I'm going to need some help guys, after seeing Doctor Wayne's nice neat setup and the very nice over head liting I'm thinking I may give it a try if you guys can steer me down the path.
This is the basic rough benchwork I will be building for the layout just to give an idea of the benchwork inner isle form.
The next three photos are of the room with fresh sky blue paint and to give an idea of the present fluorescent positions, there are only two. Starting from room entrance and right wall first. So guys what do I need for material and how do I do the job? Thanks
The next three photos are of the room with fresh sky blue paint and to give an idea of the present fluorescent positions, there are only two. Starting from room entrance and right wall first.
So guys what do I need for material and how do I do the job? Thanks
So guys what do I need for material and how do I do the job?
Thanks
Lynn
Present Layout progress
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/p/290127/3372174.aspx#3372174
Hey Lynn:
I haven't seen you on the forums for a while. What's this about a new layout?
To answer your questions, I would suggest looking into the latest LED lighting. LED lights now come in the same configuration as 4' fluorescent fixtures but you don't need the ballasts. They are easy to install, they won't fade your layout scenery, they will last forever and they give plenty of light. Prices are all over the place right now but if you do a bit of searching you can find them for around $5.00 per 4' 'bulb', fixtures extra. If you wanted to save some money on the fixtures you could try your local building material re-cyclers to see if they have used fixtures. Just toss the ballasts - you won't need them.
Before the 48" LED bulbs were available I bought a bunch of 5 meter LED strips. The strips are cheap but if you want to run a bunch of them the power supplies are not so cheap. One advantage to the LED strips is that I can put up blue LEDs for night scenes. You could also use RGB (red, green, blue) strips so you could get the right tones for early morning or sunset lighting.
My strips will follow the design of the benchwork. I am going to put up two parallel strips of warm white LEDs, one towards the backdrop and the other just behind the valence. By doing that I hope to eliminate shadows. The blue strips will go between them. If the warm white LEDs are too 'yellow' I can turn on the blue lights to whiten the colour, or I can use the blue strips on full brightness with the white strips dimmed to control the nighttime light tone.
If I can comment on your benchwork plan, your aisles seem to be pretty narrow. If you are really skinny you can probably get away with it, but I couldn't get into the center of your layout. I'm not corpulent, but I do wear a size 50 suit jacket so I'm a bit bigger than most. I realize that you are restricted by the room size.
Good luck with your new layout!
Regards,
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
hon30critter Hey Lynn: I haven't seen you on the forums for a while. What's this about a new layout? To answer your questions, I would suggest looking into the latest LED lighting. LED lights now come in the same configuration as 4' fluorescent fixtures but you don't need the ballasts. They are easy to install, they won't fade your layout scenery, they will last forever and they give plenty of light. Prices are all over the place right now but if you do a bit of searching you can find them for around $5.00 per 4' 'bulb', fixtures extra. If you wanted to save some money on the fixtures you could try your local building material re-cyclers to see if they have used fixtures. Just toss the ballasts - you won't need them. Before the 48" LED bulbs were available I bought a bunch of 5 meter LED strips. The strips are cheap but if you want to run a bunch of them the power supplies are not so cheap. One advantage to the LED strips is that I can put up blue LEDs for night scenes. You could also use RGB (red, green, blue) strips so you could get the right tones for early morning or sunset lighting. My strips will follow the design of the benchwork. I am going to put up two parallel strips of warm white LEDs, one towards the backdrop and the other just behind the valence. By doing that I hope to eliminate shadows. The blue strips will go between them. If the warm white LEDs are too 'yellow' I can turn on the blue lights to whiten the colour, or I can use the blue strips on full brightness with the white strips dimmed to control the nighttime light tone. If I can comment on your benchwork plan, your aisles seem to be pretty narrow. If you are really skinny you can probably get away with it, but I couldn't get into the center of your layout. I'm not corpulent, but I do wear a size 50 suit jacket so I'm a bit bigger than most. I realize that you are restricted by the room size. Good luck with your new layout! Regards, Dave
Hi Dave, it has been a while since I've been around but I'm back now. Yes starting a new layout with old ideas. Lol no I'm not skinny, in fact I have to drop 15 or so, must be an age thing. The benchwork I posted was just for reference and other than 4 foot and a bit on the two end loops , it will be narrower. By the way for many who wonder how to get past any reach issues , you can see the latter I use to do my reach modelling.
