The Henderson Building - store front progress

Work continues on the Henderson Building that will find a home in the Hoovertown downtown expansion. This building will be viewed from approximately three feet - thus the "good enough" principal when it comes to finish. The ground floor store front is occupied by Pelletier Travel. The window printing is printed backwards on the rough side (required for printing) of 3M(tm) transparency film. The travel posters in the windows are printed on card stock that is bowed (curved) to fill the windows and open at the top to allow light from the "light pole". Floors above the ground have vellum behind the "glass" to allow for light to come through without seeing the interior.

Here's another view of the work in process. I had a comment on one of the forums that the type font for the windows was the wrong style for my era (60's & 70's); however, I like it and I think that I'll keep it. The doorway in the left side wall is for access to the upper floors. For the edges that are exposed I have to scribe all of the individual brick mortar lines (fun!) which takes a bunch of time. I can only work on them for a little at a time.

I'll post more on the building as it progresses.

Alcove expansion Part 2: Benchwork - Joists

The work continues on the expansion of the layout into the alcove area and I've recently installed the joists on the L-girders. The weights are on the benchwork at the right are there because of a nasty twist caused by warped lumber. Once I attached the benchwork to the floor it won't be a problem.

I've never been happy with how flimsy the joists seemed when the risers are attached as the risers act as a "lever" to twist the joists from side to side. I don't like benchwork that isn't rigid, so I added stiffeners to the joists and they are much more rigid now.

The stiffeners are made from 5/8" sandply plywood that I cut using my 50 year old DeWalt radial arm saw. I had a bunch of scrap plywood, so other than the cutting time it was easy.


Here is a closer view of the joist and the stiffeners. The joists are attached to the top of the L-girder from the bottom using 2-1/2" coarse thread drywall screws screwed into pilot holes to avoid spliting the plywood. I attached the stiffeners using 1" coarse thread drywall screws without using glue. I may need to move things around a little bit for turnout motors, ect. and I wanted that to be easy to do.


Here's a little closer view of the stiffeners and joist showing the mounting screws.

Some might say that this is "over-designed" or "over-built", and that might be true; however, I'm all for "over" when it comes to a strong, stable benchwork.

Stay tuned for the next installments which will include cutting a hole through the wall, adding risers, sub-roadbed, and alike.