Hexworthy preparation for Narrow Gauge South

Hexworthy will be at Narrow Gauge South at Eastleigh on Saturday, so I have been carrying out the usual preparations (a quick vacuum) and testing (running all the train combinations I can think of). There were a few minor jobs to do too, including looking at the exhibition fiddle yard following some occasional issues at it's last outing at Chatham last year. 

The probable cause of the occasional derailment or unwanted uncoupling was mismatched rails between the lead track and the traverser.  A couple of rails needed lateral adjustment, but several had a slight change in height. The rails are soldered to PCB strip either side of the join, so adjustment meant applying a soldering iron until the solder melts and holding the rail in the right place (including up slightly where needed) with pliers while it cools. All seems good now, hopefully it will stay that way!

The deck had become stiff to turn, and had started squeaking when turned. The pivot is simply a bolt which had a washer, nut, and locking nut underneath - the lock nut preventing the nut coming undone. When I looked underneath I found the nut had wound itself tighter upward into the wood support, forcing the washer with it - while the locking nut stayed where it was. Here, I've removed the lock nut and the normal nut is about to be removed, but the washer remains embedded about 2-3mm into the timber.

The solution was a bigger washer, and using just the lock nut which shouldn't loosen or tighten. The tightness has been adjusted so the deck spins freely but there's no vertical movement. The old washer remains embedded in the wood - I guess it can act as a bearing!

The end gates for the deck folded down to rest on the rails. The problem is when the deck is slid back and turned, they could catch on the fixed tracks, and the resulting jolt derails most of the stock on the deck unless it is turned very slowly and carefully! The solution is simply a screw (seen centre) acting as a lower stop, holding the gate high enough to clear obstructions when turning. 

I also made an adjustment to the latching arm release mechanism underneath. This pushes the sprung notched aluminium arms (seen lower left in the photo) away from the alignment pegs so the deck can traverse smoothly. I took a photo, but it doesn't really help explain things unless you know what your looking at - so suffice to say the lever doesn't need to be pressed so far to allow smooth deck movement. 

My operating team say that the birds on the canopy are not sufficient to accurately position the train for uncoupling. Something to do with the operating position being four feet away to the end of the layout. In an attempt to make uncoupling easier, I've added tufts of grass. The idea is that with the overscale blue tit in line with the coach roof and the grass by the end of the footboard, together being easier to judge from an acute angle, the coupling should be over the magnet.

The other tuft of grass of course aligns with the robin, the marker for the Microtrains uncoupler magnet. In both cases the trick is to stop beyond the magnet, then set back to the markers to uncouple. We shall see how much the grass tufts help...

Now I just need to pack up for the show. It looks well worth attending if you can - do say hello. 

Fettling Hexworthy between shows

On Saturday I'll be taking Hexworthy to the Newhaven club exhibition (in Seaford). Following the two days at Uckfield there were a few issues I wanted to address to improve running. One was the uncoupling magnet under the bay platform line - this seemed to "grab" at metal wheels of coaches causing jerky running, and the small quarry Hunslets could actually stall. Operationally, the magnet isn't needed as I don't use the bay as a siding, stock remains coupled to the loco, so the obvious solution was to remove the magnet.

The cupboard-catch magnet had been stuck in place through a hole in the foamcore board using hot glue, such that it sits just below the sleepers. Cutting the glue away allowed the magnet to be prised away, but of course this brought some of the ballast with it. 

Fortunately, the little oblongs of ballast were so well set in glue that I could slice them off the magnet intact with a scalpel. Having stuck a piece of card under the sleepers, the ballast blocks could be glued back in place!

There had been occasional derailments exiting the fiddle yard, I think due to misalignment of the traverser. The traverser/turntable deck has a "lip" which passes under the fixed edge to prevent the deck rising up, but I think the fixed deck might have been rising slightly. 

I've added a lower support, the wooden "finger" seen horizontally protruding from the fixed deck under the traversing/turning deck lip. Hopefully this will constrain any vertical movement. I also filed the vee notch in the aluminium arm a little deeper and more symmetrical, and increased the spring tension. Originally I'd been aiming for smooth movement without having to disengage the latch manually, but that wasn't really possible, so now the latch can be disengaged via a single lever I could have a more positive alignment via the deeper V and stronger springing. 

