Bespoke Baseboards

At eveleighcreations I can make special boards to fit confined spaces or to give your layout a stunning visual effect, using mathematical or free-form curves.   I can make sets of rectangular boards, too, but my specialism is in complex geometrical designs.

My own layouts all tend to have interesting shapes.   I think vary carefully about the visual effect I want to achieve.   They nearly all have curved front edges, and Framsden is curved all around with the backscene and the fascia being composed of the same surface.

I sometimes arrive at the curves in the traditional way using flexible battens and adjusting until things look right.   On Framsden the approach was entirely mathematical, typing formulae for ellipses, etc. into a computer graph plotting package and adjusting the shape by changing the numbers in the formulae.   I also use spreadsheets to provide co'ordinates for setting out.

At right:  Framsden - the whole thing forms a composite stressed skin structure with the laminated wrapper and the beams working together to provide the strength.

Elliptical plan view

Hyper-elliptical front elevation.

This is a new layout I am constructing.  There will eventually be two boards, but initially the left hand two thirds of the right hand board will be a unit in its own right as I wish to enter this for a competition which has strict area limits - but I want it to form part of the final layout.   This has required some careful planning.

The front of the boards form a simple curve.  The backscene is curved at the corners and will have a uniform curve along the top edge, but initially with only a part of one of the boards being used for the competition the curved top edge would be a distraction.

In addition, the width limit of the competition doesn't quite match the width I need for the correct visual effect, so I have two different versions of the rear beam.

My son, Samuel, is currently at Sheffield University studying Aerospace Engineering.   As he went into his second year last year he moved into a house with a couple of friends and has an odd shaped attic bedroom in which he decided he wanted to build a model railway.   We surveyed the room last July before he moved in and over the summer started work on the baseboards.

The main job was to work out how the room would be arranged for living and study.   We did an AutoCAD drawing using our measurements.

When it came to designing railway boards we needed to look at the dimensions more carefully and assess the strange angles.

From this we were able to work out the arrangements of the boards.

Once we had got the design, we prepared this drawing for taking down to the workshop.

The front beam for one of the boards made by 'fishplating' sections of curved plywood together.   These were smoothed around the concave face and the fascia fixed to them.

The three boards for the corner of the room showing the smooth curve achieved.

The top side of the largest of the boards showing the curved front edge.

The boards mounted in situ in their new home.   Of course, being an engineering student, Samuel has not had much time for making any progress at all with these since the start of the year!