jack308gtsi. My layout is in a old 100 year old stone foundation home
Mine also, built 1894, A drop ceiling is out of the question,to clear most pipes and joists I would end up with 5ft6in head room.
I stapled a heavy clear plastic sheet to the ceiling, just wrapping around any pipes ect. Made a day and night difference
Add a drop ceiling to the area.
Not hard to install.
only take a few inches of head room.
work space will be brighter.
This will catch all the dust coming from above.
Steve
Cheap, cheap plastic dropcloths. These things are about as thick as Saran Wrap but not sticky; forgot the brand name. Just have to be a little careful not to snag them on anything because they tear rather easily. But since they're cheap, it's no big deal if you do tear one.
Gday modelers this might help .
size is 6ft x 3ft
https://youtu.be/MTZRKU3yl9w
If the layout is a shelf type or not too deep, you can use sheets of foam board (20" x 30" at Dollar Tree) and make a lightweight cover in sections that can be installed or removed in minutes. I use it for dust covers in my tunnel (18' tunnel!). For large layouts you are looking at a time consuming process.
-Bob
Life is what happens while you are making other plans!
I used a combination of 1" pink foam board for the top (cover) and hardboard pieces that attached to the facia for the supports. The harboard pieces were removeable pieces about 3 feet long, taller that the tallest structure attached using 2 part picture hanger brackets. The pink foam board simply rested atop the vertical edge of the hardboard.
I had a 22 foot shelf layout in the garage, and it took me about 2 minutes to take off, and 5 minutes to put back up. It did a good job of keeping dust off the layout in my opinion, and living in a cold winter/hot summer climate, there were sometimes months that I was not able to operate the railroad. And I did not need to clean it after that long period.
Mike
For a layout long ago in a dusty environment I used fairly heavy piano wire (as I recall about the size of coat hanger wire) to form hoops over the layout. For lengths longer than a piece of piano wire I spliced two or more pieces by soldering brass tubing to the ends. Some of the hoops ran lengthwise and some crosswise. Where they intersected I soldered short pieces of brass tubing together at the appropriate crossing angle. I could then insert the ends of the hoops into these--sort of a framework puzzle. I drilled holes in the layout edges just big enough to be able to insert the wire ends. Once the framework was up I spread a very thin painter's drop cloth over all of it. A 9' x 12' drop cloth weighs only ounces.
As you can imagine it took a while to set up and take down so I only put it up when I thought it would be at least several days before I would want to play again.
What do folks use as dust covers. My layout is in a old 100 year old stone foundation home.