I don't remember the article's location, but think I've seen it or something similar. If I were doing it using L-girder methods, it would be very similar to Steve's drawing except the fascia board instead of being simply very thin, vertical, and likely still attached by screws through the front and into the ends of the crossmembers, would be horizontal, with screws in from the bottom into the underside of the crossmembers. This would yield a frontal thickness of 1/2" to 3/4" depending on how strong it needed to be.
The edge could be reduced further by routing a rounded edge on the outside lip. Since you're wanting to do these one curves, cutting a piece of plywood to be the horizontal lip piece would probably work best. Straight sections could use plain old boards instead.
This would create a narrow lip at the edge, a low shelf-like structure that could accomodate a variety of scenery depending on its width before reaching the ends of the crossmemebrs while it climbs high enough to reach above the thickness of the crossmembers, then upward from there for the rest of the scenery.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Steve's suggestion will accomplish what you want, and it's even easier to do using L-girder construction for the benchwork. Keep in mind, though, that the actual L-girder which supports the open-ended joists will be visible, albeit set back from the edge.
Wayne
If you make the benchwork like the pic below, you can secure the fascia across the front of the full-length cross members, but cut it away where you want to.
Steve S
Wayne, Lion and B
Sorry, I should have been more specific. I plan to use traditional fascia for all the reasons mentioned on 90% of the layout. I have 2 spots where I want the scenery to slope away from the track and end without any fascia, curtain, trim or edging at all. I've seen this done somewhere, but I can't recall where.
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rrebell Which way you want to go? I remember one person added a contoured piece of wood to the front of a shelf and sceniced it. It was just wide enough to come down to almost nothing.
Which way you want to go? I remember one person added a contoured piece of wood to the front of a shelf and sceniced it. It was just wide enough to come down to almost nothing.
The spot I'm thinking about at the moment is a 180° 3 track curve that is 10" above the back and sides of the workbench (carp collector). I'm thinking I'll cut the inside of the curve on a 45° angle sloping away from the track. Then go back and cut a 3/4" strip (3/4" plywood) from the leftover piece also at 45°. This piece will be glued under the subroadbed creating a 1 1/2" thick 45° slope away from the track that I can scenic with a mixture of ballast and weeds with the occasional tree.
I don't see the need to reinvent the wheel however, so I'd like to understand how it's been done by others.
I built my benchwork so it would double as the fascia. The box frame construction has 1x4 lumber on the front, and 1x3 lumber for the other sides and internal stringers. The 1x4 piece sticks up one inch from the rest. Then, I put 2-inch pink foam on top, so that it sat inside the front board and on top of the rest. I rounded the edge of the foam and applied scenery. I like to stain and polyurethane the benchwork to give it a finished look.
Another option is to minimize the benchwork itself my using the inherent strength and stiffness of pink foam. I built this 3-foot section which is a liftoff bridge to access the region behind the layout.
The basic structural element here is the bottom piece of foamboard. I removed most of the top piece to create the riverbed. This is structurally good enough by itself, but I did add some masonite on the top and sides for looks.
If you need a longer section, you could add a piece of lumber directly beneath the foam without intruding into the aisle.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Some of LION LAYOUT is on tables. Hanging a curtain from the table edge was quite sufficient.
The three level wall section has that front piece to provide stability and to tie together the braces that the slelves are attached to. This is an earlier photo, LION has since decided that this sub-fascia is where the wires and cables belong. LION is far too old and unbendable to do any work under the table whatsoever.
The front edge becomes the best place to put the cables and relays and stuff. Thus it must be covered over by the finished fasica. As you can see above, the Layout of LION is a SUBWAY layout, and so the finished fascia will also enclose some of the tunnels, yet can be removed for wiring or for rescuing a down train.
I can put more of it up if I am using the cab cam to produce a video from the railfan window.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
The main purpose of a fascia is to finish the visible edges of the layout. If yours is on a true shelf, you probably don't need a fascia, unless there's a support structure to hide (shelf brackets or framing).Most of my layout is on open grid made from 1"x4" lumber, so because my roadbed is mostly 3/4" plywood, the fascia needed to be only about 4" high. I made it 6", though, both for appearance and to accommodate the cover plates for the 'phone jacks used for the walk-around throttles:
In other places, the roadbed is on risers, and the fascia is much taller - up to 31" here:
Another purpose of fascia is to hide stuff. In this case, it's on the second level of my layout:
At 10" deep, its purpose is to hide the undermounted lights for the lower level of the layout, and help to reflect that light onto the layout:
I have some spots where I want the shelf to be as thin as possible. I remember seeing an article or discussion somewhere about building layout edges without a fascia. Does anyone know where to find that (or know how to do it)?