Layouts and layout building

nucat78:

MILW-RODR:

Stupid home depot is the one that didn't list any hollow door anything on the site. Stupid lowes is the one that kept saying "not available at this store".

In Green Bay? That's pretty bizarre. My HD and Lowes both have a boatload of various hollow core doors - unhung, pre-hung.

Yeah, so do mine here in Maine. I think what he's complaining about is that they're not available for viewing online. I've tried looking.

Just checking Lowe's in WI, it appears that the flush luaun door isn't sold there. I can see a listing for it at the website, but when you go to a specific store, it tells you that you're SOL. When I'm in California, I can't find them either at Lowe's or HD. The only ones I can find are hardboard.

Andre

andrechapelon:

nucat78:

MILW-RODR:

Stupid home depot is the one that didn't list any hollow door anything on the site. Stupid lowes is the one that kept saying "not available at this store".

In Green Bay? That's pretty bizarre. My HD and Lowes both have a boatload of various hollow core doors - unhung, pre-hung.

Yeah, so do mine here in Maine. I think what he's complaining about is that they're not available for viewing online. I've tried looking.

Just checking Lowe's in WI, it appears that the flush luaun door isn't sold there. I can see a listing for it at the website, but when you go to a specific store, it tells you that you're SOL. When I'm in California, I can't find them either at Lowe's or HD. The only ones I can find are hardboard.

Andre

Home Depot in Traverse City have Birch and Oak doors but no lauan

camaro:

It is unfortunate that you can't find unhung hollow core doors at HD.  Our HD in Traverse City, MI has three or four stacks of various width unhung flat face doors, the widest being 36' by about 79" long. If you can't find a unhung flat finish door then use a 18" wide bi-fold closet door and take the screws out that hold the door sections together.  You end up with two 79 inch long sections each being 18" wide.  The outside of the wrapping will say 36" wide. flat panel hollow core door.  That is what I am using on my layout and a picture is can be found on the "Hollow Core Door and Wiring"  post that is located in this layout forum.  If you need to, you can add 1x2" pine to the edge to build out the door to greater than 18".

Ulrich, I wish you could find the doors in Germany.

 

 

Larry

WOW!!!!! 36'!!!!! THAT IS A BIG DOOR!!!!! MUST WEIGH IN AT CLOSE TO TWO TONS!!!!! Down here in the sunny climes of the desert southwest our local Home Despot can special order hollow cores up to 42" X 80".

A lot of people labor under the impression that hollow core doors are usable in and of themselves. Keep in mind that essentially a hollow core door is a guitar and unless some kind of sound deadening material--Homasote® or foam--is mounted as subroadbed your layout is going to sound like an out of tune Bruce Springsteen.

Sir Madog, you have the right idea in building your own platform.

You didn't ask the question, but IMHO hollow core doors are over-rated for model railroad benchwork.  Yes, HCDs provide a pre-built, light, rigid, flat tabletop - not really too different from a 2" slab of extruded foam, except less easy to alter.

The Achilles heel of HCDs is the relative difficulty of making it more than what it already is - a pre-built, light, rigid, flat table top.  Attaching legs means adding some support at the point where legs attach.  Obtaining below track level scenery without compromising the structural integrity of the HCD means elevating the track above the HCD surface - commonly done with extruded foam sheet, which usually doubles the total cost of the HCD.  Attaching wires underneath means installing fascia and/or pads to hide the wiring and provide any needed room for the wiring between the HCD and its supports.

IMHO, if hollow core doors can be obtained cheaply enough, then the extra work and expense to overcome the limitations may be worthwhile.  But if the HCD is going to cost the same as a sheet of extruded foam, I'll take the greater utility of the foam every time.  This, despite the fact I don't consider foam to be the optimal material in many situations, either.

For your proposed shelf layout, the hollow core door set on shelf supports is the fastest way to get a flat shelf surface.  And since you probably don't want any change in track elevations in your layout, a slab of foam on top of an HCD, with a cutout for the canal, would probably be an acceptable base.

But without easy access to HCDs, framed foam will work even better, albeit with a couple of extra hours to build the frame.

A more exotic cookie-cuttered plywood and/or foam on top of a grid with risers where desired will permit buildings and track to be at slightly different elevations, and will get rid of the "Miami flat" look.  Just keep the track level at spotting points for the cars so that the cars don't roll away.

