I have an IR dwarf signal that controls a crossing gate mounted, by necessity, near a double track and wanted the signal to be triggered by just the outside loop trains and not the inner loop, so I had to come up with something to put between the tracks that would block the IR signal from reaching the inner loop.
I like the old-style, non-diecast, plastic Lionel Billboards, but only one side is finished and my billboard would be visible from both sides. You can insert another cardboard sign on the back of the billboard, but the billboard, itself, is unfinished and looks pretty ugly from the back in my opinion. I decided to buy two (at the Amherst show) and try to cut, glue, paint and finish them so they matched up.
There is a mold release or parting line on the ends of billboard base that line up pretty well with billboard frame, so I started by cutting straight down on the end of each side of the base, just inside that line with a Dremel and thin blade. When I test fit the two pieces together, the frames lined up perfectly, but there was a small gap - about 1/6" of an inch at the base ends. Next time, I'll try cutting a little farther inside the parting line to see if that gap can be closed.
I next glued just the frames together with CA glue and clamped them tight. I then filled the gaps at each base end with plastic model filler and, after drying, sanded it smooth and then carried the grooves through the filler by using a small awl. I then painted and blended each base end with thinned out Pactra Leaf Green enamel with a few drops of white paint mixed in.
Lionel used several different shades of green for these billboards over the years, so it may take a few tries to get the color matched up. Because the cardboard inserts cannot be changed once the billboards are glued together, you could try masking off the cardboard inserts once the frames are glued together and the base ends finished and then painting the entire assembly with a uniform green spray paint. I might try that next.