Dave that is an excellent idea with the strips for liting, starting from scratch I'm very novice with how you would install what was it you called it , the valance, this for starters is part of my issue, how and what type of material is the way to go for doing this?
Hi Lynn:
You are asking a novice who hasn't actually started a layout yet, but I have done a lot of research. I am planning on using 1/8" or 1/4" tempered hardboard for the valence and fascia. If you go back to doctorwayne's layout pics that is what he used, and I think almost everybody uses the same stuff. To mount it, I will screw 2" x 2" blocks into the ceiling joists. If the joists are not in convenient locations then I will attach 1/4" or slightly thicker plywood to the ceiling joists and screw the blocks into that. Once its all painted white the bits and pieces shouldn't be too noticeable.
The LED strips come with a self adhesive surface but I don't plan on relying on that to keep them up over time. I will use a staple gun with 3/4" staples to permanently mount the strips to the ceiling. The only issue will be to make sure the staples go on either side of the LED strips and do not puncture the strips themselves.
The power supplies will be mounted on the outside of the layout room. In your case, you might have sufficient space in your utility room to mount them on the wall that the utility room and the layout room share.
These are what the power supplies look like. This one supplies 20 amps @ 12 volts. The ones I will be using will supply 18 amps @ 12 volts and I will be using 3 of them, but they all look more or less the same:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/CCTV-Power-Supply-Box-Distribution-Unit-18-Ports-Output-PTC-Fuse-12V-DC-20Amp-/151394746521?hash=item233fd48099:g:oW0AAOSwEK9T~iBx
Keep in mind that the output for the example above is 20 amps @ 12 volts, not 120 volts. The draw for this type of power supply will be a maximum of 2 amps at 120 volts, and realistically you should only use about 3/4 of the maximum capacity so the actual draw will be 1.5 amps @ 120 volts. In other words, you can put a bunch of them on a single 15 amp 120 volt circuit without overloading anything. The reason for having multiple outlets in the power supply is so that you are not pumping a huge number of amps through a single circuit. You could use a single outlet 20 amp power supply but if anything goes wrong you will be sending out smoke signals. With the above power supply, each circuit has its own momentary fuse.
A typical 5 meter LED strip draws around 5 amps @ 12 volts. In your case, if you were to run twin LED strips around your layout you would need about 30 meters of LED strips. At 5 meters per strip you will need six strips x 5 amps per strip = 30 amps @ 12 volts. That would require 2 - 20 amp @ 12volt power supplies, and you would have the capacity left over to add in a couple of blue or RGB LED strips if you wanted to.
I hope this makes sense with regard to using LED strips. However, before going that route, I strongly recommend exploring the new 48" LED tubes. They will be a lot simpler to install.
All the best!
Gidday Lynn, there's a bit on LED lighting in Mike Lehman' thread which may give you some help.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/213765.aspx?page=1
Cheers, the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
For my purposes, I prefer not to use the Christmassy looking LED strip lights, which look distracting to me drawing my attention away from the layout. I found some 4' LED fixtures (5k temp and use considerably less power than a standard 4' T8 fluorescent fixture and more lumens to boot. I picked up fixtures for about $34 at BJ's. They are slowly coming down in price so if you hunt around you might be able to find them cheaper. I am hanging them from my basement drop ceiling and can take them with me when I move in a couple years.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Rio Grande:
I'm not totally enamoured with the appearance of the LED strips either. I'm going to do my best to hide them from direct view. I wish I had waited before buying all the power supplies and LED strips but the 4' LED tubes weren't readily available at the time and they were expensive. I got the power supplies for about half the going price so it seemed like the right move at the time.
