Hi All

I started to build Chagford before I stared blogging. So in this entry I will attempt to start to fill in the missing story.

Initially the layout was conceived as a circular layout rather in the style of Mark Fielder's Pizza and the baseboard was built as a circular board. But it soon became obvious that most containers are rectangular, and not having a car and using public transport, the baseboard was trimmed to make it fit.

The size of the layout is increase by using the device of the hinged cassette fiddleyard. The position of the backscene has to be positioned so that the fiddleyard can be accommodated when packed for transport. The backscene height is fixed by the box at 85mm.

The blocks are the central fixings for the backscene, and the are composed of two pieced because my carpentry skills are not up to cutting a piece of wood at 90° in two planes. The first piece is fixed to the baseboard top, the second is fixed to the first by a screw in one vertical face. The angle of the back face of the second block was then adjusted using a engineers square to the correct angle and the the screw is tightened.

The space between the backscene and the cassette location can be used to store other cassettes during operating sessions, but since the layout sits on a table storage space is not limited. The one advantage of a circular baseboard is that the frontage for a given area is larger than for a conventional rectangular design.

The hinges are placed on blocks to lift the cassette fiddleyard up to make sure that the tracks do not get damaged when the layout is in transit. The two pieces are held together using over centre catches, these have had to be slightly modified to allow the layout to sit flat in the transport box. This increase the height of the backscene and thus the scenery by 12mm and also reduces the possible damage too. Photograph below shows layout seating after modification, which consisted of cutting 5mm from the catch lever.

To be continued ….........

Lisa