I will try my best to keep posting AND motivated!! But there are other things that need tending too ((as we all know)) especially when ya got kids!!! :O) Finances are always a consideration and with my move from CA, getting a solid job has taken a lot longer than I would have thought and naturally building has been at a bit more reserved pace. That being said, we all forge ahead and keep on keeping on!!
Lighting! Some of my thoughts. The kit comes with three fixtures and is a complete set-up with a four foot track. So I just bought enough kits to run around the room. Keep in mind that just because I HAVE 33 fixtures, don't mean I LIGHT all of the them. In fact, I currently only use about half at any given time. But they sure do come in handy for taking photos or when I work at the bench - I just reach up and pivot them to the location I need, then tighten up the bulb in the fixture. I can "At Will" put a ton of light on spot! I think I mentioned that you can buy smaller CFL wattage bulbs than the 60 watt that I have, BUT, they were more expensive.
Over the months since I've installed the track lighting I have be come more and more satisfied with set-up. The versatility is simply outstanding. Very little heat and a wide spectrum of light too. Now for the dimming effect, I've yet to look into it. But at some point I'm sure it will.
Interesting about the track lighting effectiveness.
I'm curious as to how it will perform when more than a single deck is involved. It may end up being the cheapest and easiest to use/reposition lighting set up.
I'm still quite a way off from that, but it's good to be able to plan ahead during the room finishing stage (which seems endless at the moment, in my case!).
Here we have a "leg" of my test bench work. I wanted to get a good feeling for the height of a mulity deck setup, the spacing, reachability and such. You can read all ya want, but at some point ya just needed to build it and KNOW how it's going to interact with the room and the specific sitch.
1. These are some in work photos. The length is 14 feet. Yah, rather long, but I wanted to see and test the 1x4 runners to the max. The top deck is 20 inches wide. The bottom is 24 inches wide.
2. I used ripped 2x4's to make the legs. Which are bolted on with 1/4 inch bolts. The 1x4's are screwed in with 1 5/8ths dry wall screws
3. The two decks are just bout all finished being put together.
4. The height from the floor to the top of the bottom deck is 23.5 inches. From the top of the bottom deck to the bottom of the top deck is 19 inches. From the top of the top deck to where the ceiling slopes in is 14 inches.
One thing I did was make the whole thing to high and had to take off two inches after setting it up. And a "few" other minor mistakes that are all part of the learning process.
I will be putting 1/4inch plywood over the decks and then using foam on top of that. This should narrow the deck spacing a bit and allow for some terrain variations. I also have to install leg levelers which will just about give me 1/2 inch more. Going to drill holes in the 1x4 cross members for cables and thinking about painting the underside the same color blue to match....
Yes, she is a bit wobbly!! But I hope it will become more stable once I add on additional bench work. I can also put in more legs on the back and then I also plan on running some decking screws into the frame work of the wall. This should really make for a SOLID platform.
For now though, my main goal was to get the height and spacing of the decks where I wanted - or at least have a jumping off point to play with. I also needed to see how the whole lighting system will work. And hey, lets not mention I've never built bench work before so it was good practice!! (( Thinks back to his pop's old saying: "measure twice, cut once." )) Hehehee, let just say I re-learned this!!
Don't worry about the wobble. A few DW screws fastening the benchwork to the wall studs will more than solve the problem. If this is to be totally free standing for some reason, you will need considerable bracing.
Is that blue just a base color? It appears very bright even as a starting point for the backdrops.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
It's not going to be freestanding.... so it's good to hear your comments about tacking it to the frame. I'll be using deck screws (they are much more robust than dry wall screws).
The blue, well... humm... yah, just a starting point to cover the room with a basic sky. It's just a hard thing to photo, check out some of the other photos and you can see that color change all over the place. And I've not done any shading or clouds yet. So we will see how that whole thing takes shape. It is overwhelming, but getting more bench work in and such should take up some of that over powering blue....
great work you have done it is motivation for me to get to it on my layout. keep it up and cant wait to see more progress. i must have missed it in the beginning but how big is your trainroom again.
LOL... Your thread was the inspiration for my thread!
But now you have to go back and read the whole thing for details :P
So now we seem to have Molbileman44 and Reggie posting their progress threads (with photos of course)
I... MUST... NOT.... FALL..... BEHIND!
I was not so happy with the wobble.... I therefore installed some levelers on the test bench. WOW, what a difference.
This gave me a good 1/2 inch of play to stabilize the bench. And come to find out the floor was a bit out of level, that didn't make me happy. I ran the six foot level along the floor I found there was a bit of a dip, nothing major, but still.....
I then put it on the bench and squard up the legs:
I then set (didn't screw it down yet) some 1/2inch plywood on the top to get an idea of the lighting sitch.
I set up a small train with a few colorfull boxcars so you all could get an idea of the lighting. Now this photo was with HALF of the cans on. Also, I set the train about two inches from the back....and I didn't really angle the cans at all or use the cans on opposite track for better angle. Very happy with this result - and keep in mind these are using "Daylight" bulbs which have a high blue temp.
What ya think?? I might not have to put ANY addional lighting under the top deck at all!!!!