A baseboard provides a solid foundation onto which a reliable and enjoyable model railway can be built. Hornby Magazine explains its simple method for home-made solid top boards in simple steps.
BASEBOARD CONSTRUCTION isn’t everyone’s favourite part of model railway construction, but they don’t have to be complex to build. We have been building simple solid top baseboards for Hornby Magazine’s exhibition layouts with the same basic principles for the past 10 years and they have proved reliable in home and exhibition scenarios.
The materials chosen are readily available from DIY stores and consist of 9mm plywood for the surface coupled with a frame cut from 70mm x 15mm planed timber. The legs are made from 44mm x 44mm square planed timber and each board is held together with a combination of PVA wood glue and standard 4.0 x 30mm or 35mm twin thread wood screws.
To build a 4ft x 2ft baseboard like this you are looking at a material cost between £40 and £50 at current prices. Handily, many timber merchants offer a cutting service which means that you can give them and their machinery the hard task of cutting your baseboard plywood surfaces to size so that all you have to do is cut the timber frame to match and assemble the board …
