Time for the first progress update on this exciting new project that I am working on. I have been very lucky that the others in the team are completing various woodwork activities and so have been donated many off cuts of ply and planed soft wood timber to use on this project. To complete the hill formers I attached a piece of 3mm ply to a small piece of wood which brought the height up to where the track bed will be.
I secured the completed hill formers in place by drilling, gluing and screwing them where I wanted them. The bridge was the next thing to be glued down to the board but before I could do this I wanted to replace the black plastic that was being used as the track bed with wood. I used two piece of ply which were almost the correct width to slide through the bridge, it was just slightly too wide. I used an electric sander to sand the piece of ply down to the correct width. I secured the two pieces onto the same hill former to form the track bed.
Once everything had been secured to the baseboard it was time to start creating the hill around the hill formers. To do this I have used polystyrene cut with a hot wire cutter to fit the shape of the gaps around the hill formers. I was reluctant to use the hot wire cutter to begin with but once I got the hang of it I was well away, keeping my fingers well away from the wire! Once the polystyrene was cut to the correct shape and size, it was secured in place with instant nail adhesive.
This is as far as I have got so far, next challenge is to cut the polystyrene to fit under and around the bridge as well as wiring in the track feed. I guess at some point I will need to think of a name for this project but until the vision becomes clearer, I think it will be referred to as Really Useful Layout going forward!
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