chrisyates wrote:I source the aluminium tube from Metals4U; see: http://www.metals4u.co.uk/aluminium-box ... oducts.asp. It comes in a few days and is reasonably priced. If the legs can be contained at 900mm high or less, then a good economical source of straight-grained, and reasonably lightweight, hardwood is to use Wickes balusters (actually made by Richard Burbidge) - the last time I checked they were around £4 something each, and I think they are usually hemlock. However they involve quite a lot more work to assemble in to useful leg assemblies. Robin Whittle's model of Barrow Road Shed uses them, if you have seen that on display.
Hi Chris. many thanks for the link to aluminium tubing as I think I will opt to use that rather than the balusters, I think 1.5" square 16 guage tube will be strong enough for 42" high legs(but will look at cost of using 2" square) .
I can also get flat aluminium bar from them, just need to work out how long they need to be, so will have to make a scale drawing of the support frame, when we get back from a couple of days 'dog sitting' in Dorchester, to work out how much I need to buy, I'm guessing I'll need to buy 4 x 3 metre lengths.
I have loads of self-tapping screws that can be used for fixing ply cross-bars to the legs. I used to have tapped inserts that pushed into holes in the metal tubing which expanded and were locked in place when a screw was put into them, but doubt if I'll be able to find them now as I dumped far too much useful stuff when clearing out my workshop several years ago, but these will do a similar job:-
http://www.rivetwise.co.uk/rivets/rivet ... ell-nut-44
I bought a couple of folding trestles today so I can put some scaffold planks across them to make a long enough flat table to assemble the base frame on. The piece of kitchen worktop it is currently sitting on in the photo isn't long enough and worse it isn't flat.
At last I am firming up my ideas for the design of the baseboard part of the layout and once that is put together I can get on with some track laying. I have given up on the idea of making turnouts/catch points anywhere but 'in situ' so need the baseboard to build them on. Am going to use 6mm (or thereabouts) ply with 1/8" cork trackbed on top of that.
John
Apologies Mike for hi-jacking your Fovant thread.