Just like I seen on the map Dave. You did get the Heatwave Sweep up there in Canada too eh? Let it blow over if we all can be so lucky and hopefully it's just a freak thing.
I've been enjoying your thread and looking forward to your continuation when it's not so hot up here.
Building a layout is not a race. 'Steady As She Goes' I'm happy with what I've seen so far here
TF
More delays. Too hot to work in the garage. The humidex has been reading 37C for several days. That's 91F. If I was half my age it wouldn't bother me, but now it's a killer. It's supposed to cool off later in the week, but I think this is going to be a hot summer!
I am still working on sorting all the stuff around my workbench out. Last night I packed most of my DC locomotives into a tote for future consideration. Now that the workbench has an actual working area on it, I'll have to kick my butt to start building something.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
NorthBritDave. Railroad Modeling is done at your pace. (I know you know that ) Take it easy. I am sure the work will be great when finished.
Thanks for your patience David!
Dave. Railroad Modeling is done at your pace. (I know you know that ) Take it easy. I am sure the work will be great when finished. Oh! They say railroad modeling is never finished.
Carry on.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
I checked the rest of the layout tonight to see if the foam seams were level. I found one more spot where the foam slabs didn't line up but it only took a couple of minutes with the long Surform rasp and my long body work sander to fix the problem. It doesn't look like I will need to use any foam. Everything came out pretty level. Once I have the cork down I can recheck for level and sand the cork accordingly. All of the cork will get sanded regardless.
I should mention that if my progress seems slow, that's because it is. I haven't reached the point where I can sit down to work on the layout, and my tolerance for standing is still pretty low. So, I will do a few minutes work and then I have to quit. Once I start to lay cork I'm hoping that I can do most of that from a seated position. We shall see!
The foam has worked quite well. The underlying layout printout has stayed stuck down so the foam didn't affect it at all. The foam was easy to sand smooth, and I have the area almost perfectly flat. I say 'almost' because there is a very slight depression in the foam on one side of the seam where the track closest to the fascia is located, but it is so minor that I'm not sure if it needs to be corrected or not. I will probably correct it. Why ask for trouble?
The next step will be to check all the other seams with the 24" straight edge to see if there are any potential problem areas. I'm sure there will be.
One comment I will make about the Woodland Scenics foam putty is that a little seems to go a long way, at least in terms of what I was doing to level the sub base. I applied about half of the tub to the area to be levelled which was about 18" x 22", and then I used the 24" straight edge to remove any excess. When I returned the excess to the tub it was more than 3/4s full. Given the price of the stuff, I was happy with that.
Just spent some time trying to level the foam and I found out that the problem is a bit more complicated than I had thought.
When I first looked at the seam that was too high I thought "oh well, that's simple. Just plane it down...". After I did that I put a 24" straight edge across the joint. Both ends of the straight edge and the middle where the high seam had been touched the foam but there were low spots on both sides of the seam that I had planed down. Hmmmm....
I decided that I had to level out the whole area so I got out my small bucket of Woodland Scenics foam putty and applied it to the low areas. Then I dragged the long straight edge across the scene to remove any excess, which turned out to be more than half of what I had put down.
The WS foam is quite stiff. It definitely will not flow on its own. The instructions say that you can soften it by mixing in a small amount of water, but I didn't find that to be necessary. I didn't try to play with it too much. There will be some small voids but I can easily fill those in after sanding the first coat.
Now I have to wait for it to dry. The results could prove to be interesting because I applied most of the foam over the glued down paper track plan. We shall see whether or not the foam pulls the paper loose, but I don't think that it will.
I'll keep you posted!
Cheers!!
Hi Dave. Molly's Reach sounds a great establishment.
As for 'moving buildings etc' I am all in favor if it adds to a scene. Most of my buildings on 'Sovereign Street & Clarence Dock' can be seen around Leeds and the North of England.
Looking forward to more 'instalments'.
NorthBritMolly's Reach pub sitting halfway into the river? A new way to water down the beer.
