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Crandell's (Selector's) New Layout Progress Thread

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Crandell's (Selector's) New Layout Progress Thread
Posted by Pruitt on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 5:06 AM

For those who saw WPF for the weekend of 13-15 Jan (2012), you know that Selector is starting an ambitious new layout.

I thought I'd help him out by creating a thread where he can post progress reports to keep us all up to date. Gift

How 'bout it, Crandell? Ready to share? Angel

Mark B.

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Posted by tstage on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 7:42 AM

I think that's a great idea, Mark..  I'm up for it, Crandell...Big Smile

Tom

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Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 8:24 AM

I was very much impressed by Crandell´s old layout and I am looking forward to see, how the new layout evolves.

Keep us posted, please.

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Posted by saronaterry on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 9:24 AM

I'd enjoy it, also!

Terry in NW Wisconsin

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Posted by selector on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 9:42 AM

(Warning: whines to follow...)

1.  You guys are killing me!   Who could live up to such pressure and scrutiny? Embarrassed

2.  It is actually quite cold for the left coast, with temps around a bone shaking 27 degrees F!  It's even snowing, and I have to do all my cutting on the deck outside the sliding door.  If I had wanted to be a real construction worker, and not a soldier, I would have worked outdoors all my....wait, disregard that.

3.  My wife is home from her (too) short visit with her mother, during which I had the place to myself (mwahahahaaa...!), and didn't have to watch endless reruns of HGTV's House Hunter series with her.

3. Did I mention its darned cold out?   It is painful to handle a circular saw for any length of time out there.

4. I'm having second thoughts about using the loft.   This morning, three families of mice were pounding on the sliding door asking for their home back.  It was the little ones, you know...? Indifferent

Okay, okay, here is a first image.  I am not a carpenter or cabinet maker, so my work will be a little Huh?  This is an angled join.  I am flaring the main yard module by 6" at each end, and this was the second cut and screw.  The first was the 10 foot rear member joined to the cut side member which appears coming from left in this photo.

Crandell

 

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Posted by tstage on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 9:55 AM

Crandell,

Are you mitering the ends so that the fronts angle down and inward?  Or, is that just a distortion of the picture.

Ooooooooo...a new layout.  The suspension is killing me...Stick out tongue

Tom

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Posted by selector on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 10:27 AM

Tom, yes I guess that's the right term, mightinger...mitily, metric,....miter.  Smile   The angle is 16 degrees, and I have to do it freehand with a circular saw.  My Dad has a chop saw with a mitering capability in his garage, I wonder if I should ask to use it.

Crandell

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Posted by tstage on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 10:48 AM

If you are needing to do that often, Crandell, I would take advantage of that.  It will give you a nice clean joint.

The other option is to make yourself a 16-degree jig out of a few scraps of wood and drywall screws.  Just make sure it clears the motor housing on the circular saw.  It works; it just takes a little more time. Big Smile

Tom

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Posted by BATMAN on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 11:31 AM

selector

 

 I had the place to myself (mwahahahaaa...!), and didn't have to watch endless reruns of HGTV's House Hunter series with her.

Crandell

I thought I was the only male on the face of the planet that had to endure the agony of these shows. Until HGTV hit the airwaves, wives did not require new kitchens and bathrooms every six months.Mischief

Nice room Crandell. I am imagining that Selkirk plying its way around it now. The space appears to be about 25' x 12'. Am I close?

Like others I am looking forward to watching your progress. Hey maybe this should be on HGTV! I would certainly stop squirming and would sit down with a cuppa.Smile

Good Luck!

 

                                                        BrentCowboy

Brent

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Posted by BATMAN on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 11:39 AM

selector

 I had the place to myself (mwahahahaaa...!), and didn't have to watch endless reruns of HGTV's House Hunter series with her.

 

            Hey! Why don't you and Crandell start a support group?

Brent

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Posted by twhite on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 11:45 AM

This is a great idea.  When I saw the photo of the loft in WPF I just started drooling.  So I'm really looking forward to seeing the progress as this new layout develops (I was a huge fan of the old layout). 

I know what Crandell's talking about as far as the weather--that blizzard that's hitting him in BC right now is due to drop south and hit us down here in SunnyCal this evening for about 4 or 5 days, so it's going to be overcoat time in my garage for a while. 

At least your loft looks INSULATED, Crandell, LOL!  Stick out tongue

Can't wait to see the progress!