If you are going to spike or solder rails to ties, I strongly recommend Homasote or equivalent as a roadbed on top of the foam/plywood.

my thoughts, your choices

Fred W

Here is my first Hollow Core door for my shelf layout.

Door was less than 25$ at Lowes.

More:

http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/153523/1698995.aspx#1698995

http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/152527/1688281.aspx#1688281

R. T. POTEET:

camaro:

It is unfortunate that you can't find unhung hollow core doors at HD.  Our HD in Traverse City, MI has three or four stacks of various width unhung flat face doors, the widest being 36' by about 79" long. If you can't find a unhung flat finish door then use a 18" wide bi-fold closet door and take the screws out that hold the door sections together.  You end up with two 79 inch long sections each being 18" wide.  The outside of the wrapping will say 36" wide. flat panel hollow core door.  That is what I am using on my layout and a picture is can be found on the "Hollow Core Door and Wiring"  post that is located in this layout forum.  If you need to, you can add 1x2" pine to the edge to build out the door to greater than 18".

Ulrich, I wish you could find the doors in Germany.

 

 

Larry

WOW!!!!! 36'!!!!! THAT IS A BIG DOOR!!!!! MUST WEIGH IN AT CLOSE TO TWO TONS!!!!! Down here in the sunny climes of the desert southwest our local Home Despot can special order hollow cores up to 42" X 80".

A lot of people labor under the impression that hollow core doors are usable in and of themselves. Keep in mind that essentially a hollow core door is a guitar and unless some kind of sound deadening material--Homasote® or foam--is mounted as subroadbed your layout is going to sound like an out of tune Bruce Springsteen.

Sir Madog, you have the right idea in building your own platform.

It was late and I was tired.  No one else makes mistakes?

 Am I correct in thinking that the perimeter of the door is solid wood? I know the center is cardboard, but do the edges contain a 1" by 1" board sandwiched between the luann skins?

What I am thinking is that you wanted to attach legs to one (I am building a free-standinglayout) it would be best to attached into these boards on the edges.

 I see that the question of hollow core doors creates quite an issue in the community. Initially I thought of using some foamboard-over-hcd contraption as a simple base for my shelf layout, but as the process of detailing my plans continues, I see that there are more questions to that type of construction than there are answers.

To make things a little more complicated, I´d like to use a manual turnout control, something like the New Rail Models Blue Point Flex Link control. I guess that foamboard is not strong enough to hold that. Does that mean I have to go the "old" way of cork-over-ply? All the necessary material are readily available where I live, including cork flooring tiles to be used as the roadbed / sound insulation, and also fairly cheap.

What I like about the foamboard is, that you can easily work in ditches, culverts etc. in an otherwise "flat" scenery.

Which way to go?

Sir Madog:

 I see that the question of hollow core doors creates quite an issue in the community. Initially I thought of using some foamboard-over-hcd contraption as a simple base for my shelf layout, but as the process of detailing my plans continues, I see that there are more questions to that type of construction than there are answers.

To make things a little more complicated, I´d like to use a manual turnout control, something like the New Rail Models Blue Point Flex Link control. I guess that foamboard is not strong enough to hold that. Does that mean I have to go the "old" way of cork-over-ply? All the necessary material are readily available where I live, including cork flooring tiles to be used as the roadbed / sound insulation, and also fairly cheap.

What I like about the foamboard is, that you can easily work in ditches, culverts etc. in an otherwise "flat" scenery.

Which way to go?

Ulrich

Since you apparently don't have ready access to hollow core doors, let's leave that option for the moment.

I'm guessing you are going to build the layout in 2 sections, each roughly 60cm by 170cm.  Will you have 2 people to handle a section - setting a section on the shelf brackets, removing it, etc?  Or do you have to handle the section by yourself?  Or will the layout never be separated or moved?

If you prefer cutting foam to shaping plaster or similar shell between flat areas of terrain, then you should go with foam.  What is underneath is mostly independent of whether you use foam or a shell terrain.

With foam you trade weight for thickness.  A 60x170 foam layout section can be made light enough to be handled by one person - if that is a requirement.  A metal or wood grid shelf layout can be made to have the grid as thin as 2" - if a thin base is a requirement.  Thin support grid is a requirement (and much more important then weight) for me because I need to fit my workbench and family computer stations underneath a portion of the layout - and that means at least 55" clearance to the lowest part of the layout.  To keep rail height at less than 60" in a harbor scene requires a thin support grid.  But unless you go to waffle type support grid, the metal or wood grid section is going to be heavy enough to need 2 people to handle it.  I would let your personal requirements and priorities and preferences determine which materials would best suit you.

