My plan from the ground up

[cteno4]

6mm ply would be fine if supported fully to like 10cm from the edge of the ply by a desk. Bigger issue is 6cm ply (even up to 18cm ply) will most likely not be flat (or if flat stay flat with time and humidity changes) without some sort of simple framing to keep things flat and rigid. If this is to be your final layout size on its own then you could try a piece on the table and see how flat it rests to just use as a larger surface to plop tracks down on. Benifit of this is if you do decide to change the dimensions you have only lost the ply not ply and framing. If you are sure on the size the I’d say do as Kato advises and do a simple frame around the edge and cross braces like every 30-40cm spread out along the long dimension and then small cross braces between them going down the center (you can stagger these to make it easy to attach them).

 

6mm is a good thickness as it’s light but sturdy enough for a layout with some support framing below it.

 

If this is going to live on the table top then 42mm tall framing material is fine as the table surface will provide a lot of support points for the whole layout framing. If you are going to try to attach the ikea wheeled legs to it to stand on on 4 legs then I would suggest for the edge framing you go up to 70mm or greater tall. You really want the outer box to be rigid if you are just supporting it on the 4 corners with legs only. I don’t know the quality of your pine lumber, see what it looks like at the store as at times you can get some standard sizes (like the 70x35mm) in cheaper grades that sometimes are decently clear and straight. Nicer quality stock should be clearer and straighter, but can get costly at times! I don’t know if you care about looks, but if you can get cheaper good straight wood that’s not the prettiest, you can always iron on some wood veneer or attach thin hardwood ply strips or just paint it. Trick for the framing here is to get straight boards as any warps are going to end up warping the whole frame.
 

Here is a similar sized setup (well two of them attached by another module to make a U) at about 244x91cm I made for a friend’s layout. I was able to svelte the framing down by using strips of 15mm Baltic birch 7ply ripped down to 50mm strips (but this requires a table saw to do really). The Baltic birch ply is really stable stiff and rips down to dimensional lumber that does not warp. It’s 5mm luan ply tops

 

https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/12208-what-did-you-do-on-your-layout-today-n-scale/?do=findComment&comment=156289

https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/12208-what-did-you-do-on-your-layout-today-n-scale/?do=findComment&comment=156308

when we tested out the removable ikea legs they really needed 6 legs for that sized layout and also a sub structure for the legs to attach to and support the layout modules. It’s a classic table/leg design with the leg frame. Maybe could have attached the legs to the module corners and two at the center joint (we made it in smaller modules for easy transport and he wanted the ability to change the size and shape if he wanted into a longer straight layout or L shape). But I’m not sure how sturdy it would have been. The leg frame is just made out of 1x4s and 1x6s. Sorry wish I had documented that construction better, it was just one of those whip it out quick projects and forgot to stop and take more pictures!

 

jeff

[katoftw]

5 hours ago, N-Osoi said:

Thanks, good idea. Just seems that Bunnings doesn't have much in between thin plywood or thick boards. I have a tabletop to go under it 1200 x 600, might look elsewhere for slightly thicker plywood? Given the choice, 9mm ideal with a bracing under it?

[N-Osoi]

Oh yeah. 🤦‍♂️ I think I was caught up in looking for a single large piece. If I'm building a frame then multiple smaller pieces will be the go.

[Sir Madog]

Building a benchwork for a layout can be quite intimidating as it requires a few woodworking skills. We also tend to build it sturdy enough to withstand an atomic blast and thus select the dimensions for the lumber we use a little bit on the heavy (and expensive) side.

An easy option which requires no expensive power tools other than a good drill and a minimum of lumber is the so-called "L-Girder"-method, which consists of two L-shaped girders made from 20mm x 40mm straight lumber and a number of spacers, the exact number depending on the length of the layout.

 

Just a simple drawing to give a picture to it:

 

[cteno4]

Yes I agree sir madog, over the years I’ve built benchwork frames lighter and lighter (and I tended to build lighter than traditional modelers to begin with). The only place you need to worry about things needing to be beefier is at leg attachment points to handle those stresses. Also depends on how good your lumber is. Smaller dimensional lumber these days can be quite poor quality and warped, so I thing that may be why folks may upsize framing material some (and why I’ve moved to using strips of cut 7ply Baltic birch plywood)

 

The L girder design is nice as the L can help pull some small warps out of your dimensional lumber and insert the frame some from the edge.it could also help reduce the height of the dimensional lumber used and make up for the couple of extra pieces in price and weight needed in the L girder.

 

jeff

[N-Osoi]

Thanks again everyone. Managed to get a single piece of 9mm ply and a bunch of DAR 42x19mm pine for framing. Will be 2100 x 1000 😄. With 9mm and lots of framing spacers I think I won't need the L design on this one. Time to dust off my high school woodworking memories.