Tom Big Smile

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Posted by Motley on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 12:27 PM

Oh oh Crandell's building a new layout? WOW!

I know you've been talking about it.

Me like the others are dying to see how this turns out.

Looking Good so far, keep up the great work!

Michael


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Posted by selector on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 1:03 PM

BATMAN

...Nice room Crandell. I am imagining that Selkirk plying its way around it now. The space appears to be about 25' x 12'. Am I close?...

 

Good Luck!

 

                                                        BrentCowboy

Thanks, Brent.  You are very close.  It measures 22' x 13' at the floor, but because of the angled walls, the finished dimensions will be closer to 11 X 21, with the shorter length allowing a bit of clearance between a far wall baseboard heater under the large window, and also some at the sliding door.

I will be building this layout with frame sections that can be unbolted.   I will use better wiring with terminal blocks for ease of deconstruction when it comes time to move.

The construction is 1X4 sides and joists, joists at 15.5", 1/2" flooring grade plywood surface, the legs are 1X2, and I am using blocking of waste ends of either of those to anchor the tops of the legs against frame corners.  Except for some carriage bolts, I have most everything I will need.

Crandell

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Posted by Motley on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 1:23 PM

Do you have a track plan?

Michael


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Posted by selector on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 1:53 PM

Idea  Darn, I knew I was forgetting something!!

I'll post it once it is finalized.  Righ now it's in a state of rubberishness.  Flexibility, that is.

By the way, I really ought to have thanked everyone for their interest and good wishes.  Where are my manners?!

So, thanks everyone. Smile

Crandell

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Posted by cowman on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 7:35 PM

.Crandell,

My wife watches NCIS and all the CSI's, messy, messy.  I have a TV (MR videos and sports) near the workbench and tread mill, which are next to the layout room.  AN ESCAPE.

I have a camp in the southern part of the state and mice used to be a problem.  Now we put dryer sheets around and they haven't messed the place up for at least three years.  Might help keep the little critters from trying to move into layout housing and sampling who knows what.

Hope you can keep the room warm.  27 would be balmy right now.  Was -15 the other morning and suppose to head that way, but not quite that far tonight.

Good luck,

Richard

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Posted by galaxy on Thursday, January 19, 2012 4:13 AM

selector

...  Righ now it's in a state of rubberishness.  Flexibility, that is.

Crandell

Is that an official MRRing terminology? I didn't find it in the glossary!

Congrats, Crandell! Bow

Enjoy the Sn*w!!!

Geeked

 

 

-G .

Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.

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Posted by tomikawaTT on Thursday, January 19, 2012 6:56 AM

BATMAN

 selector:

 

 I had the place to myself (mwahahahaaa...!), and didn't have to watch endless reruns of HGTV's House Hunter series with her.

Crandell

 

I thought I was the only male on the face of the planet that had to endure the agony of these shows. Until HGTV hit the airwaves, wives did not require new kitchens and bathrooms every six months.Mischief

Nice room Crandell. I am imagining that Selkirk plying its way around it now. The space appears to be about 25' x 12'. Am I close?

Like others I am looking forward to watching your progress. Hey maybe this should be on HGTV! I would certainly stop squirming and would sit down with a cuppa.Smile

Good Luck!

 

                                                        BrentCowboy

You make me feel like a slacker.  Here you built, operated and outgrew a very nice layout, and I'm still mucking around in the Netherworld...Laugh

Of course, things in the construction department should start picking up speed soon.  My health problems seem to be under control, and I finally finished my novel.  (Yes, the lady got the hero...Laugh)

I solved the HGTV problem in my house, but the solution isn't universally applicable.  I just got NHK (aka Japan TV) linked to our cable.  (If your wife doesn't understand colloquial Japanese this won't be helpful)Alien

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

 

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Posted by bogp40 on Thursday, January 19, 2012 8:09 AM

Crandell,  Now the pressure is on.  Now it will be tough to slack off!!.

Very nice space, must have been just screaming for a layout. Better than just filled w/ junk.

Is there some reason for that 16 degree tilt to the outer benchwork? Just wondering, different, and could make placing facia a bit difficult esspecially on any spots that may need to be taller due to any elevations.

If you don't get that miter saw, making a jig for the angle as mentioned will help. Setting a sliding bevel for every free cut can be a pain. I would suggest a piece of masonite/ 1/4" ply screwed to a 1x2. this can act as your preset 16 degree fence for all the cuts. Could even clamp it to the work if you like. As you use it you can figure just how far from the cut to set it (blade to saw table dimension).

