The landscape boundary: the fascia

Improving the looks...

The 'outside' of the layout needed some thorough cleaning-up in the 2004 summer: for various reasons I needed a separation between layout and 'public':

• For the looks (obviously): Under the layout quite a few loose, but reusable materials are situated (some people dare to call this "junk"!). However, it keeps people from looking at the more interesting thing: the layout itself...
• Sounds insulation: by constructing the fascia all the way to the attic floor, sounds are shielded. only visible trains are to be heard clearly now (which is a lot more realistic)
• Dust control: I do quite a lot of sawing, drilling and sanding in the same room. The fascia helps in preventing dust from flying up onto the layout.
• Stock space: under the actual fascia cabinet doors are constructed. Later on, I would like to install some extra shelves here. For now, removable (sliding) boxes are more appropriate.
• Protection: quite some parts of the layout are far too easy "touched" accidentally (as the 'dam'-bridge found out several times...).

The fascia itself was constructed using 6mm hardboard plates mounted on a lath frame. On the upper side I glued, if necessary, an extra 6mm against it to provide additional strength and a wide enough basis for the landscape hard-shell foundation. The 'dam'- bridge received an extra protective shield, made from some clear PVC.

On various places an emergency button was fixed. At the end of August construction of both the fascia and the cabinet doors was finished. In the middle of September everything was painted.