Corked

Don't worry the wine hasn't gone off and the beer is still drinkable! The cork in question is actual a large 3mm sheet. It's traditional to use cork underlay to raise the track off the baseboard, mostly as it helps to reduce the noise generated on hollow baseboards. As I'm not using a hollow baseboard I could probably have managed without the cork, but I wanted a surface that was easy to pin the track to and which could be carved easily if required. So I simply covered the entire surface with cork glued down with PVA glue, turning the baseboard into a large noticeboard!

As you can see I've made the most of the cork, by pinning two polystyrene formers to it to raise the track on the left. These are 4% incline starters from Woodland Scenics pinned using foam nails (also from Woodland Scenics). I've also added a manual control lever for the point leading to the factory siding.

The manual lever was very simple to make, fit and operate. Essentially it's a piece of wooden doweling, at one end there is a metal spike (actually a staple) which is fixed to the point and at the other end a thicker dowel is attached to act as a handle. This contraption is then buried in a slot in the cork. To operate the point you simply push/pull the handle. Simple. I've covered the channel in tin foil so that when I add scenery, paint etc. the mechanism shouldn't get gunked up and should continue to work.

The next step is to fix the back scene in place so that I can build the scenery up against it. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to fix it in place yet, but I'm sure there will be another post once I've got it sorted.