I'm curious about the fixtures you bought. I take it that they are self contained units. In other words, they include both the fixture and the LED tubes. If so the price seems pretty reasonable. Are they single tube units or twin tubes?
Here's a good document on layout lighting.
http://4dpnr.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Layout_Room_Lighting.pdf
Being from 2012 his LED info is a little out of date, but otherwise I found it very educational.
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
I am still for track lighting and have just converted from CFL's in the cans to LED's as they have come down to as little as $1 on e-bay. Cfl's are great at first but because of the fade factor (kinda blends things together), but at some time you want to end that so you swith over to LED's. If you buy the can's online and the track locally, it is real cheap, my 30x15 plus area was only was less than $500 and I have 60 cans (could gotten away with way less). Nice thing about track lighting is you can change the position of the can or add or remove or just change the bulb to less watts. Bonus of LED's is the new ones use about half the watts of CFL's so my whole lighting system only uses about 500 watts for all 60 watt eqivilant or less than 4 amps, now I wonder why I spent the money on two ciruits.
hon30critter Hi Lynn: You are asking a novice who hasn't actually started a layout yet, but I have done a lot of research. I am planning on using 1/8" or 1/4" tempered hardboard for the valence and fascia. If you go back to doctorwayne's layout pics that is what he used, and I think almost everybody uses the same stuff. To mount it, I will screw 2" x 2" blocks into the ceiling joists. If the joists are not in convenient locations then I will attach 1/4" or slightly thicker plywood to the ceiling joists and screw the blocks into that. Once its all painted white the bits and pieces shouldn't be too noticeable. The LED strips come with a self adhesive surface but I don't plan on relying on that to keep them up over time. I will use a staple gun with 3/4" staples to permanently mount the strips to the ceiling. The only issue will be to make sure the staples go on either side of the LED strips and do not puncture the strips themselves. The power supplies will be mounted on the outside of the layout room. In your case, you might have sufficient space in your utility room to mount them on the wall that the utility room and the layout room share. These are what the power supplies look like. This one supplies 20 amps @ 12 volts. The ones I will be using will supply 18 amps @ 12 volts and I will be using 3 of them, but they all look more or less the same: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/CCTV-Power-Supply-Box-Distribution-Unit-18-Ports-Output-PTC-Fuse-12V-DC-20Amp-/151394746521?hash=item233fd48099:g:oW0AAOSwEK9T~iBx Keep in mind that the output for the example above is 20 amps @ 12 volts, not 120 volts. The draw for this type of power supply will be a maximum of 2 amps at 120 volts, and realistically you should only use about 3/4 of the maximum capacity so the actual draw will be 1.5 amps @ 120 volts. In other words, you can put a bunch of them on a single 15 amp 120 volt circuit without overloading anything. The reason for having multiple outlets in the power supply is so that you are not pumping a huge number of amps through a single circuit. You could use a single outlet 20 amp power supply but if anything goes wrong you will be sending out smoke signals. With the above power supply, each circuit has its own momentary fuse. A typical 5 meter LED strip draws around 5 amps @ 12 volts. In your case, if you were to run twin LED strips around your layout you would need about 30 meters of LED strips. At 5 meters per strip you will need six strips x 5 amps per strip = 30 amps @ 12 volts. That would require 2 - 20 amp @ 12volt power supplies, and you would have the capacity left over to add in a couple of blue or RGB LED strips if you wanted to. I hope this makes sense with regard to using LED strips. However, before going that route, I strongly recommend exploring the new 48" LED tubes. They will be a lot simpler to install. All the best! Dave
Wow Dave I think I just got edumacated in electricity, and a lot to decypher. Sounds like a viable option.
