Towards the end of December I posted a photo showing I had a baseboard ready to take forward as the next project, having rejected the idea of extending the Beck Bridge diorama into an active layout in the "picture frame" style. I haven't entirely abandoned the idea of something in this style, but I think it may be in 009 and might be a potential outcome of Humberston on my Mind as mentioned last week. The new board for 'Plan B' was examined in the second week of lockdown and it still couldn't grab me as the basis for anything, especially when I spotted that the backscene board was warping and splitting, despite bracing. Cutting it down to a previous shorter length did nothing to help my feelings about it and I resigned it to the corner of the workshop.
For some time I had been considering an O9 version of Julian Andrews 'United Brick and Clay', which I've been fascinated about since seeing it in the 'Modeller and Scale Model Trains years ago, and having now seen it many times in Howard Martin's ownership as 'Avalon Brickworks'
All the versions I've seen have always followed both the gauge and the 'handing' of the original, so in order to subvert the genre my version will be O9, and the opposite way around (partially a practical decision based on the availability of pointwork), I have had the basic plan drawn out (full size) to fit a 23.5" x 15.5" cork notice board for some time and having put 'Plan B' to rest the Thursday before Good Friday, and with a good part of a "stay at home" Easter weekend available to work in, I thought it a good opportunity to get the baseboard work started and hopefully the track laid and wired. Did I manage it? we shall see.....
I've had this cork notice board stashed away for over a decade, with the inkling that another corkboard layout might follow 'Shifting Sands' at some point. This board is of the older style, made from some kind of softboard rather than two layers of corrugated cardboard, I've found this is a mixed blessing... The top surface was missing the cork layer in a few spots, these were carefully filled and sanded.
When I built the board for 'Shifting Sands' I was without a workshop and only had hand tools, so used 21mm x 21mm pine right-angle as the supporting cross-members under the board. In hindsight this was too lightweight so this time I have used 12mm x 21mm pine section. In order to avoid having to notch the end of each cross-member I opted to pack under each timber. Needing material 4mm thick and having no strip in stock, I cut fine strips of some very nice plywood I had awaiting reuse. Underneath the board I marked where the strips would go and opted to seal the board surface with primer/undercoat to seal the surface. I left the areas for the strips paint-free to aid adhesion.
I then tested the cut strips of ply and pine for size, this was the result of working late afternoon/early evening on Good Friday and I felt I had made good progress.
Saturday morning saw the glue and clamps deployed to fix everything in place. The gaps in the ply strips are a rare bit of forward thinking on my part to allow wires to pass over the main support pieces. The extra piece of timber over the centre cross-member is there to make sure everything stayed nice and flat! Whilst the cross-member timbers were from a new piece of timber I had in stock, the shorter pieces either side were recovered from the 'Plan B' board.
With the sun shining the glue was soon drying nicely and after a cuppa the board was inverted and I gave the top surface a coat of "Chocolate Dream" emulsion to seal the cork and hide the filler. This is an odd colour, on our chimney breast it looks a lot browner than it does here, and I'm fairly sure the outer woodwork on 'Shifting Sands' is this colour too...
After lunch I spent some time at the workbench working out the wiring diagram, finding switches, pointwork and rail joiners, and pre-wiring components ready for track laying the next day.
Colin
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