Best material for a layout base board

Hello peeps,Iam going to move my layout up off the floor of the loft and onto a purpose built table,my question being what is the best material to make the base board from ? mdf ply chip board etc

 

SUNDEALA , track pins go in nice and easy.
http://www.sundeala.co.uk/sundeala.htm
fire "SUNDEALA" into Google there are plenty of suppliers.

 

I wouldnt use sundela its expensive and sags under its own weight very easily.

 

Like many thinks you have to balance up what you want and then decide.

If the loft is like ours you will have a wide range of temperatures and possibly humidity. MDF is hopeless if there is moisture as it absorbs it easily and causes problems with expansion and contraction. Sundela is nice (but expensive) and needs to be supported well, no more than 12" apart if you want to avoid sagging. The frame underneath can be a little as 1" x 1" under the board and 2" x 1" at the edges. Ask yourself some basic questions. Does it need to be transportable? What is the budget? What will you want to model? If you want flat 'yard' like scenery then a plain surface is great. If you want the track in the scenery at different levels then the L girder and trestle style could be OK.
Don't touch hardboard as it flexes easily, is hard to insert track pins (though if you pre-drill the holes it works) and suffers with humidity. Chipboard is cheap and cheerful but also quite tough to push pins in. Ply is tough but avoid thin sections, block board works but not over big areas unless supported well. Use an underlay and the noise will reduce dramatically.
Hope that helps. Not sure how many layouts I have built but I stil have not found the perfect combination, but then again anything that I have to pay money for starts off at a disadvantage.

 

Adrian thats a good summary . these days i use 9 mm mdf or 12 mm Ply these are my prefered choice as they asre strong and less likely to warp beyond use

 

Sundela, MDF and plywood all benefit by being painted both sides to protect against humidity changes in particular. Ply is the least likely to be affected if left plain, due to it's construction but I would not use ply of less than 6mm, preferably 9mm, thickness.

Regards,
John Webb

 

Use marine plywood! it is much more stable in situations with changing humidity/temperature, but it is rather more expensive than even the "damp resistant" chipboard/mdf variants! but you'll not *need* to paint it!

Have fun!

 

aye thats hwats on the layout in the attic marine ply.

stoneroad i sent you a pm on miniature railway world about teak paint!

 

Ive always used blockboard rightly or wrongly as it supports its own weight and seems fine as long as you have a decent set of supporting beams underneath it was also suggested to me by a professional model railway builder who designed my original layout

 

9mm ply glued and screwed on a batten frame.

 

I used 18mm thick furniture type boards. On a very strong framework of 42mm x 42 mm lengths of wood. Lengthways, crossways and vertically.

Fine for the 1e (plus some 1), gauge that I model in as the track sections were screwed into it with very small screws that later got covered by the ballast.

Using that combination of baseboard and supports gave a surface I could walk on. And I'm not small! It's been down circa ten years or more and no warping anywhere.

 

I have used 12mm exterior ply on 50 X 25mm P.S.E. timber framed at 300 centres ( half lap joints , glued and screwed) supported by 50 X 50 P.S.E legs on my layout in the loft. It has been in place for 4 years now without any problems, i then used cork underlay to place the track on. What ever you use do not cut corners on this as if the basebboard is poor, all the many hours of work you put into the layout will be wasted, good luck and enjoy!