Good lighting helps Flemming Örneholm hide the compact covered corner in his background.
Coved corners help to reinforce the feeling of great distance that’s produced by a good backdrop. Large layouts with plenty of real estate often use wide, gently curved panels to make these inside corners disappear. But modelers with small layouts can’t afford this luxury, as space is at a premium, and the layout corners are needed for track and structures.
I experimented with several sizes of coved corners and became convinced that small layouts don’t have to end up with square corners. On my former diorama-style layout [see “Wide open spaces in a small room” in the October 2006 Model Railroader. – Ed.] I built coved corners with 2″ radius curves. With the top and bottom of the cove concealed by a valance and scenery, this tight curve did a fine job of blending the corner into a smooth-flowing scene.
Flemming used a wide, softwood, cove molding in the corner that supported by trim strips so it matches the thickness of the backdrop.
I constructed the coved corner from pieces of commercial, milled softwood moldings obtained from a building supply center. The curved center piece is a cove molding supported with trim strips to match the thickness of my tempered hardboard backgrounds. Then I blended the edges with joint compound and sanded the surface smooth.