Can't wait to see the progress, and remember- NO Pressure....

Modeling B&O- Chessie  Bob K.  www.ssmrc.org

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Posted by cudaken on Thursday, January 19, 2012 9:46 AM

 Hum, new layout out room and no heat? Think it is time to back up and regroup Crandell. Whistling

 Looking forward to seeing the layout done in a timely fashion, say next 2 weeks? Laugh

 I am really looking forward to seeing what you will come up with. Off all the great layout I have seen on this forum I would places yours in the top 5 %. Reason? Your old layout shows you don't have to have 150 + square feet of bench work to have a great layout.

          Ken

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Posted by stebbycentral on Thursday, January 19, 2012 10:06 AM

Crandell,

Not to be too critical, but I note that while you are laying out that trackplan on the floor, you seem to be getting awfully close to the outer walls in some areas. 

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn105/mesenteria/DSCF1511_edited.jpg

 I am assuming you are going to have the layout elevated by some dimension.  And I also note that the walls of the loft are sloped, so that the higher up you lift the benchwork, the more constricted the space becomes.  I hope you are allowing for that...

I have figured out what is wrong with my brain!  On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!

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Posted by gabeusmc on Thursday, January 19, 2012 10:12 AM

selector

and didn't have to watch endless reruns of HGTV's House Hunter series with her.

Crandell

 

 Don't ya hate that. Big Smile

"Mess with the best, die like the rest" -U.S. Marine Corp

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And yes I am 17.

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Posted by selector on Thursday, January 19, 2012 10:32 AM

Thanks for all your comments and encouragement, everyone.

Stebby, yes, I have accounted for the batter.  Because the roof is hipped, I felt I would have to minimize the layout surface's height...nothing like the 49" of my last one.  In fact, the best use of space seemed to me to place the layout's mean surface at 29".  It seems quite low, but it allows for storage, around the walls boxed frames bolted to each other with carriage bolts and large washers, and still have some of the same lower wall angle to place a backdrop of sorts. 

Notice in the lower left corner, the blue roll of something?  It is 1/8" thick vinyl underlay.  I was thinking of the same type of roadbed silencing layer as on my last layout which really worked well...and it didn't cost me a red cent.  I went back to United Carpet who installed our basement flooring when we did the completion six years ago and told the guy behind the counter I was on the scrounge.  They had just given me some odd ends last time, and did they have such things still?  No, but he took me back to their warehouse, took down a roll of the same stuff, but blue now, and asked me how much I wanted.  I assured him I would pay for new material, and wasn't looking for any freebies, only waste/scraps.  He said it wasn't worth the paperwork, and to just tell him what I wanted.  So, there's the roll.  But, standing over it a couple of days ago, self thinks to self, that stuff could be used as a backdrop and wouldn't need anything but some sprayed-on clouds!  So, I'm going to go back for more...probably to pay this time. Big Smile  I really would feel a lot better if they charged me for the 20 linear feet I'll need (with the material split lengthwise in half because I won't be able to use more than about 15" of backdrop height before the wall angle changes).

Here is the original track plan.  Please remember that I am not a shelf switching kind of operator, and I don't particularly like building layouts.  I enjoy running the trains and watching them move, particularly the steamers.  So, this goes around the walls, will be the deepest by far at the yard (forgetting the helix for now), and will generally be easy to reach and to work on.  In fact, I'll probably have to squat and work on my knees much of the time.  When actually running it later, I could sit on a wheeled dolly of some kind on that smooth floor to ease my viewing height and my back.

My main goals were to eliminate a duckunder (yup, I'm finally over that phase, LOL), get a twinned main (for watching trains, remember?), and to have a solid crack at a working yard.  I have found that I actually enjoy switching, just not mainly switching.

The yard, as depicted in the diagramme, is not what I currently contemplate.  You can see that there is no lead, for example, and that's just about no-no #1 in the list of Cardinal No-no's.  So, I have already revised and relaid it in tape, and it looks better.  With my broad 40" curves at each corner of the loft, and since the whole length is only 21', it doesn't lend enough room for a really good long diamond configuration, for example.  So, it will have an A/D and lead, several ladder tracks for storage and shipping, two accesses to the turntable this time, and I am going to build the Branchline Woodard NYS station for a new depot.  Time to step up my detailing and painting/weathering.

