David C

That's an amazingly ambitious station you're building! I found it fascinating to read your blog and look forward to seeing it when complete. I also found the cut and spliced coach building sequence interesting, too. Now my WR branch terminus is almost complete, my thoughts are turning to kitbuilding/bashing suitable stock. David C

Not sure if using ply is the answer, either, as I had a banana baseboard made of this material a while back. Wood of whatever variety seems to be inherently unstable, so I suspect we need to deal with our boards in a different fashion with more bracing. Diagonal bracing either of conventional 2" x 1" softwood or ply strips might be more effective. I'm not a scientist, but I suspect the real problem is the amount of moisture content in the wood, both the board and the bracing. Given the amounts of liquid we slosh on our layouts (plaster, dilute PVA etc), its a wonder any of the baseboards stay flat. In an attempt to avoid future problems with my current layout, I splathered the ends of each baseboard where the tracks cross with wood hardener and then painted the whole lot with a couple of coats of white primer. The two scenic boards incidentally have 6mm ply tops supported by 2" x 1" softwood braced diagonally. Until we moved last May, the boards were kept in the house. Now, they are in the garage - which is very cold at the moment. So far, so good with no sign of any "banana-ing"! If the boards do "banana", I may look for alternatives in the future. Dense foam maybe one answer ..... David C The oth