 

 

[N-Osoi]

I had a ... fun? ... weekend making the baseboard. I'm now doing that thing where you just drink a beer and stare at your handiwork.

[Sir Madog]

A good start! Congrats!

[cteno4]

Yes great start! That should do you fine. Looks like everything sucked down nice and flat and true. Should do you fine.

 

yes a beer really does finish it off well — as long as after the nasty power tools are done with!

 

time to start playing with track! 
 

enjoy,

 

jeff

[N-Osoi]

Thanks for all the advice here. Now I have space for the M2 layout - more track and points to come! First time I've ever had remote switching, very cool.

Edited April 8 by N-Osoi

[cteno4]

Power routing points also makes playing with temp layouts super simple to hold extra trains on sidings.

 

jeff

[N-Osoi]

Just posting here to keep the momentum up - visited my local model railway club today. A lot of layouts, a few of them N scale, virtually no modular layouts (T-trak? what's that?) and zero Japanese modelling 😅. Which is probably to be expected from a long-running Australian club. Regardless, I will press on and am glad this community is here. 

 

I think I will stick with temporary setups - I want to make a few small areas of buildings and scenery like that 'movable feast' idea that you linked, @cteno4. The blank canvas is a bit daunting though. I have a few Tomytec buildings and want to build more stuff.... and have roads that I can place around them... a bit of blue sky thinking.

 

At what point does one need to use the Unijoiner Terminals for extra power feeds, if that's what they do?

[N-Osoi]

I've been playing around with RailModeller and trying to work out a simple 'double loop'. It's so hard to design something that will a) join up nicely and b) not be completely symmetrical.
 

Anyway this is what I've got, will probably add sidings along the straight at the bottom. I assume a few mm out of line can be made up for with some 'give' in Unitrack?

 

And will I need more power feeding points?

 

[katoftw]

Use Tomix instead. Kato always has these restrictive issues.

[N-Osoi]

Well its a bit late for that now 😅 but if I make a stand-alone more permanent layout I'll use a more flexible system.

[JR East]

1 hour ago, katoftw said:

Kato always has these restrictive issues.

What restrictives issues ? I'm interested for the future 

[katoftw]

Kato has about a third of Tomixs pieces.

 

No variations of straights and curve match. This match lining up tracks like a few posts up weird or difficult.

[cteno4]

There is a little wiggle room with unitrack so a mm (or even a few) here or there be tolerated when it gets spread out over a larger distance of a loop. You can also use the straight expansion piece to get an odd straight length easily. These have a limitation that you shouldn’t put them right next to a curve as some trains can derail on them a bit. But is a good way to experiment and once you figure out the length you need there is an easy way to make custom length track pieces to make things fit better. You can resort to fiddling with combos of the 4 tiny track pieces (29 & 45.5 and 64 and 33 &38mm).

 

track planning with loops with a few different radius curves with wiggles like this will give you the exact same headaches of alignment if you use Tomix or Kato track, it’s issues of geometry that both will share just a bit different. I would hazard a guess it’s actually a bit harder to find a solution in a smaller loop with Tomix as the track separation geometry is 37mm vs kato’s 33mm so larger jumps in radius to try to find a permutation in a wiggle. For the usual range of curves on a little layout like this Kato actually will have a an extra radius available to use compared to Tomix. Tomix does have some standard parts to deal with crossovers better, but you are not doing that here. Overall Tomix does have a larger variety of track, but in this case it doesn’t really help you. So you are fine with untrak here.

 

the 50 small layout book I referenced before shows a lot of more wiggly, small, complex loop plans that are demonstrated in Kato and Tomix track so there not an issue if what kind of track used that one os superior in these small wiggly loop plans.

 

jeff

[N-Osoi]

Thanks Jeff that's a useful response. I've tried to adapt one of the online Kato plans (to use fewer/available parts), and yes I now realise that there's those packs of tiny track pieces which will solve a few issues. I'm sure a few mm across 2m of my layout will be OK, I've noticed a bit of flex when sliding it around. Also Tomix seems very hard to get in Australia. I might see if I can get that book ... although if I look at the author in Amazon I can see that they have also published other smaller books that have (free for me) Kindle editions! 

 

So if I make something like the layout above, would 3 power feeds be enough? It would be 9m (30ft) of track.

 

 

Edited April 16 by N-Osoi

[cteno4]

Yes there is some wiggle room. I can also point you to how to create custom length pieces as well.

 

yes Tomix track is not exported much, there was a distribution deal in the us for a short time with Walthers, but it was much more expensive than purchasing from Japan and did not last long. Importing it yourself is easy, just shipping and duty added. Unitrak I think is distributed in Australia which might help on price and picking up packs locally like it is here in the us. But lately the price of Unitrak here in the us has gone up some along with domestic shipping and some inexpensive Japanese retailers like plazajapan could supply cheaper including shipping from Japan (no customs duty here) than shipping from domestic distributors in the us.

