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Watching paint dry

Well, it's been close to 2 months since my last update, in that time I've been filling joins and screw holes and painting, painting, painting, painting.................you get the drift.

 It would have been soooooooo much quicker if I had been able to paint the room prior to all the bits being dumped in there, but time did not afford that luxury.

I had this grand idea of hiring an airless spray gun and getting it painted in a day, but after talking to a few people I realised that whilst it would be quick, I would be committed for the duration of the hire. Eventually common sense and dollars won out and it was done with a brush and roller.

As it turned out I wasn't as ready as i thought I was.I wrapped up about half the layout and made a start.

To date I've done about half the back drop and almost all of the ceiling. Now that a large amount of the wood grain has been painted over it is really starting to look like a railroad.

In the picture below the snow storm has hit and only then did I realise that i needed some trim along the top of the wall.

After applying the quad at the top of the wall I realised that I'd better do something about the square corners where the walls met before I got to far. In the picture below laminex has been bent into the corners and painted blue.

And here is the layout unwrapped.

Thanks for dropping by and having a look

Road Bed Complete

Just a very brief update for you all.

Well, at last the reconstruction of the roadbed has been completed. It has taken far longer than I expected and has been more challenging than I expected. But it is done and it's looking really good. The shed has been cleaned up, (no more tripping over track work and towns)

So what's next? Painting, painting and more painting. i want to paint the ceiling and walls before I go to much further. So stay tuned for that, I hope you like watching paint dry!

 Here is the section that had to be added near the Rutland interchange because my shed is that little bit longer than it's previous home. It's about 90cms long. Both of the roadbeds are on a grade.

 The lead to the North staging tracks is disappearing through the wall, the South staging tracks are on the left and the bridge is located on the grade between Fort Edward and Saratoga Springs.

This section here is at the end of Saratoga Springs, all three road beds needed 28cms cut out of them and then all three of the grades needed adjusting.

It's Getting There

Well the past month has seen some great progress made. A big thank you to Laurie Green for giving up a morning during which we placed almost all the remaining components into position. Below are some photos detailing the progress.

 In the above photo, the town on the left is Plattsburgh. Since the last update the curved wall along the rear of the town has been resheeted.  Plattsburgh has been leveled and secured into position. On the right hand side of the photo is the branch line to North Creek. It's sitting in it's approximate position, it may slide along the wall slightly depending on how my door access takes shape.

 Here is another shot of the branch line town of North Creek. In Brendan's shed his access door was where the light is shining on the wall. My access door is to the immediate right of this photo. The baseboard was cut at a join for transportation purposes but at this join is probably where some sort of lift up or drop down will be installed.

That's Plattsburgh on the right, with the branch line on the left. You can see the other section of the branch line just below the switchboard, this is where the town of Corinth is located. Along the wall under the aircon is the grade from the south staging level as well as the beginning of the branch line.

Here is the grade up from south staging and the staging bypass track. Just where the wires are hanging down I need to shorten the layout width by about 28cms. Unfortunately this means the grade is going to need some reworking. Because the grade doubles back on itself it is going to be 56cms shorter. 

The long grade from Plattsburgh up to Fort Ann has been installed and hopefully adjusted to ensure a constant climb.

In the area of Fort Ann the upper deck and the grade form north staging had to be shortened by about 14cms, you can see the section of upper deck that has been cut out. The section that was cut out of the grade was right at the end of the grade so only minor adjustments were required.

But when you cut out a section of track that is not running parallel to the edge of the baseboard you get a misalignment or a fault line.

The reconstruction continues

Here is a brief update of the progress in the shed. From about mid December the layout room became Santa's delivery centre and thus I had to pick the times that I could go out to the shed as I didn't need any lilttle helpers.

 

 The above picture shows Fort Edward on the left and the recently erected dividing wall. On this side of the dividing wall is just a long single track run back towards Fort Ann. My shed is about 280mm narrower than Brendan's was. Up till now all the reconstruction has everything back in exactly the same space due to the horseshoe shaped peninsula being unable to be modified. But now it's time to slim things down. Unfortunately I've had to take some width (100mm) out of the aisle along the front of Fort Edward and the remainder will come from the aisle on the other side of the new wall. I've been kicking myself ever since the builder said "are you sure you don't want to make it 500mm wider" Grrrrrr.  

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 This photo shows what will become Plattsburgh along the left wall and the branch line along the right wall. That's the towns stacked up in the middle of the photo, with the branch line being on top. I really need to get some lights up in this area

And this shows the Fort Ann area. I'll re-clad both sides of the wall prior to putting any track in front of it due to the damage the occurred during the move. As the studs become exposed I'm insuring that they are as close to vertical as possible with the laser. 

Well that's it for now, thanks for stopping by.

Progress Report

Well another month has passed since the last update. So it's time to give a quick run down on the latest.

Firstly I thought it's probably time to post the track plan so that you have some idea of where things sit.

This is the top deck plan. Unfortunately the entry door to the shed is right where the word Corinth is, so a bit of rearranging will need to take place in that area.

Here's the track plan of the lower level / staging. The entry door does not affect this level!

Now for the visual progress. The top level for the towns of Ft Edward and Whitehall have been installed and leveled. Prior to that happening all the staging tracks on the outside of the peninsula were carefully checked for any damage and where the tracks were cut or pulled up across baseboard joins they were relaid. Not a lot of damage was found. Mostly it was just short lengths where the adhesive had dis-bonded.

Then after the top level was leveled, the track was also inspected and re-secured as required.

 

Here we have the blob at the end of Ft Edward and the staging return loop below it.

Here is another shot of Ft Edward, the floor is getting clearer!

Looking the other way through Ft Edward. look carefully and you can see that there is still some track to be relaid / rejoined near the yellow tape measure.

And here we are looking at Whitehall.

Whitehall from the other end. Just a few tracks here in the foreground to relay.

Well that's it for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Progress Report

With the warmer weather arriving the progress on the layout has slowed noticeably. All the spring chores that can't be put off any longer all need attending to, but that's enough of the excuses.

So what has happened?

Well all the work has been on the horseshoe shaped peninsula. When we removed this peninsula from Brendan's, all the track work and bench work was removed leaving a great big wall. To get the wall out and transported it was cut vertically into 4 large sections with a circular saw.  The resulting cuts caused a bit of damage and looked very ugly on the back drop. After a bit of pondering on how best to repair the wall / backdrop sections I decided to bite the bullet and remove and replace the existing cladding.

Most of the 3mm mdf sheets came off easily as they had only been screwed on however the area around the return loop had a lot of glue on it which need to be removed carefully with a chisel. Once the cladding was off I was able to replace the noggins which had been cut through.

I started on the inside of the horseshoe which is now complete other than cutting a few tunnel portals, and I'm really happy with the way it has come up.

Looking up the inside of the horseshoe from the access end

 Looking from the top of the horseshoe back towards the entrance end and reversing loop.

 The area on the outside of the horseshoe above the return loop. This area had a lot of glue and took lots of elbow grease. Fortunately it's not a full sheet in length.

A shot of the mess when standing at the shed door. This is the outside of the horseshoe, looking at the curved end. Can't wait to get some of the layout up off the floor and into position.

The curved end on the outside of the horseshoe.

Looking down the outside of the horseshoe on the far side, just two sheets to go.