Foamboard base board and flex

On the O14 Yahoo chat group I was recently asked a question by Dave Eggleston about how much does the foamboard baseboard flex, so I set about measuring it.

The first experiment was to prop one corner of the baseboard up by 2cm, and measured the flex under just the weight of the baseboard itself, no weights added, the unsupported corner was then 11mm off of the desk, giving a flex of 9mm, this was over a width of 600mm, and length of 1650mm. The diagonally opposite corner stayed flat on the desk.

The next test was to place a hard back book on top of the unsupported corner, this then put the corner flush to the desk, although the diagonally oppostire corner needed to also be weighted with a similar book or it would raise into the air. This gives the flex of 20mm. The book weighs about 900g.

I then repeated the above two tests but swapping the unsupported and raised corners, this time the flex unweighted was 5mm, and I had to weight the opposite corner down to stop it raising. With the book (900g) on top of the unsupported corner the flex increased to 17mm. I believe the bracing under the board to be the reason for this, the diagonal bracing on the unsupported section went into the unsupported corner on the second test, whereas on the first it went into the supported corner. I suspect that adding an additional brace into each section so that both diagonals are braced would have improved the first set of measurements.

To test for end to end flex I raised each end up on to 1cm pieces of foam board, and measured the height in the middle, here, just under the weight of the foamboard itself was no measurable flex, certainly less that 1mm over 1650mm of length.

Adding on a couple of books (1250g) made it flex by 2mm over the 1650mm length. 

I did try to measure the flex on the deck, by pushing down on the top when the baseboard was flat on the desk, however there was no appreciable movement, no more than pushing down on a plain piece of foamboard.

Overall I feel the results are certainly adequate for my requirements, and hope that they have been helpful to anyone else considering this type of construction.

Baseboard & Track Plan

Baseboard made

I've been working on the baseboard - this is made entirely from 10mm foam-core board. Dimensions are 1,650mm long by 600mm wide, which is just about enough to give enough space to fit in the Newbury Wharf station. There will also be a cassette fiddle yard attached too.

 Here you can see the construction, liberal use of bracing, PVA, and masking tape.

 The finished item, which is amazingly light and rigid, so hopefully will do the job.

Track

I've been using Templot, and John Clutterbuck's O14 templates for the track layout, I'll be handbuilding all the track, again following John's article on building the track http://o14group.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/O14_track_articles.pdf 

It'll be the first time I've hand-built any turnouts, have done plain track before, so looking forward to that challenge! 

 The track plan from Templot has now been applied to the baseboard, there is a layer of foam underlay to go over this before the actual track, which will hopefully help with the drum effect of the foam board base board.

3D Printer

Last June I backed the 101Hero 3D printer project on KickStarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/101hero/101hero-the-world-first-us49-3d-printer
On Friday, after a very long wait, it finally arrived. It took about 30 minutes to get set-up and working, and the picture below shows it in progress.

The wiring is not the neatest, have got some spiral wrap on order to take care of that. I am pleasantly surprised by this printer, it was very cheap for a 3D printer ($79), and there had been plenty of problems for people who got the earlier ones. However so far, it's not been too bad to set-up, and the results are not too bad.

The image below is the first 3D item I printed, not perfect, but, not too bad for the price of it. The ship is less than 5 cm (1.5 inches) in size, and there is a reasonable level of detail on it. One thing I have noticed is the filament that came with the printer is not very good, but the Rigid.Ink reel that my brother Rob got me for Christmas works much better, thanks Rob!

 This next image is of some coupling rods that I have designed for a Baguley-Drewry diesel that I am modelling for the Newbury Wharf layout (more on that loco to come in the blog). I designed them in Autodesk Fusion 360 (free for personal use, and seems to be a step above any other free 3D modelling package I have used - note to get it free you need to register on the autodesk site, getting it from the Mac app store seems to want to make you pay).

When I originally purchased the printer I wasn't expecting it to be good enough to use for items such as the connecting rods, so I am pleased with the level of detail that is coming out.

 

Welcome to Newbury Wharf

Introduction 

Newbury Wharf is a model of the imaginary terminus of the narrow gauge Newbury and Lambourn Tramway. In 1873 it was proposed to build a 3ft narrow gauge tramway from Newbury to Lambourn, a distance of about 13 miles. Only about 2 miles of this was built before it was decided that not enough money could be found from investors to complete the line, and it was wound up.

The line did eventually get built, opening in 1898, but as the standard gauge Lambourn Valley Railway, which later became absorbed into the GWR, before being finally closed in 1973.

You can read more about the proposed and real railways in the Lambourn valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambourn_Valley_Railway and https://www.amazon.co.uk/Illustrated-History-Lambourn-Branch-Robertson/dp/090686724X

My layout imagines that the original tramway was built, but following World War I, it was relaid to 1ft 11½" due to the availability of surplus War Department stock. Somehow the line survived through the years after WWII and has survived to make into the modern day in preservation. 

Newbury Wharf is the terminus of a branch from the line from Newbury station to Newbury Wharf to allow interchange with the canal traffic of the Kennet & Avon Canal. Although originally it was only goods that would have been served by this station, a modern station building has been built, and track relaid to provide the facilities a preserved narrow gauge line requires.

The image below shows the proposed track layout. The majority of the track and station is in the location of the present-day wharf car park, and fits between Newbury Library, the West Berkshire Museum and the Tea Shop by the Canal (one of my wife's favourite tea shops) https://www.teashopbythecanal.co.uk/ 

The layout is going to be built in 014, which is O scale (7mm to 1 foot, or 1:43.5) but with 14mm track which is a scale 2 feet. All the track will be hand laid, using techniques from John Clutterbuck which can be found http://o14group.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/O14_track_articles.pdf.