 

but for what you are doing bit work equally well physically.

 

You may need a few more feeders. Usually folks do them around every 2m, but we do Ttrak setups at 3m spacing with out a lot of power drop evident. But you can start with three and see if you have voltage drops and just add more strategically to fix. It’s also easy to cut a slot through the roadbed and jsut solder feeders onto the bottom of the track. Then put a blob of epoxy over the slots and wire end and it’s super secure and you and use larger gauge wire than the 22/24g wire in the Kato feeders,

 

Cheers,

 

jeff

[RS18U]

Thanks for all the great info in this thread.  As a model railroader who gave up on sectional track in the late 70's for flex track and Shinora and later Peco turnouts I find the thought of going back to sectional track to be a bit intimidating, especially on the issue of flexibility.  But my goal is to do up a Japanese portable layout I can display at local train shows or possible Japanese cultural events, so sectional makes sense.

[N-Osoi]

Jeff, you're right about Unitrack being available here in Australia, my local shop even had the small track pieces pack and the short 15 degree curves. A few Oz-based online sellers too but then you might as well use Amazon or Plaza. We have a great exchange rate against the Yen at the moment, so buying direct is pretty good if you don't use expensive shipping.

 

Thanks for the feeder info, at the moment I'm running the M2 track kit which is probably 5m worth with no issues on a single feeder, but then again everything is shiny and new.

[cteno4]

@N-Osoi very nice to be able to pick up some track at the local shop even if a bit more expensive but save time and shipping charges. It’s gotten awful here as most places want like $8 min to ship even a small pack of track domestically. I was shocked when it was cheaper last fall to buy Unitrak from plaza and ship it even with much higher post covid shipping prices!
 

Yes as you do more snaps and unsnaps of track you will get looser connections and some oxidation in the connectors. If you notice a bad power drop somewhere you can look at the unijoiners around the area to see if any has gotten bent out some. Other trick is to spray a bit of good contact cleaner like wd40 contact cleaner (not wd40 lubricant!) on the track junctions to prevent future oxidation and keep the cleanest connection. Crap and oxidation does slowly creep into the unijoiners.
 

Issues comes up when you nail your track down and do scenery, especially ballasting, around the tracks. Some of the glues for ballast and scenery can get into track joints and diminish contact and cause oxidation with time. Usually recommended to do more frequent power drops (like every 1-2m)  when you nail down the track as hard to tear it up later if you start having issues.

 

I’m a huge fan of soldering to the bottom of the track once you are attaching track down as it makes a very permanent bond to the rail that oxidation and scenery glues can’t touch, is super tough with a blob of epoxy on it (never wiggles loose), and you can use heavier gauge wire. But they are bulky and non detachable so not good to jsut use on setups on the fly. The rail joiner power connectors are very fragile and end up breaking with age and the beneath the track plugs sometime are not pushed all the way in ad have wiggle lose when we use to do a lot of setups on the fly (had to remember to check each one on each setup.

 

There is also the trick you can make your own unijoiner power connectors as well by sliding the metal rail joiner out of the plastic roadbed connector. You can the slide it back in place with a piece of 20g wire stripped end wedged between the metal rail joiner and the plastic housing under the metal rail joiner. No soldering needed and pretty strong connection. But these can very a bit vulnerable to flooding with glue if doing heavy ballasting.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[cteno4]

@RS18U yep it ain’t the old sectional track from the 70s. My childhood in 70s was atlas snap track and minitrix track and atlas flex track! I have no idea why atlas called it snap track as it didn’t snap! Maybe a snap to put together but it never stayed together long once running a train on it for long, always wiggled it self apart without pinning or taping the track down. I use to use thumbtacks all the time to hold temporary setups in place on plywood.

 

Both Kato and Tomix sectional track is super robust stuff. Tomix finetrack has more varieties of types of track and points, but has to be imported and shipped from Japan Kato distributes to many countries so you can find it at local shops and domestic online shops a lot). Unitrak is nice when doing sectional or modular setups as you can remove the unijoiners easily if they get banged up with use and why It’s the standard track/connector for Unitrak. Kato is 33mm spacing geometry and Tomix is 37mm so you can pack things a bit tighter if need be with Unitrak. You can even intermix them (Kato sells a joiner track piece that lets them clip together) but with the different track spacing you can get into track geometry hell fast. Kato has a taller heavier roadbed which in some situations is less prototypical and at times a bit harder to fair into scenery, but a bit tougher, where as tomix’s lower profile roadbed looks more prototypical when just used in an on the fly setup. Both are super great track to work with so more what your needs might be.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[N-Osoi]

OK managed to put most of my track to use, also laid some cardboard down but uh yeah haven't done much cable routing. I seem to have no voltage drop despite only one feeder.

I think what I will do is make a T-Trak module for some practice of various things, incorporate it and just add to it gradually.