Adding the Fascia

Once the glueshell dried, I measured from the bottom of the benchwork to the top of the glueshell scenery at the layout edges.  Just under 6” was the longest measurement, so I cut a 4x8 sheet of Masonite into 6” strips and attached them to the sides of the layout with clamps to temporarily hold them in place.  Using a felt pen, I marked off the land contours by tracing along the joint between the glueshell and the fascia board.  Cutting along the lines with a jigsaw yielded a nice fascia piece that matched to land contours:

You can see the holes that were drilled to allow the clamping bolts to pass through.  I forgot to do this on one section before I attached them to the layout.  Let’s just say that it really helps to pay attention to detail at this point!  Once the contours were shaped, it was time to attach them to the layout with wood glue and clamps:

You’ll notice that I let the ends hang out over the corners of each layout section.  These can be cleaned up with a flush-trim bit in a Roto-Zip after the glue dries. 

One advantage of allowing the ends to hang out a bit is that you have a surface to leverage if the corners don’t come out EXACTLY square.  I had this happen on the end piece in the photo below where I was lacking a 1/16” being flush with the adjacent piece at the corner.  Using a bungee strap and the weight of the layout, I was able to pull against those long ends to take that 1/16” out and get a nice, flush fit:

After trimming with the Roto-Zip, here’s the layout with the fascia installed:

 

I also had to do a bit of cleanup with the flush-trim bit at the layout joints since some of my marks didn’t match up exactly.  If you haven’t used one of these bits in a Roto-Zip or a router, they make quick work of the problem of cutting a corner piece exactly to length.  I highly recommend giving one a try!