Up top, the alignment of rails was checked, a couple of tracks were adjusted slightly with the soldering iron. A couple of rails were also trimmed back a fraction of a mm, although they cleared the entry tracks fine one of them caught on them at Uckfield, I can only presume due to heat expansion or distortion of the frame. I've also added a switch to isolate the traverser tracks, regardless of position. To access the bay locos draw their coaches back into the fiddle yard, this can happen when all tracks are in use which could be done by moving the traverser to a "between tracks" position so no track was live, but the addition of the switch makes this easier. 

A quick test suggests coaches can be pulled and propelled on and off the traverser, but they could most of the time before, so we'll see if things are more reliable. The latching feels more positive. If you are at the show on Saturday you can see for  yourself - do say hello!

Hexworthy last-minute show prep

I had promised an update on the last-minute jobs ahead of Sunday's show, these weren't critical but make life easier when exhibiting. I had discovered during testing that the arc of the "gates" at the end of the fiddle yard as they fold down meant that the last 20mm or so of each end of the tracks couldn't be used for risk of catching the stock. The L&B Manning Wardle and its 3 coaches had to be positioned accurately to fit, while the double Fairlie couldn't fit with the same coaches. 

The solution was relatively easy, a new hole was drilled to move the gate pivot by 10mm meaning it swings further out when folded down, just resting on the ends of the rails. The "stop" screw had to be moved too but the tail of the gate arm was still long enough to securely lock the turning deck to the sliding deck. 

Now the gates clear even the double Fairlie with the three longest coaches, just stop with buffer beams within the copper clad. A small extra cut-out was needed in the back panel to clear the longer overall length. 

I also fitted handles to make sliding the traverser easier with one hand, without knocking stock off the near track. These are on the sides of the upper, rotating deck to give finger clearance above the edge of the frame, so there's one each side - they were cheap off Amazon so why not. Of course, although they came with two lengths of bolts, even the shortest were too long - but the Dremel sorted that easily enough. 

The forecast for Sunday suggested rain was likely, which isn't ideal when loading/unloading a layout. So, I decided to make a cover from foam-core board, similar to that on Loctern Quay. It simply spans the gap between the lighting pelmet and the top of the backscene, the triangular fillets at either end have a Velcro strip underneath that attach to the tops of the ends which holds everything in place. 

I've had the dimmer for a while, it was dirt cheap from China, and fitted neatly on the end of the light pelmet with more Velcro. With the layout covered restricting ambient light, turning down the layout lighting gives an effective dusk/dark effect that makes the building and lamp lights stand out. Plus, it means the power lead doesn't have to be threaded in through the small hole! 

A view of the layout set up and ready for the show to open. Note the shelf on the trestle - useful for mugs, tools, and the controller. 

Hexworthy dry-run

Ahead of its first exhibition next month I thought I should do a dry-run of setting up the layout in its exhibition format. You may remember the exhibition fiddle-yard, which was fitted to the layout for testing. 

Although only completed a few months ago, I found several issues, including the track being completely dead - traced to a loose wire. Also the rails didn't line up well with the station board, maybe I didn't do a good job first time but a soldering iron soon fixed that. More seriously, the "latch-release" lever didn't release the alignment latches effectively making the traverser difficult to use smoothly, and the far end latch didn't always engage. Investigation revealed that the dowel across the board rotated by the lever was starting to split, while the dowel that ran along the board to release the far latch didn't slide smoothly. 

I found some 10mm dowel so used this to replace the rotating shaft across the board, this should be have much more torsional strength. The operating lever was beefed up too. The latch release lever for the near latch was re-fixed, and the connection to the second dowel made with a screw through a slotted hole rather than a bent paperclip. 

The dowel operating the far latch was removed and the holes opened up more so it moved smoothly. As well as the improved connection to the lever, a spring was added to pull the release away from the latch when the handle is released, ensuring the latch is free to engage. Hopefully these changes will make the mechanism robust enough to work through exhibitions. 

I also brought the supporting legs in from the garage, having dusted off the spiders, their webs and nests. These were made for Awngate and haven't been used for several years, they consist of a pair of folding trestles and a pair of L-section beams that span between them, bolted in place. The front beam is inverted with a flat top, the lip of the rear beam prevents the layout slipping off rearward. The assembly is sturdy and still seems to do its job well enough, although the beams are just 4' long, but Hexworthy is 4' 6" plus the fiddle yard - close to 7' in total. As the boards are rigidly joined the overhangs either end aren't really an issue, but I could make some longer beams provided they still fit in the car. 

The trestles are 2' wide, the layout sits with its front to the edge of the trestles. I have a longer drape that could cover the end of the trestle better, it's held with drawing pins and trapped in place by the layout. This set-up doesn't take long nor take up a lot of space in the car, and as seen it can serve different layouts. The height is about 3' 8", with track level at 4' for this layout. 