Gidday Lynn, there's a bit on LED lighting in Mike Lehman' thread which may give you some help. http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/213765.aspx?page=1 Cheers, the Bear.
Thanks Bear , I'll check it out.
rrebell I am still for track lighting and have just converted from CFL's in the cans to LED's as they have come down to as little as $1 on e-bay. Cfl's are great at first but because of the fade factor (kinda blends things together), but at some time you want to end that so you swith over to LED's. If you buy the can's online and the track locally, it is real cheap, my 30x15 plus area was only was less than $500 and I have 60 cans (could gotten away with way less). Nice thing about track lighting is you can change the position of the can or add or remove or just change the bulb to less watts. Bonus of LED's is the new ones use about half the watts of CFL's so my whole lighting system only uses about 500 watts for all 60 watt eqivilant or less than 4 amps, now I wonder why I spent the money on two ciruits.
I know my son-in-law swears by the LED's and pot lites, he buys the pot lites on sale and pops them up where ever the opportunity allows.
riogrande5761 For my purposes, I prefer not to use the Christmassy looking LED strip lights, which look distracting to me drawing my attention away from the layout. I found some 4' LED fixtures (5k temp and use considerably less power than a standard 4' T8 fluorescent fixture and more lumens to boot. I picked up fixtures for about $34 at BJ's. They are slowly coming down in price so if you hunt around you might be able to find them cheaper. I am hanging them from my basement drop ceiling and can take them with me when I move in a couple years.
As you can see I already have a couple fluorescent fixtures and I agree T8's strategically placed would probably do the job but how do you wire them in when there's a finished ceiling?
carl425 Here's a good document on layout lighting. http://4dpnr.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Layout_Room_Lighting.pdf Being from 2012 his LED info is a little out of date, but otherwise I found it very educational.
Wow that document is loaded withliting techniques but not much on how to install a valance without damaging a finished ceiling. More reading I need.
Hi again Lynn:
This is how I am planning to install my valance. I will qualify the following by saying that I have never done it before, but I have done tons of woodworking including making my own cabinets and furniture so I think I have a reasonably solid idea of how to go about it. Hopefully others will chime in if they think I'm doing something wrong.
First, you will do a bit of damage to the ceiling but it will only be screw holes (and maybe some staple marks where the wiring is mounted to the ceiling). The damage will be easy to repair. You don't need to cut into the drywall unless you really insist on having all your lighting wiring hidden, which the valance will do for you anyhow.
The height of the valance will vary depending on what your ceiling height is and how tall you are. Ideally you don't want to see the ceiling behind it but you also don't want to be banging your head on it. Keep in mind that you are going to have to reach in under the valance to work on the layout, and if you anticipate having to stand on a stool make sure you won't be bumping into it then either.
I will start by marking the locations for all the ceiling joists above the layout. The easiest way would be to use a chaulk line. Any visible lines can be washed off after the valance goes up.
The valance itself will be made of tempered hardboard, ideally 1/8" thick so it can be bent around corners. Having curves in the corners looks nice but it isn't absolutely necessary. You might find it easier to just put up straight sections. The valance will be supported with 'L' brackets made out of 2" x 2" lumber. They don't need to be the full height of the valance, but if you are going to mount lighting or run your wiring along the valance the brackets should come down from the ceiling far enough so that you have space to attach things to. The section of the 'L' that is screwed into the ceiling will be 8" - 10" long. The reason for the length is simply to prevent the wood from splitting when you screw into it. Pre-drilling is a good idea too. I will put a small plywood gusset on the brackets to make them firmer. Gluing the gussets would be smart too.
The brackets have to be close enough together to maintain the shape of the valance. If you are using 1/4" hardboard and not curving the corners you would be safe putting a bracket every 16" and at the corners. Alternately, you could put the brackets further apart and attach a 1" x 2" strip to the bottom of the valance to keep it straight. You might find that you will have to brace the top of the hardboard too.
