fighting procrastination fifteen minutes at a time

Tag: plywood

Hammertime

Ok after a frustrating couple of days and a plan not coming together I have decided to ditch my lightweight baseboard (well I thought it was so) as the flex is just too much even with more screws although I have not glued it on so I made the decision to scrap it and start again. There is no shame in doing this in my view as to recognise the error and rectify saving time and money it is far better than doggedly follow a plan that ultimately ends in failure and loss of mojo in my case.

So how do I move forward? There is always a way out and a cloud with a silver lining and all those other cliques abound and that route was found in the form of a Vid on TrainmastersTV if you have been there roll on over and take a look. There is much content that is informative and although the bulk of it is US centric ‘we’ can learn from all modellers and techniques and there  are meany things on there that i had no or little knowledge of but have been educated.

One of the episodes is about modular board building and this is what I am going to adopt as my process. The questions then arise shall I build modular and do a couple of boards rather than one monolithic one.. a bit of pondering needed before I set off to lumber merchants once again..

hamertime

Out with the old

BBBd5

So the day finally arrived when I managed to get the ply sheet for the top, but it was not without it’s hiccups, for company that I rang two days before seemed to have gone bust overnight and shut up shop in the blink of an eye. However a kindly gent who I stopped to ask as I had been around the estate 3 times told me of this fact and said I was think about going to get timber not to go to a shop that I was almost outside as the quality was “poo” and recommended another supplier just up the road. Could not be happier with a helpful friendly service and help to car with me bits. Came away thinking yes thats how you do business and I will return (at some point)

After lumping the Ply upstairs one thing I will say it that it is much heavier than I expected as I decided to go for 9mm ply this time and thankfully the suppliers know how to store their ply, i.e. flat so there seems to be no warp in it. I am going to have to work out how I move the board around when it needs moving but for the moment I am not going to worry about that.  As you can see I have some overhang and the plan is to get one edge of the frame lined up straight with the top and then trim up the other side as the frame is not 100% square. Also coming down with a dose of cold hasn’t helped progress today and didn’t want to start cutting stuff with a very fuzzy head as if I had to get another bit…. well.. but at least I have what I need and will see how I get on tomorrow.

Base with 9mm Ply Top

Base with 9mm Ply Top

N+1

Slow progress indeed but progress it is. I now have all of the pieces that I need well almost as I now am going go for a belt and braces method. To add one more cross brace and then some horizontal braces to stop torsional warpage 🙂 but I have enough to glue up the frame ready for the top to be attached. Again I pondered what would be suitable and in discussion with my fellow conspirator and decided on using as planned 6mm Plywood. With the above board cross brace will also add some strength. Giving the light weight nature of this board warping I feel is always going to be an issue. However I think that it will be strong enough to handle the rather volatile climate it will live in. So to actual modelling, I hope I can get the basic frame together in the next couple of days and then I have to get the top so a trip to a DIY shed is required. But as Rome wasn’t built in a day neither is my baseboard 🙂

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