After my rash promise in a previous post to get the trains running after all my structure woes. I realized that there were other things that needed doing first. Like make the sector plate. It makes sense that it would be easier to make the sector plate, lay the track on that and line the track on the baseboard up with it. Rather than the other way around. So I needed to source some 3/16” ply, the same as is used on the layout baseboards. Whilst I was doing that I was asked about how I went about rebuilding the structure. How did I make sure it was square, flat and level this time.
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| Bracing and the glues. A view of the rear of the building flat. |
Honestly, I think I was just more careful. For a start, I made sure that the black foamcore substrate was really flat this time. Other than that, i
t’s a fairly simple set up. All basic techniques. The structure itself is 35” x 10” (890mm x 250mm). The sheet of 6mm foam core base was 20” x 30” (610mm x 760mm). So I had to graft 5 extra inches onto the length. The two sections were butt jointed and glued together and reinforced with a glued strip of paper on either face of the board. Once the board was framed with 20mm strips of 6mm foam, it was strong, flat and square. As with all my foamcore based structures, I used Gorilla Glue woodworking glue to glue the board. It gives a throng bond and doesn’t dissolve the foam centre. Devon contact cement was used for fixing the styrene to the paper face of the foam core board. The only other thing I did was rough up the backs of the styrene sheets prior to gluing them to the board. I do have a slight concern that the ridged nature of the upper section of the building means that there’s not enough surface to surface contact for glue faces. But right now, everything seems OK.Onto the sector plate. Having found some off cuts of ply, I set about locating the pivot point and setting the curved edges of the plate and baseboard. Many times in the past I’ve made a pig’s ear of this, cutting and recutting the edges, so I’m always very wary.
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| Making sure the edges run against each other but don’t bind |
This time it only took one recutting of the edge to get it right. Though to be honest, it was almost right the first time. I just needed to be certain. The sector plate only needs to line up with two tracks. So no complicated locating systems will be needed.
I framed the sector plate with some 4” x 1” pine. That may well be going overboard a bit. But the Weaver locos I have are heavy and I’ll use all the support I can take. After that, with the cork underlay glued in place, track laying can start.
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| The sturdy sector plate, it overhangs just enough to need a support at the far end. |
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