Friday, February 24, 2017

Ask and you shall receive

A couple of souls have asked for more detail about supports, etc for the lift out section I just built.
Well it's pretty rudimentary. I'm a big fan of gravity for most applications. and this item simply rests on some cleats and one clamp will be required to insure nothing moves at the wrong time.

The right side


And the left side

The unit lifts up and over the backdrop and will store under the layout.
Nothing fancy here at all.

Bridging the gap

I occasionally wonder if the people who designed this basement, and the protective cover that is over it, were model railroaders at heart. Nice big open space, finished walls from day one, suspended ceiling, and a second staircase up to the garage, allowing the layout builder to trek up and down to the garage shop while cutting bits of wood needed for creating our miniature worlds.
But the extra stairs called for a liftout section and that task was tackled today. With the unseasonably warm weather, the garage was comfortable to work in. So we went from this;
to this;
and then to this;
in a couple of hours.
With a little effort I can now lay track and will be able to run way freights from the St Thomas yard into the town of Aylmer.
Progress is good



Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Saturday last

I had the pleasant duty of assisting my friend Brian Dickey with his Lovely British O scale layout.
I'll let my pal Trevor Marshall tell you all about it in his blog, http://themodelrailwayshow.com/cn1950s/?p=7843.
He does it far better than I could, but then again he's a professional wordsmith.
From me I'll just share a few pictures with you;




There's something wonderful about British trains.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Roundhouse roof

Today I managed to check off another annoying task.
I added roofing material to the St Thomas roundhouse.
The annoying part of the task was my own fault. I didn't really think through the consequence of waiting so long to actually apply the roofing material. The end result being that I spent a few hours reaching across the layout to lay the material in place.
Great for stretching the hamstrings though!
I used  Minuteman Scale Models rolled roofing product for the roofing material. The peel and stick aspect made the job much more pleasant and the product comes in a large variety of designer colours. The sheet is cut into scale 3' widths, which meant I had to draw many lines across the roof panels 2'9" apart. Again, a task that was easy enough on the 2 loose roof panels, but the small bits that were built in place were a bit tricky.
But I poked away at it, taking breaks as my back suggested and the task was completed. A little touchup paint as well as gluing the 2 pair of open doors into place and voila!
Smoke jacks are now the next item on the roundhouse list. Maybe next week.