If you are using 1/8" hardboard and curving the corners you will need at least three brackets on each curve to hold the shape, and you will want the brackets to be fairly sturdy because you will be exerting some force on them as you bend the hardboard into shape. I will put a 1" x 2" strip along the bottom of the straight sections of the 1/8" hardboard to keep them from warping.
The chaulk lines on the ceiling will tell you where the ceiling joists are. Hopefully they will line up with where you want to mount the brackets, but if you are curving the corners that might not be the case. In that event, I will put a sheet of 3/8" plywood up first and screw it into the joists. Since you don't want odd shaped pieces of plywood sticking out over the aisles I will cut the plywood to the shape of the curve and mount it where it will be inside the valance. Hopefully, it won't be too obvious. Then you can screw the brackets in wherever needed.
There, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it (at least until somebody with some actual experience tells me I am out to lunch).
I used fluorescent lights for my layout, as that was the best option available at the time. If I were doing it again, I'd opt for the LED tubes. Most of mine are above the drop ceiling, with diffuser panels beneath. The lower level of the layout is also lit with fluorescents, but they're mounted on the underside of the upper level, and have no diffusers. Fixture placement, regardless of the light type used, is important. Yours are currently over the aisle - okay for general room lighting, but not so good for layout lighting, as anyone running a train or working on the layout will block some of the light. I placed the lights around the room to keep the overall effect as even as possible, moving some after finding the initial set-up less than ideal. I also replaced a couple of 4'ers with 8'ers to spread the light more evenly, and also moved many of the fixtures from a position centred (aisle-to-backdrop) over the layout to one which places the fixtures over the layout, but right adjacent to the aisle. This makes more of the layout viewable, as lights over the centre put areas in the foreground in shadow.In my opinion, you cannot have too many lights. I purposely made the layout room without windows - while sunlight is nice for photos, it's very difficult to control within a room and not very reliable, either. If I want to take train model photos in sunlight, I'll build dioramas and take them outdoors. Any digital camera or cell 'phone will compensate for artificial lighting, and your eyes will quickly adjust to seeing such lighting as "correct", too. I used colour balanced tubes on an earlier layout, but their cost, at that time about $15.00/tube, would have been prohibitive on my current layout. The early one used four 4' double-tube fixtures, while the current layout has two 8' doubles, and 27 4' doubles. If my layout were more linear, the lighting over it would have been continuous - probably forty 4' doubles and another seven for the peninsula. Within the last year-or-so, I found a good price on 40 watt tubes and have replaced all of the 32 and 34 watt tubes with 40 watt ones specifically for their higher light output.
While I like the look of a lighting valance, it's not well-suited to a drop ceiling, and for a basement, the suspended ceiling would be my choice every time.
Wayne
hon30critter Rio Grande: I'm not totally enamoured with the appearance of the LED strips either. I'm going to do my best to hide them from direct view. I wish I had waited before buying all the power supplies and LED strips but the 4' LED tubes weren't readily available at the time and they were expensive. I got the power supplies for about half the going price so it seemed like the right move at the time. I'm curious about the fixtures you bought. I take it that they are self contained units. In other words, they include both the fixture and the LED tubes. If so the price seems pretty reasonable. Are they single tube units or twin tubes? Thanks Dave
They are basically selfcontained twin tube type units. This one but I got it at BJ's"
http://www.samsclub.com/sams/4ft-led-shoplight-shoplight-led/prod16460030.ip
Thanks again guys for the great input, lots of very very detailed information that I appreciate you's taking the time to write up.
I think for now I'm going to concentrate on getting benchwork up and get myself re-acquainted with the RR room. Biggest problem I can see if I were to go pot lites would be getting the wiring through the joist but if I were to go track liting the wireing could be on the surface of the ceiling and same applies for tubes and rope lites but to get the hardboard hung neatly would take some thinking.
