Finding the hump!

Back to the issue I left for a day or two that had given me the hump - literally! Whilst setting out the storage tracks at the back of the baseboard I found that adding the copper clad strip created a hump in the track. Leaving it would just have caused future running problems for the trains so it needed sorting. Having pondered for a day or so I decided that whatever the sub base strips needed to be removed. A screwdriver wedged between the sub base and the main baseboard resulted in the sub bases releasing their hold. I did see that there were two screws under these which on examination were slightly proud of the baseboard surface. Eureka! I thought this must be the issue! Out came the screws and the baseboard was further counter sunk so that the screws tops were now most certainly below the surface. Clean up the sub bases, reposition them, put track in place and slide copper clad strip in place. It should have been the solution but the hump was still there!

 

So plan B came to fruition. Use some thinner plywood. I cut four strips and put these in place and then the track and copper clad strip. The result was a huge  gap between the rail and strip. far too big to fill with solder and have a strong joint.

I then moved onto plan C! This was more drastic as the electric sander came out and I literally sanded off one ply of the plywood. Took a while but would it work?

Sub bases back in place, track back in place, copper clad strip back in place and wagon with my fingers on top run over the track. It had worked! no hump! So the sub bases have been glued back in place with some suitable weights on top, ready for the copper clad strip to be glued.

I can only think that whilst the plywood was 5mm thick, it varied slightly to the plywood I used for the sub bases on the removable section of the baseboard that I created early last year. Those sub bases had no hump issue. Just need to sand the other two sub bases at the other end of the baseboard now! Just hope that Mrs. Woody doesn't take the hump that I have spent so much time on this problem rather then sorting out some jobs on her chore list!