dried etc, I cut the rails with a razor saw, exactly in line with the cut in the trackbed below.

Hey presto, a superelevated curve over the joint onto the lifting flap, secured by solder onto screwed copper clad on each side. So far the lines meet up perfectly each time.

Rich.