As I said in an earlier post, if you are going to spike or solder rails to ties, I would recommend Homasote or something similar for roadbed.  If using foam for roadbed, glued construction (flex track glued down, CV ties strips, etc) is about the only appropriate method.  If track is being laid directly on foam, then you will want to use 1/4" plywood under the foam to break up the sound resonance.  Cork roadbed on top serves the same purpose of breaking the resonance, and may (or may not) assist with providing the desired roadbed profile.  The only caution is that if the ballast shell touches the foam and is glued with a hard glue like PVA (white glue), the noise reduction advantage of the cork is lost.

Another comment - you don't have to have a single foam slab covering the entire surface.  You can "cookie cutter" your flat surface to only exist where track and buildings are going to go, cutting out the rest of the flat table top.  Thin foam pieces can then be fitted as a scenery base in the gaps.  This thin foam doesn't have to be flat; it can be tilted to reduce the amount of foam carving necessary. 

Similarly, you don't have to keep the shelf at a constant depth to the wall, either.  Extend it somewhat in the vicinity of the canal to give more space for the barge and tug.  I'm doing that on one of my shelf sections - the shelf depth is being tapered from 16" to 24" to fit a turntable in that section.

just my thoughts, your choices

Fred W

Fred, some very good and detail suggestions on layout construction techniques.  But the subject of this particular topic is Hollow Core Doors and you come across as being dead set against their use for some reason.  I think they have their place just like any other method - IMHO.  Jim

Chartiers:

Fred, some very good and detail suggestions on layout construction techniques.  But the subject of this particular topic is Hollow Core Doors and you come across as being dead set against their use for some reason.  I think they have their place just like any other method - IMHO.  Jim

Jim

I have nothing against hollow core doors.  I used a used HCD on a pair of plastic saw horses out in the yard as my primary workbench in a house I lived in in California.  I appreciated it's portability, rigidity, cheapness, and suitability for the task for which I used it.  And I've actually installed them as doors during home improvements/renovations.

But I would not recommend them for the OP's particular situation.

- reading the entire thread, the OP can't locate hollow core doors in the variety of sizes and skins and prices we have in the US.

- reading the OP's layout design thread, his planned layout is approximately 2x11ft.  This means cutting and gluing reinforcements to one or possibly even two doors to get the baseboard for his layout.

- the OP wants to use Blue Point manual switch machines under his turnouts.  With 2" foam on top of the door to provide the below track scenic features he wants, the turnout throw has to extend nearly 3.5".  And he has to protect/hide the switch machines on the underside of the door for another 3" with fascia and/or pads.

Bottom line, to me the big benefit of hollow core doors is a quick and easy way to gain a rigid table surface upon which to build a layout (or anything else).  The extent of the modifications needed to make hollow core doors work in the OP's situation, and the difficulty in locating one at any price, says to me that framing or supporting a slab of foam in wood or aluminum might be a better solution than a door for the OP.

If the layout dimensions lent themselves to readily available hollow core doors, I would seriously consider changing my recommendation.  And I guess that's my biggest beef with hollow core doors for benchwork - once you want anything besides multiples of readily available dimensions, the liabilities (which are seldom considered by HCD advocates) start to out-weigh the advantages.  I was brought up believing that the ability to easily make changes in your layout is a huge, not to be ignored plus.  And I was very glad that I had used easily reconfigurable L-girder construction when a series of moves caused me to reduce the size of my layout and significnatly change the track plan.  I was able to save 75% of the layout construction I had already done intact with very little effort. 

Fred W

Sir Madog:

 I see that the question of hollow core doors creates quite an issue in the community.

... see what I mean?

Just to put things straight - hollow core doors are not available in my area, so I need to come up with something else. It´ll be the classic ply-over-frame thing, plus cork roadbed with ME track and turnouts glued to it using latex caulk. I won´t have a problem building that - done it a number of times before. And, I won´t have any problems with my manual turnout controls.

Fred - it´ll be built in two sections, like you said, although it is not intended to be moved around.

Keep on

No issue in the community.  Just some different opinions and viewpoints like there always are on just about any subject. Obviously you cannot use something that is not available. Good luck with your plans and layout. Take care.  Jim