Hi David,
Molly's Reach is an actual pub in Gibson, B.C. that was made famous in the long running TV show 'The Beachcombers'. We had burgers there about 5 years ago and they were excellent!! The beer was definitely not watered down!
I have a laser cut kit of the exact building. With a little bit of license I could model it on a wharf extending over the river despite the fact that the original is some distance from the water. The thought appeals to me. I had originally planned on having a beach scene, but in all honesty, beach scenes seem a bit tacky to me so I think I will change my plans.
Molly's Reach pub sitting halfway into the river?
A new way to water down the beer.
I took my long Surform rasp to the high spots on the layout foam and I am happy to say that it is levelling the surface irregularities quite nicely. It is cutting the foam fairly cleanly and the track plan printouts are not being ripped up beyond where the rasp is cutting into the foam.
The fact that there are some uneven spots is my fault. I failed to smooth out the PL300 foam adhesive beads before laying the 2" pink foam overtop of them. I thought that it would smooth out just by putting weight on the foam. Unfortunately I was wrong.
When I glued the printouts on the lower half of the layout I discovered that the river bed/beach that I have already cut into the foam isn't where it should be. As it sits right now, the Molly's Reach pub will be sitting halfway into the river. I don't think that it is much of an issue. I'll just have to rearrange the positions of the buildings beside the river.
The computer is never wrong, as they say!
Simon
I have figured out why the printed track plan didn't fit the top side of the layout properly, and it is entirely my own fault. When I laid the top section of sheets down I overlapped the pages by about 1/4" in order to get the printing to line up. What I failed to realize was that the sheets shouldn't have been overlapped. The printer left a 1/4" unprinted area that was still part of the layout. Over 12', that 1/4" added up to about 3" in total which is exactly how short the printed plan came out. When I did the bottom section of the layout I didn't overlap the sheets so they came out to the correct overall width.
I'm not sure if I need to reprint the top section sheets. I will do a couple of tests with actual turnouts to see if I can still get things to fit. If I do have to reprint the sheets it's no big deal. I just have to buy more glue.
I have 90% of the plan glued down now, and of course the last few pages aren't even close to matching up. Where the tracks should simply intercept each other from top to bottom, there is about a 3" discrepancy.
It would appear that the tracks on the lower side of the layout are placed correctly. That suggests that the diagrams on the upper side of the layout that you will recall came up three inches short from left to right are the source of the problem.
Ultimately it is no big deal. I have to choose between moving the curves on the upper right tracks closer to the right end of the layout, or I adjust the curves on the lower right side of the layout to match the shortened upper curve locations. I think I'm going to follow my original plan and move the upper right curves East by 3". That will eliminate any possibility of messing up the locations of all of the turnouts along the top and the bottom of the layout.
Fun, fun, fun!!
Actually, to be honest, the printed track plans have worked better than I had hoped.
I need to let the glue dry. After that I will level the bumps in the foam (which you will all agree that I should have done before gluing down the track plan printouts). Then I can start experimenting with laying cork. I bought a bunch of pre-cut cork turnout roadbeds so I will have to figure out how to make those fit into the plan. Nothing will get glued down 'hard' until I know that the pre-cut cork turnout pads fit properly. Any advice on installing them?
I got another 1/4 of the layout plan glued down tonight. It appears that the discrepancy in size between the printed plan and the actual layout surface that I noted in an earlier post only seems to affect the left/right dimensions. Left to right, the printed plan comes up about 3" short. However, the printed plan seems to fit fine from top to bottom. I'll have to go back and study my printer settings to see if I caused the left to right discrepancy, but ultimately it doesn't matter. Everything will fit fine.
I'm going to give my back a rest and then go back at glueing the rest of the plan down. I may or may not get it all done tonight.
Thanks guys!
The additional 3" will allow me to add to a very condensed mine scene so I am happy about that.