The "Ultimate" fiddle yard - refinements and finishing

So, here's where I think the problem is. With the sector plate of the home fiddle yard (left-hand diagram) the latch arm is pivoted in line with the movement of the pin, so it's movement is perpendicular to the pin movement. However, with the traverser (right-hand diagram) the pivot must be set back, causing the arm to be at an angle, and more importantly the movement of the notch is not perpendicular to that of the pin. When the traverser is pulled forward (down in the diagram) the pin pushes the notch away easily, but when pushed back (up) as the arm moves the slope out of the notch is effectively steepened, requiring much more force to move it. 

It had become clear that no amount of adjustment of the shape of the notch was going to allow the traverser to release forwards smoothly while latching positively, and I couldn't move the location of the pivot for the latch arm. Therefore if the traverser was to move smoothly and not jolt so that trains were derailed, a latch-release mechanism would also be required. I gave this some thought since the objective of the latching mechanism was to make fiddle yard operation easy and requiring minimal intervention from the operator, the latch release would therefore need to be easy and instinctive to use one-handed so that the traverser could be moved with the other. That meant it had to disengage the latches at both ends of the traverser, and return to self-latching mode once released. 

This view of the underside shows the solution I came up with. 

• At the top left of this view is a wooden lever on the front fascia of the board, pressing this down rotates a dowel "shaft" which runs across the board (top to bottom on the left of this view). 
• The shaft rotates a wooden arm, the top of which pushes the aluminium latch lever back (left) away from the pins, releasing the latch. 
• The lower end of the arm is linked to another dowel that runs along under the board (left to right in this picture), such that the rotation of the first shaft causes this dowel to push to the right
• At the end of this second dowel another wooden arm is pushed against the aluminium latch at the far end of the traverser, releasing that end too

With the traverser deck removed the two dowels can be seen, with the wooden arms that bear on the latch levers. Pressing the lever on the front left of the board thus pushes both latches back and releasing the traverser to move smoothly. Releasing the lever allows the latches to spring back into place, and so the traverser will then slide into the next latch position.

This view also shows a wooden arm fixed to the deck on the left, this is a "gate" that swings out to prevent runaways from the traverser when it is pulled forward. Held with a single screw it simply pushes back parallel to the board as shown for transport. There is a similar gate at the right-hand end.   

Another refinement is this old bathroom door draw-bolt. The lower part is fixed to the supporting cross member and the upper part is on the front of traverser, engaging the bolt locks the traverser in place for transport. 

As seen in the photos above the fiddle yard board got a coat of the standard grey paint used on my recent layouts, to match with Hexworthy. The smaller home fiddle yard also got a coat of paint. I use grey wood primer from Wilkinsons (although a primer it has a nice finish), I guess I'll need to find another source when this runs out. Mind you, it's oil based, smelly, takes ages to dry, and is a paint to clean out of brushes, so next time perhaps I'd choose a water-based paint!

The paint really smartens the fiddle yard, although I have not painted the deck or moving parts. Here the latch release lever can be seen, as can the two gates that protect the ends of the traverser when pulled forwards. 

So the exhibition fiddle yard is now complete. It seems to work well in the brief tests so far, but will spend most of its life in the garage, I guess the real test will be when it gets used in anger. 

Of course, life might have been much easier if I'd gone for a simpler turntable or traverser, rather than combining the two. The original intention was to have the benefits of a turntable (fast turnaround with no stock handling) while able to turn it when used against a wall at home, hence the need to pull it clear of the wall. Now I can't erect this fiddle yard against the wall at home anyway and as rebuilt it can only turn when pushed back, but decided I might as well continue to use the sliding/rotating arrangement as:

1. I'd already got the sliding/rotating assembly which seemed to work so might as well reuse it
2. The traverser arrangement allows parallel tracks so I can fit more in - a turntable needs space for the tracks to curve at the ends, so less tracks in a given width
3. It actually proved handy. Being able to slide it away from you and rotating it without having to get off a stool and move out the way is quite useful!
4. The double-ended latching arrangement works with a traverser but wouldn't with a turntable. (I expect it could work with a turntable using a common return rail powered through the pivot bolt and a changeover switch for the polarity when turning, perhaps as microswitches set up to automatically switch)

Finally, here's the home fiddle yard in place with Hexworthy. The grey paint looks much neater, again the moving deck is unpainted. The pillar on the right is the reason for the L-shape fiddle yard and why the larger exhibition fiddle yard can't be used here. 

