Baseboard without wooden battens

[John-352284]

Hi im starting out on my first ' model railway', TT120 allows me due to space available.

Im going to use 20 mm thick plywood for the baseboard with a cork sheet glued to the top and a rubber foam sheet underneath also glued.

The underside will be reinforced by1mm thick metal straps/lengths screwed to the baseboard. The metal strips/lengths are repurposed shelving supports. The purpose is so not to use wooden battens and noise not an issue. My aim is to assist storage of baseboards after use.

So im looking into making smaller baseboards to be locked together when in use.

Have toyed with hinges underneath and taper the joining edges.

So the noise from sound box may be elliminated with this method.

The reason for this is that it fits it our caravans second bedroom which is 2.58 metres x 1.58 metres where it will be set up.

Is there an alternative to hinges ? Like a fitting that locks the baseboard into position with adjacent baseboard.

[ntpntpntp]

I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to baseboard joints: I use pattern makers' dowels set into the ends (which means you really need some framing on the ends at least), and I use decent size M12 nuts and bolts :) This gives me perfect alignment every time. The oldest parts of my N gauge exhibition layout were built back in 1995 and have been assembled / dismantled many times.

This kind of thing:

Model Railway Baseboard Pattern Makers Alignment Dowel

I fear your approach to making the baseboards will result in rather heavy boards? I use 9mm ply and prefer to create light open frame "boxes" to allow for scenery contouring above and below track level if that's the desired effect. I'll only use a full width flat top if the scene warrants it (ie. lots of track and buildings).

I've always felt that covering the entire surface with cork sheet to be a waste of time and material, and only use cork strip for the track bed itself. I've never really noticed any noise problems, the polystyrene blocks I use for shaping scenery tends to deaden any "soundbox" effect.

[Renoir]

Take a look at the Station Road Baseboards website

stationroadbaseboards.co.uk

Toggle latches and alignment dowels.

The 20mm ply will be heavy so something to think about.

[Renoir]

Ah, I see Nick's beaten me to itgrinning

[Fishmanoz]

Check out General forum, Useful Links sticky at the top, Brian Lambert. He has good coverage of joining baseboards.

There are also multiple threads covering it in General.

[Hobby11]

Another voice for 20mm ply being too heavy. 9mm is quite sufficient and you can use 9mm for the frame as well.

[Timothy-352449]

Many years ago, we needed to make scenery flats for the Amateur Dramatic society, we made a series of double sided panels and fitted Pin Hinges in exactly the same place on both sides of the panels. We filed off the pins to the hinges and fabricated replacement "pins with a loop at the top for easy removal. this made it possible to quickly and easily rearrange and reverse scenery panels to enable complete scene changes. Might I suggest something along those lines for your baseboard. If you are canny, you could make sure your tracks line up on each panel to make them interchangeable, or make additional panels with differing scenery, just to add a variation to your layout.

(I haven't done that myself, my board just swivels up against the wall on hinged brackets, and I've wallpapered the underside to make it blend in with the rest of the room when not in use).

Regards,

Tim

[John-352284]

Thanks for the great advice, i will be considering very closely.

Regards

John