Lynn:
Before you start on your benchwork you might want to get the lighting system in place. It will be much easier to do the ceiling stuff without having to work around your benchwork.
If the thought of a valance is putting you off, why not just mount 48" LED or fluorescent fixtures right to the ceiling like doctorwayne has done. If you wanted to get really fancy you could put in a drop ceiling with diffusers for the lights so things would look more finished. That would hide all the wiring and if you wanted to reclaim the room at some future date you wouldn't have to touch the ceiling at all.
The downside to that is your ceiling is lowered, but you only have to come down about 5" so you can get the ceiling tiles in place.
Like Drwayne I used flouresent tubes with a drop ceiling and cracked ice plastic panels. BUT first I painted the joists and bottom of the upstairs floor with gloosy white paint. This cuts down on dust, and light that bounces off the panels bounces off the paint and goes back down. Maybe not a great amount of light, but masybe usefull.
Thanks Dave and Dave, I'm not leaning toward taking down the ceiling to expose the floor joyce , my wife would strangle me.
After seeing Mike Lehman's layout with the rope liting installed above the layout in the Need Some Creative Scenery Help topic ,I'm starting to lean toward the rope liting, I seen some neat examples of the stuff up at homedepot, just not sure which illumination would do the job.
Just came across an excellent video for mounting the valance , he used the tube type lites chained together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpqL38i3hOY
Lynn,
After some initial missteps with early production LED strip lighting, the stuff I've been getting from Menards lately as Patriot (store) brand has been much more reliable and long lasting than the earlier stuff. Then they had a special limited time offer for some that was as low as $20 for 45'! Got enough to add another round through the entire place, which took it almost into sunglass territory.
The stuff I'm using has a built-in transformer in the power lead. It's encased in a sheath to hide the workings inside, then inside a clear wrapper. It holds up better to being moved than the more "naked" sort with the offboard transformer, although still be gentle with it for best results and avoid sharp corners, etc.
As for brightness, etc, get the most potent stuff, in general. You can always add more later. Find something in Daylight IMO, but this may come labeled as something else. The Cool White is what I'm using now and it's NOT bluish like most, it's Daylight, so you may have to see for yourself on this.
As for the distractive effects...why are you looking at the ceiling when there's a model RR to see? YMMV, but if you're lighting is doing it's job, you'll not spend much time looking at it. And the results of the "Xmas tree effect" of the long strings is actually well worth overlooking that small peccadillo, if you can. Why? In effect, this simulates the near-parallel rays of the sun so is much more natural in how it falls evenly across your layout. I'm just saying, don't look behind the curtain (or up at the ceiling) and you'll likely be well pleased with LED strip lighting.
A valance COULD help with this. But usually what you want are multiple runs through a scene, at least two, unless it's very narrow, so this would lead to multiple valances. The good thing is if you do need a valance, then something thin (because the strips don't hardly stick down at all) and light (foamcore would work well for this) should serve, making it rather minimalist vs what you usually do.
In the end, I've spent my time looking down and just decided valances weren't needed. These things don't put off a lot of side glare, they go where you point them, so why? But some folks want that effect and it can be done, just saying...