I can already see that, as much as I would like to have the trains running and last bit of details added to the whole in about four months, it just won't happen.  I have to build things, I want this one to work well, be wired well, and so on, and I would like it to look good, better than my knobby ground job extant.  As a determined learner, I have to take my time.  Maybe end of summer...who knows.

Crandell

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Posted by Pruitt on Thursday, January 19, 2012 10:52 AM

Interesting plan, Crandell.

Where does the helix lead? to staging underneath?

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Posted by selector on Thursday, January 19, 2012 11:29 AM

Mark, although the diagramme doesn't show it, the mains are actually going to be twinned.  The inner is the one that will allow access to under-surface staging as you can probably see with the turning wye that crossed over itself in order to keep the curvature suitable for my brass Selkirk 2-10-4.  Outboard of the main line at left that runs toward the helix, there will be another main.  They climb at 2% to cross over themselves just inside the portal below them with a clearance just over 4".  Subtracting the thickness of the 1/2" subroadbed plywood and the strips of the 1/8" vinyl underlay silencing layer, it leaves me with lots of overhead room, even for a pantograph.

So, the two sets of tracks, the twinned main and the access to the lower level staging, enter the helix at opposite ends of the helix.   The staging enters at right, already descending before the 30 deg crossing, at a 2% grade by the time it gets to the portal on the right.  Similarly, the twin mains enter on the opposite side, also climbing at 2% just after the tunnel entrance where the transition into the grade takes place.  This keeps the 4+ inches of vertical separation inside the helix for the descending to staging route and the climbing to exit at the far left corner of the loft.

The building of the helix will be nothing like yours, certainly not as high or complicated...and fancy. Smile, Wink & Grin  It will have a single full turn, and I'm not sure how it will go together just yet.  Brackets on uprights, maybe, held in an octagonal frame?  T'will be a test of me mettle. Whistling

Crandell

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Posted by Motley on Thursday, January 19, 2012 11:52 AM

Crandell, I think you should go for a nice sized SNOW SCENE on the new mountains!!! (maybe a frozen pond too).

Michael


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Posted by twhite on Thursday, January 19, 2012 12:21 PM

Crandell:

That helix looks suspiciously like CP's famed Spiral Tunnels, which means to me:

1: Either you bought the Selkirk for your new layout--or:

2: You're building the new layout for your Selkirk, LOL! 

Either way, it looks VERY interesting!

Tom Big Smile 

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Posted by selector on Thursday, January 19, 2012 3:01 PM

Tom, you are not wrong.  After six whole years with a too darned hot layout room (I heat the house with a wood furnace that gets the layout space up to 90+ degrees before the low speed fan circuit kicks in on the furnace), and that wretched duckunder, oh and the reach into the 'highlands' behind the yard level and depot where I have no fewer than five turnouts out of reach....yeah, the Selkirk really helped, LOL!

Michael, I think that's a capital idea!  If it wouldn't look goofy, I'd make it a cinder cone like the ones we saw in Southern Chile two years ago.   Inside the caldera would be the handle to lift off the top of the mountain for maintenance of the helix.

Crandell

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Posted by jwhitten on Friday, January 20, 2012 9:24 PM

BATMAN

 

 selector:

 

 

 I had the place to myself (mwahahahaaa...!), and didn't have to watch endless reruns of HGTV's House Hunter series with her.

Crandell

 

 

I thought I was the only male on the face of the planet that had to endure the agony of these shows. Until HGTV hit the airwaves, wives did not require new kitchens and bathrooms every six months.Mischief

Nice room Crandell. I am imagining that Selkirk plying its way around it now. The space appears to be about 25' x 12'. Am I close?

Like others I am looking forward to watching your progress. Hey maybe this should be on HGTV! I would certainly stop squirming and would sit down with a cuppa.Smile

Good Luck!

 

                                                        BrentCowboy

 

You guys are looking at this all wrong-- you need to put a TV that gets HGTV and Food Network in the layout room so she can watch it while you work! The only problem is, if she spends too much time in there, you might walk in one day to a new layout "plan"! Laugh

 

And no Brent, unfortunately, you and Crendall aren't the only ones uncomfortably acquainted with House Hunter and Design Star...Pirate

 

John

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Posted by Scarpia on Saturday, January 21, 2012 5:56 AM

Dumb question - especially as moderators and former moderators are involved

Wouldn't this be more appropriate in the layout and layout building area? Just thinking that folks later on might have an easier time finding it.

 

I'm trying to model 1956, not live in it.

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