From 30Squares Labs, Where the Future is Being Made Today

Well jeepers, not much doin' today, but I did take a few minutes to salvage the track from the test track loop I made back in January.

I built this thing because the modular layout was disassembled most of the time, and putting it together, and then taking it apart again later, just to test some streetcars was a bit time consuming.

It's built up from scraps of foam I had stashed away in the crawlspace. The pieces were held together with carpenter's glue, and the top side hosted a loop of 18" radius HO track. The hole in the centre was for a T-clamp that allowed the whole thing to be grabbed in the jaws of a WorkMate.

The board itself feels quite stiff, and I decided to put it to the test in the 30Squares Labs Structural Testing Facility: also known as the backyard potting bench and some bricks.

I stopped loading it at 6 bricks because what you see in the picture is all I had. Those ones at the back balancing everything should be replaced by a suitable clamp, but I'll need a funding grant for that enhancement :-)

But, no cracks and it didn't break. Ok, I agree, it's not the most scientific test, but it shows it has potentially enough stiffness for a model train layout. The LOL Mk II - ugh, still no name comes to mind - is going to be all foam, no heavy wood that turned out to make Mk. I quite cumbersome. 

That's it for now. Gotta run and interview a couple prospective Lab employees.