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
mlehman Lynn, After some initial missteps with early production LED strip lighting, the stuff I've been getting from Menards lately as Patriot (store) brand has been much more reliable and long lasting than the earlier stuff. Then they had a special limited time offer for some that was as low as $20 for 45'! Got enough to add another round through the entire place, which took it almost into sunglass territory. The stuff I'm using has a built-in transformer in the power lead. It's encased in a sheath to hide the workings inside, then inside a clear wrapper. It holds up better to being moved than the more "naked" sort with the offboard transformer, although still be gentle with it for best results and avoid sharp corners, etc. As for brightness, etc, get the most potent stuff, in general. You can always add more later. Find something in Daylight IMO, but this may come labeled as something else. The Cool White is what I'm using now and it's NOT bluish like most, it's Daylight, so you may have to see for yourself on this. As for the distractive effects...why are you looking at the ceiling when there's a model RR to see? YMMV, but if you're lighting is doing it's job, you'll not spend much time looking at it. And the results of the "Xmas tree effect" of the long strings is actually well worth overlooking that small peccadillo, if you can. Why? In effect, this simulates the near-parallel rays of the sun so is much more natural in how it falls evenly across your layout. I'm just saying, don't look behind the curtain (or up at the ceiling) and you'll likely be well pleased with LED strip lighting. A valance COULD help with this. But usually what you want are multiple runs through a scene, at least two, unless it's very narrow, so this would lead to multiple valances. The good thing is if you do need a valance, then something thin (because the strips don't hardly stick down at all) and light (foamcore would work well for this) should serve, making it rather minimalist vs what you usually do. In the end, I've spent my time looking down and just decided valances weren't needed. These things don't put off a lot of side glare, they go where you point them, so why? But some folks want that effect and it can be done, just saying...
Thanks Mike this is some very good information. Since viewing the video I came across today I'm in a debate state as to rope liting or tube liting. I now see how the tube lites don't look too bad to wire up on the drywall surface and in my room there is a wire to a wall switch already there , the room was once a hair shop for my wife and it had an exhaust fan. I could easiliy start the lite wiring from there a hook them all up in series around the layout.
I have a new question, after watching the youtube video of the guy installing hardboard for the layout I'm wondering this, I know the hardboard can be purchased in 4x8 or 2x8 sheets , if you install off the ceiling with 2x8 sheets so thats 2 feet down then how much lower should the benchwork , scenery etc be ? I generally start my benchwork min. 50 inch off the floor and go up from there but that now does not appear to be feasible with a valance coming 2 feet down off the ceiling?
Thoughts on this?
I went the 4x8, sideways, route. Mine is a basement space, so that got insulation down to the frost line. I could have got away with 2x8, sideways around most. Silverton is just over 24" deck to suspended ceiling. And if you don't need the insulation, no need to worry about "going deep" as I did. And you can use the "fringe elements" directly in fron of the backdrop, like forests and low hills, or even structures, to close the gap if you plan accordingly.
Hardboard is pretty cheap and easy, though, so I wouldn't want to make more complex work when simply using a larger sheet in the first place would be simpler and more cost effective.
mlehman I went the 4x8, sideways, route. Mine is a basement space, so that got insulation down to the frost line. I could have got away with 2x8, sideways around most. Silverton is just over 24" deck to suspended ceiling. And if you don't need the insulation, no need to worry about "going deep" as I did. And you can use the "fringe elements" directly in fron of the backdrop, like forests and low hills, or even structures, to close the gap if you plan accordingly. Hardboard is pretty cheap and easy, though, so I wouldn't want to make more complex work when simply using a larger sheet in the first place would be simpler and more cost effective.
Mike I'm thinking you may have misunderstood the question, what I'm saying is how high do you start your benchwork off the floor if your hanging a hardboard valance for boxing in liting? My basement is completely finished and insulated already so I'm working off finished walls. My previous layout benchwork started at 50 inch off the floor and went up from there but with a valance if it were 2 feet off the ceiling I don't think the previous layout benchwork height would work.
Here is what 53" benchwork with a 24" lighting valance in a 92-5/8" high room looks like.
[EDIT] Sorry, typo. Should say 18" valance.
Alan
Freelancing the LK&O Railroad
lifeontheranch Here is what 53" benchwork with a 24" lighting valance in a 92-5/8" high room looks like. [EDIT] Sorry, typo. Should say 18" valance.
Thanks Alan that is a great help. I know the lumber store cuts plywood, be nice if the cut hardboard down to 18".
Hardboard is insanely easy to cut. A $30 Harbor Freight circular saw would do fine.