JimG
Western Thunderer
Another elephant in the room with this layout was how it was going to be supported. Going back over four years, I built the boards to fold up into a box and fit in my Citroen XZara estate.
S - Port Dundas
The Xzara is long gone now but I've now got a Dacia Logan MCV and it is a bit more spacious than the Xzara so there should be no problems??!!
But I had thoughts about supporting the layout. There was no room for legs on the underside of the boards and I didn't really want to rely on getting tables if I took it to exhibitions. So I thought about building a central girder to support it, with the girder standing on joiners' stands at exhibitions or on top of furniture at home as it does in my bedroom.
The girder is nine feet long and folds to a three foot length for carrying.
...and opened out it looks like this...
The two joints from the underside...
...and the play in the catches and hinges is taken up by the threaded eye bolts and wing nuts. They can be adjusted to get the beam flat under load.
I opted to make one of the boards the "master" board which would be the one placed first and around which the others would fit.
Two cross-bearers were fitted to this board with captive 10mm bolts in place.
...and the board then placed on the beam and locked in place with the wing nuts on the bolts. Pilot holes for the 10mm screw holes had been drilled through beam and cross-bearers with the board held in place on the beam.
The next board was then set in place but with one cross bearer at the extremity of the beam. The inner end of this board would get its vertical alignment from the paste table hinge between the back scene boards.
The hole for the 10mm screw in the beam for this board is slotted to allow for the board swinging into place under the hinge action.
And the other two boards were fitted with two cross-bearers on the more central board and no cross bearer on the outer one since a screw on this one would be over-kill and a piece of packing to maintain level height would be all that is necessary. The screw holes in the beam for the inner board were also slotted to allow for the board to be slid into position on the latches and dowels.
The next job will be to replace the end back-scene boards (removed to fit the layout in the bedroom ), re-couple up the hinges on the board pairs and check that they can be folded easily and that the boards can be mounted and de-mounted easily.
Jim.
S - Port Dundas
The Xzara is long gone now but I've now got a Dacia Logan MCV and it is a bit more spacious than the Xzara so there should be no problems??!!
But I had thoughts about supporting the layout. There was no room for legs on the underside of the boards and I didn't really want to rely on getting tables if I took it to exhibitions. So I thought about building a central girder to support it, with the girder standing on joiners' stands at exhibitions or on top of furniture at home as it does in my bedroom.
The girder is nine feet long and folds to a three foot length for carrying.
...and opened out it looks like this...
The two joints from the underside...
...and the play in the catches and hinges is taken up by the threaded eye bolts and wing nuts. They can be adjusted to get the beam flat under load.
I opted to make one of the boards the "master" board which would be the one placed first and around which the others would fit.
Two cross-bearers were fitted to this board with captive 10mm bolts in place.
...and the board then placed on the beam and locked in place with the wing nuts on the bolts. Pilot holes for the 10mm screw holes had been drilled through beam and cross-bearers with the board held in place on the beam.
The next board was then set in place but with one cross bearer at the extremity of the beam. The inner end of this board would get its vertical alignment from the paste table hinge between the back scene boards.
The hole for the 10mm screw in the beam for this board is slotted to allow for the board swinging into place under the hinge action.
And the other two boards were fitted with two cross-bearers on the more central board and no cross bearer on the outer one since a screw on this one would be over-kill and a piece of packing to maintain level height would be all that is necessary. The screw holes in the beam for the inner board were also slotted to allow for the board to be slid into position on the latches and dowels.
The next job will be to replace the end back-scene boards (removed to fit the layout in the bedroom ), re-couple up the hinges on the board pairs and check that they can be folded easily and that the boards can be mounted and de-mounted easily.
Jim.
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