The "Ultimate" fiddle yard - Latching mechanism

The next job in the fiddle yard rebuild was to create a latching mechanism that aligns the traverser tracks to the entry track, and provides power to the aligned track. This uses the same sprung notch and pin arrangement as proven on Loctern Quay and the home fiddle yard for Hexworthy. 

First holes were drilled in the PCB near the end of the traverser deck centrally between each set of rails. Normally I'd fix the track after putting the pins in and line them up to the entry track, but here the tracks are already in place. I cut a jig from brass sheet to slide tight between the rails with a hole dead centre, then used the Dremel in it's stand to drill a vertical hole, first as a pilot then opened up to the size of the brass tube. The holes go through the PCB strip, the 5mm PVC foam deck, then the second layer of PVC foam that forms the protruding lip, this makes sure the brass pins are held very securely. 

The alignment pins are made from brass tube chopped into lengths of about 20mm to go through both layers of PVC foam and protrude about 5mm below. This tube was 3/32" or ~2.4mm diameter, not that the diameter matters that much. 

The pins are a tight fit through the hole so were tapped into place with a hammer, the top just protruding above the PCB, and are then soldered to the PCB. The PCB was gapped to one side of the pin so that it is electrically connected to one rail. The pins are all connected electrically to the right-hand rail looking at the end of the traverser, so those at opposite ends of the traverser are connected to different rails. The protruding lip has been covered in graphite to ensure smooth travel below the fixed end deck.

The components of the latch mechanism:

• A spring taken from a soap dispenser as shown
• A length of aluminium - in this case T-profile - with a pivot hole at one end, and a curve cut and filed at the other, with a V-notch at its centre. There are also 3 holes through the vertical web
• A long screw which passes through a hole in the aluminium, through the spring, and into the block of wood which is fixed to the board.

In this way the screw acts as a limit stop, spring retainer, and tensioner, the three locating holes allow the spring/screw to be located at varying tension and leverage locations. Note that this fiddle yard has TWO sets of alignment mechanism, one for each end of the traverser.

From the underside the aluminium arm is bolted in place with the wire to one rail (labelled "front") connected to it via a washer, it is free to pivot in the horizontal plane. The wood block is fixed to the board too, with the spring between it and the arm pushing the arm away. The long screw both locates the spring and acts as an end-stop for the arm, in this view the arm is at its furthest travel with the end between two of the five brass locating pins. 

When the traverser slides the pins push the arm back until they drop into the V-notch, being a round pin in a vee they locate the track, and being metal they conduct the power to the rail.

This just shows one end, an identical mirror-image latch is provided at the other end of the fiddle yard with the arm connected to the red wire. 

From above with the traverser pushed back the arm can be seen pushed fully out by the spring. The shape of the face of the arm and the notch are adjusted so the pin slides easily into place. Note how the lower lip of the traverser slides under the fixed deck helping to ensure accurate vertical alignment.

The entry track was trimmed and fixed in place lined up with the layout tracks, and also with the traverser tracks when they are aligned with the pin/notch (including both ends of the rotating traverser). A couple of the traverser tracks needed realignment with a soldering iron, but despite the less than ideal order of construction this seems to work well. The fiddle yard connects to the main board with an audio (RCA) lead, the other end of which connects into the choc-block connector under the board.

The extra depth of the rebuilt fiddle yard allowed the pivot bolt to be inserted with the nuts below (Awngate had a very shallow baseboard), this meant only the shallow mushroom head of the bolt protruded. This meant I could make the centre track a through road rather than having two dead-ends, both making it more useful and making the electricals easier, so a short length of track was cut to fit the gap between the existing PCB strips. However, the bolt head caused a hump in the track, and cutting away the sleepers meant the rails touched the bolt head. I carved away the lower part of the rail with the dremel so they sit neatly over the bolt head, and the red insulating tape should prevent any shorts. There seems to be adequate clearance for wheel flanges. 

An overview of the assembled fiddle yard. It can be seen how the two "handles"  lock the rotating upper deck to the traversing lower deck, they are unlocked when the handles are folded down to act as end-stops preventing stock runaways when rotating. Rotation is free and smooth, the latching seems to work well, and sliding the traverser forwards is smooth. However... when pushing the traverser back the latch is difficult to overcome and movement can start with a jolt, which is likely to derail trains.