There is one question that remains to be answered. That is, if the print out is 3" short over 12' (2%), are all of the individual track pieces short by 2% as well? I will only be able to determine that as I start to lay track, but I don't think that it will cause any serious problems. Most of the turnouts have a few inches of straight track between them so the worst case scenario is that any parallel tracks coming off of the consecutive turnouts will be 2% closer together. No big deal. My track spacing is wider than the NMRA's recommended minimums already.
As I have said before, the track diagram printout is only a guide, so I still have a lot of flexibility with where the actual roadbed and track get placed.
Thanks for following!
Nice! I'd have to say you're lucky with that extra three inches given to you Dave.
Shortly after I transferred my plan to the foam and the cookie cutter was already cut out I had an afterthought. A long spur could be added to run around the outside to the lower level of the layout for a lumber mill. I had to add 3" to both the side and the back of the layout. You just got your 3" for free
If I had the option of more track or more scenery; scenery wins every time.
hon30critterOn one hand, I now have the opportunity to add more scenery to that end of the layout.
If you are going to photograph the layout, 3 inches of scenery between the table edge and the trackage opens up a lot of creative possibilities.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Dave, having more space than anticipated is a good problem to have!
I got a few more track plan sheets glued to the layout tonight. Everything went well, except that the printout sheets came up about 3" short on the far end of the layout. That means that I have about three more inches to add to the straight runs if I so choose. I have mixed feelings about trying to do that. On one hand, I now have the opportunity to add more scenery to that end of the layout. On the other hand, I can add 3" to the straight tracks on both sides of the layout.
My initial feeling is that I will stick with the track plan as it is glued down now, and enlarge the 'mountains' (okay, small hills) on that end of the layout. The radii of the end curves won't change regardless of what I do, so I'm leaning towards adding a bit more scenery. It will also allow a bit more space for my tiny mine scene.
The glue has dried on the first set of layout plan pages and they seem to be very well attached. I hope they stay that way.
Some of the pages are going to get destroyed when I level the foam, but 3rd PlanIt allows me to choose exactly which sheets I may need to reprint so that is no big deal.
I didn't do anything on the layout yesterday or today because my knees were just killing me after my physio session on Wednesday. I hope to get back to it tomorrow. I did manage to find my long Surform tool so that will make it easier to level the bumps.
hon30critter Until then, there seems to be lots of people following the thread. Every time I make a significant progress post I get a couple hundred views.
Same with my Paint Booth thread. The last two updates generated no replies, but the views jumped by several hundred with each of them.
7j43kAnd, by the way, I think the plan is quite good. Congrats to you all.
Thanks Ed,
I came in late on this topic, and it works fine for me.
I skimmed through real quick, and picked up what I needed. IF I were to want to build a similar item, you can be assured I would spend a lot more time on it.
For example, I don't need to go through ALL the discussion about finding the best track plan for the job. I can just go to the end of that part. And, by the way, I think the plan is quite good. Congrats to you all.
Ed
OvermodI'm beginning to wonder if a thread this long is too unwieldy for new readers to catch up on.
Hi overmod,
I think that you make a good point. In fact I started a separate thread on the construction of the rotating benchwork at the request of a forum member. Unfortunately that thread didn't get a lot of views or comments so I let it die a natural death.
I do plan on writing a summary thread at some point, but I will wait until I actually have trains running. Until then, there seems to be lots of people following the thread. Every time I make a significant progress post I get a couple hundred views.
I'm beginning to wonder if a thread this long is too unwieldy for new readers to catch up on.
There are examples on other forums of how to break long threads, but most of them are 'social', like the diner here, and can be divided by season or month date. Perhaps a logical way to do this with the rotisserie thread is also by "date" -- milestone dates, such as when the basic benchwork is done, when the track installation starts, when the organized wiring and electrical testing gets under way.
Of course, it's fun just as it is, too!
I agree with Kevin. If it is interesting and fun people will continue to read and follow.
Carry on!
hon30critterThis thread just went past the 50,000 views mark! I'm amazed! Thanks for everyone's interest.
This has been an interesting and fun thread to follow.
Thanks Dave.
Wow! This thread just went past the 50,000 views mark! I'm amazed!
Thanks for everyone's interest.