Re: MDF Baseboard

The question is really dependent on a number of factors including how
resilient you want the layout, whether it has to be as cheap as possible,
Whether you want the layout to be very light/portable and what sort of
scenery you will use.

The lightest wooden technique is probably very thin plywood over a thin
playwood box frame. I built one once with about 4 inch verticals and braces
every 12 inches or so, the trick was then to use fibre-glass and resin to
make the internal corners of the structure very rigid. This was very light
but require some good clean cutting of the plywood and some mess with glue
guns and resin.

MDF is cheap and solid and as long as it is kept reasonably dry then it
tends to last ok. One problem as I found on some boards I had made was that
it is very heavy and will be annoying if I take the layouts to shows,
especially since they live in the loft and have to get out the hatch. This
is probably the easiest to to build with some 2 x 1. As already pointed
out, yu will have problems getting pins in but could glue the track down.

Some people use insulation board which is like pin board and accepts pins
very easily but is also easy to break and doesn't leave clean edges when
cut.

I have some other ideas like polycarbonate on aluminium frames but these are
related to what you know, what you can get and what tools you have to cut
such beasts.

If your scenery is very hilly then some people advocate the L-girder system
which means you don't have a base board as such but an open frame. Onto
this frame you then attach vertical supports and then thin strips of
plywood to form the trackbed. This makes the layout very light and makes it
easy to get gradients built. Obviously this is more involved and requires
much more woodwork and cutting.

Luke

"RJR" <rj.richard...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I am going to make a baseboard 6' x 1'6'' and would like to know if
anyone could inform me if MDF a good material to use for baseboards?
Does it warp or sag and how much support does it need?

I've been very pleased with it. Doesn't warp or sag with normal
support. Only cons are the same as chipboard: it's quite heavy and
it's too hard to push track pins in. So I glue cork *** to the MDF
and glue the track to the cork, both with diluted PVA.

.