I realised that the previous latching fiddle yards I have built were sector plates, the curvature of which allows the latching arm to be pivoted at a point in line with the track join, and so the arc of the movement of the arm is perpendicular to the movement of the pin - that is, the v-notch moves directly away from the pin and resistance is equal in either direction (see here). In this case the arms have had to be pivoted some way back from the track join, and despite making the arms as long as possible they must be at about 20 degrees to the line of travel of the traverser. Pulling the traverser forward the pin has an easy job to slide out of the v-notch, but when pushing the angle of movement of the arm effectively steepens the "slope" the pin has to push against to free itself. 

Hmm...

Rebuilding the "ultimate" fiddle yard

Last year I adapted the fiddle yard for Hexworthy to suit its new location, but that has limited capacity and is only intended for home use. You may remember the sliding and rotating fiddle yard built for Awngate, the plan was to use that for Hexworthy too. Of course, it wasn't that simple... Hexworthy has a deeper baseboard, originally overcome by adding battens under the fiddle yard, but that wasn't an elegant solution. Also, when revising the home fiddle yard I'd changed from using split hinges to dowels and catches for board joins. Also, the wiper contacts with microswitches hadn't proved a robust and reliable way to power and align the tracks, and since then I'd come up with a better solution. So, a significant rebuild was needed...

The existing fiddle yard was dismantled, parts of the frame were reused but the plywood ends, front, and rear were cut from offcuts in the garage to suit the deeper board. This took a bit of thinking as rather than building a baseboard and then fitting it with a fiddle yard, I was building the existing fiddle yard elements into a new frame - so had to take great care to get the surface height correct. 

The rotating deck (top) is unchanged but the lower sliding part was trimmed. The larger of the trimmed material was attached under the ends of the top rotating deck forming a protruding lip to pass under the edge of the fixed part of the deck.  Lower cross-beams were added underneath for the runners. The rotating deck is then bolted to the lower sliding deck as before. 

The fixed decks at the end were attached ensuring the height matched the scenic baseboards, and overhanging the protruding lip from the rotating board. The rotating and sliding assembly was then attached via ball-bearing drawer runners to two cross-members, packing under the ends of the cross-members being used to level and match the height. Surprisingly, I managed to get the height matched and a free moving traverser. Previously double-stacked runners had been used to allow the deck to move either forward or backward far enough to rotate, but here I've simply used a single set of runners so the deck must be pushed back to rotate, the fixed deck being cut away to facilitate that within the limit of the runner span. The shelves were recovered from the first incarnation.

Another tricky job was fitting the dowels in exactly right place to get the baseboard aligned and connected to the main baseboard. Again, using a wood template, I got there in the end. The fixed end decks are recovered from the old fiddle yard but still needed trimming as the end plywood was thinner! Nothing seemed simple here. 

Despite the back-to-front build I managed to get the fiddle yard constructed to fit to the Hexworthy baseboard, with a deck that slides to align tracks then slides right out to allow the deck to rotate. The rotating deck with end-gates that also lock the rotating deck to the sliding deck is pretty much unchanged, but most of the rest of what is seen here has been modified or reconstructed. Yes I do seem to over-complicate things! Next up will be the latching and electrical system.

A new fiddle yard for Hexworthy part 2 - making it work

Almost a month after I started the new fiddle yard for Hexworthy I got a free Saturday to get it working. Actually, it isn't entirely new.

The deck seen here is from the old fiddle yard, although it took some thinking to work out how I could use it with the same geometry with the pivot moved about 8" towards the front of the layout. The previous yard had tapered towards the wall, this one has to slew away from it to clear the pillar. The pivot had to move right to the edge of the board and as you can see, it's a tight fit to get the full movement. 

However, to allow the movement across all tracks and run into the same entry track to the layout without a sharp S-bend in the transition I found the front siding of the sector plate had to be repositioned. I managed to lift the track and its PCB end sleeper with a knife blade (having been glued with Bostick), and prise the brass pin out of its hole. A new hole was drilled about 10mm closer to the next track, the pin pushed in, and the track glued down with a slight curve ensuring the rails were in line with the pivot where they met the edge. 

Under the board I managed to refit the latching mechanism, after a bit of thinking. Here's how it works:

• In the curved slot the white arc is the lip under the sector plate, with the three brass pins protruding (the right hand one having moved holes)
• The wooden arm is pivoted at the bolt on the left, and on the right carries the aluminium latch, which has a gently curved edge with a notch at its centre. The aluminium is connected to the red wire so it carries power to the pin it touches. 
• On the arm the white foamboard piece presses on the soap-dispenser spring attached to the block of wood, the foamboard allows some adjustment of tension in case ever needed
• The plastic "T" shaped piece is a leftover from the fitting of our kitchen. I have no idea what it was intended to do, but it proved useful here as a stop to limit travel of the arm. A block of wood could do the same, although currently the spring tension is such that the arm stops just short. 

From above the sprung arm and its aluminium latch can just be seen, with the notch central to the track. Of course, I positioned the arm/latch first, then positioned the track to align to the sector plate tracks when latched. The transition track is on a piece of foamboard (both recovered and cut down from the previous fiddle yard), which allowed the track-bed height to be adjusted, in fact a 10-thou piece of plasticard was inserted at the sector plate end. 

Power connection to the layout is via an audio RCA cable. Previously I'd put sockets on both boards and used a "jumper" cable, but here I figured a tethered cable was less likely to get lost, so a few inches was cut from the end of an old cable. The grey block of wood is just there to ensure nothing rolls off the front track when pulled fully forward. Previously I'd fitted a lever to allow the latch to be disengaged to move the sector plate, experience found this wasn't really necessary so here I didn't bother, there's a little resistance to overcome but the plate can simply be pushed between positions. 

The good news is it all seems to work and fit. The new catches allow the fiddle yard to be attached and detached much more easily, and the self-latching sector plate works as well as before after its transplant. At some point it will get a coat of grey paint to match the layout. However, a bigger job is to rebuild the "exhibition" fiddle yard to use the catch connections, and to make it more reliable. 

A new fiddle yard for Hexworthy

Hexworthy was designed to use the same exhibition-friendly fiddle yard I'd made for Awngate, but that is large and not pretty, so for home use a compact fold-away fiddle yard was built with a simple 3-road sector plate. It's seen here before the boards were painted grey. The frame attached to the layout with split hinges front and rear for a rigid joint, and the board rotated around the vertically-mounted flat hinges to stow inverted over the layout. 

It worked very well being tucked neatly out of the way when not in use. However, after redecoration and reorganisation of the room the layout is tucked into a 6' space between a wall and a pillar. This means neither the fold-away nor the exhibition fiddle yard fit in the 18-in or so gap. 

My solution is a new home fiddle yard fitted around the pillar, which gives me the extra length needed to hold a train. 

A sheet of 5mm ply and off-cuts of softwood were assembled into this odd-shaped baseboard. It was a tricky board to make as there's no real datum, most of the side protruding above the board while none of the battens are full depth. The end is 3" by 1", the inner battens 2" by 1", and the thinner diagonal batten will I hope help resist any twist. The curved slot is for the sector plate. 

The split hinge alignment and joining method previously used worked well but getting the pin in and out was tricky and involved a pair of pliers, plus it would have required more height to the corners of the board. The club layout has adopted over-centre catches with alignment pins which are really easy to use, so I thought I'd give them a go. I bought packs of each from Station Road Baseboards. 

I got what are described as "bullet dowels" which have reasonably tight tolerance while being easy to fit, just needing a hole through the ends. The problem was I realised the ends of Hexworthy are just 3mm ply over 5mm foam-core board, which wouldn't be substantial enough to hold them, so I stuck blocks of softwood behind the foam where the holes would be. The boards were then clamped together, and pilot holes followed by the 7.5mm holes to take the dowels, the locations of the holes being dictated in part by where I could fit the blocks. The dowels then hammer into place, although where the dowels passed through the foam into the blocks I used a sash-clamp as a kind of vice to squeeze it into place, ensuring it didn't tear the foam apart instead. 

Fitting the catches was also limited by the existing boards, fortunately there are softwood blocks in the corners of the Hexworthy board but existing screws had to be avoided, and the end fascia panel had to be trimmed to fit around the catch. It would be much easier when building new baseboards to think about the locations of these catches first! Nevertheless, catches were fitted both sides. 

You may notice that the dowels and catches are handed, I'll have to adapt the exhibition fiddle yard to use the same attachments and this means only one more dowel set and catch set is needed. 

The new arrangement is much easier to connect and release, especially when reaching behind the layout on the shelf unit. The connection is not as rigid as the split hinge, which allowed one end of the layout to be lifted without any bend at the join, but having got the catches as tight as I could it seems good enough and the dowels make for just as good alignment. 

Now I need to fit the sector plate and tracks, although it might be a couple of weeks. Next weekend Loctern Quay will be at Uckfield, which looks to be an excellent show as always. Do say hello if you're there.