We're Moving!

The Richlawn Railroad is moving......well, not literally - just the on line presence. I've signed up with a friend (who's in the business) to have my own official website. Can you guess what's it's called? You guessed it:

Richlawnrailroad.com

I'll be doing all of my new posting to that site (which is still under construction) so please visit it and bookmark that page. Thanks for your interest!

The Henderson Building - close to completion

I'm reaching the point of completion / abandonment of the Henderson Building; that is, I'm close to finishing it, but sick of working on it. It is at this point that I put it on the shelf and let it age while I start another structure with the hopes of returning to do the final finish before putting it on the layout.

Yet to be done: more corner seam work, hanging (or animated) sign for the ground floor tenant Pelitier Travel, weathering of chimneys & roof top details, paint touch up, etc. This is a "3 footer" in that it will be viewed from 3 feet away, so I'll take that into consideration for the completion.

Rick

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.

Alcove expasion Part 2: Benchwork

My last post to this blog showed the removal of existing benchwork from the alcove area in preparation for installation of the new expanded layout. In this post I'll share the construction of the benchwork. Some of you may wonder why with such narrow benchwork that I just didn't attach a "shelf" style construction to the walls. The answer is two fold: 1.) The left wall is 1/2" drywall attached to 1 X 4's that are attached to the concrete wall with "shot" in concrete nails and I don't trust their holding power for anything other than drywall; and 2.) I don't like to attach benchwork directly to walls just in case I have to move from this house. The blue tape on the floor is denotes the aisle, which is 36" wide

All of the benchwork is L girder style with 1 x 3's glued and screwed on top of 1 x 4's. I would have preferred to use 3/4" plywood ripped for the pieces; however, I don't have the equipment to do the ripping. The section below is 6 ft long by 2 ft wide by 42" high at the highest point. The legs are 2 x 2's with 1 x 2's as braces attached to 5/8" plywood plates. All of the benchwork legs have 1/4" carriage bolts in "T" nuts at the bottom to allow for adjustment.

The section on the left side is the same basic construction and it 10 ft long by 17" wide by 42" high. I did use 2 x 3's for the legs here since they had a bunch of them in the "scrap" bin at the big box store for a cheap price. Since I was using 8 ft long lumber, you will note the splice where I added a 2 ft length. The splice is made up of a "sandwich" of 1 x 4's glued & screwed to the two pieces. Since the legs (which are 2 x 3's) are only 12" apart, I just used horizontal 1 x 4's at the bottom instead of diagonial braces.

The section on the right is 11-1/2 ft long. I had to splice a 3-1/2 ft long section on to the 8 ft L girders. Once I had the two long sections (left and right) of benchwork completed I wasn't happy with the lack of ridigity at mid point, so I added a 2 x 4 cross brace and a 2 x 4 leg.

The next steps will include leveling all of the benchwork and then attaching everything to the floor with angle brackets and anchors. Once everything is secure, I'll start adding the joists. Stay turned for more.

Alcove expansion Part 1: demo

I recently extended my alcove area by adding 7ft in depth and have been putting off removing the existing track because .....well, because then I can't run my railroad! I needed to salvage the benchwork and track for reuse outside my trainroom once the alcove new benchwork and trackwork is installed and running through the wall.

Today I took the leap and got the job done - now I need to hurry to get the railroad operating again!

Here's the loop that needs to be removed in such a manner that it can be reused

It shouldn't be painful just to cut a couple of wires, right? Here I'm cutting the main feeder wires to the loop.


After one of my Athern F7 sound locos decided to leap the track and smash into the concrete I had installed these clear plastic retainer barriers. I'm cutting them here to get access to cut the track and roadbed.


Sorry for the fuzzy photo - it's hard to take a picture while using the Dremel. The track is cut using one of the reinforced cut off disks. I like them much better than the un-reinforced disks as they don't break and fly apart.

I used a hand saw to cut through the first section of the loop. There's no turning back now!

And now the other part of the loop.

C-clamps were attached to a riser in each corner to hold the track and roadbed up when the screws that attached the risers to the joists are removed. All risers were marked to know where they should be once the unit is re-assembled.

Next I removed all of the screws holding the risers to the joists. Once this was done, the only thing holding the roadbed and track up on the benchwork are the four C-clamps sitting on the joists.

Here's a picture of the "moving brace" that was installed.

The track & roadbed are tilted forward and ready to move on out!

Say goodbye to the trainroom! I'm just glad that I never landscaped the loop.

Here's the loop benchwork with the track & roadbed removed. Since it's such a tight fit, I've decided to cut it in half (ouch!) so that I can remove it from the room.

First I'll removed the screws holding the angle braces to the legs. I'm a firm believer of firm benchwork; that is, always secure the legs to the floor so that accidental bumping doesn't cause a problem.

Here I'm removing the screws from the bottom of the cross braces. Boy, am I glad I didn't glue these!

I left the top of the braces screwed to the reinforcement / connection plate. I'm removing the plate here that connects the braces to the L-girder.

With the braces removed it's time to get my Skill saw!

Wait a minute......if I just cut the L-girders without some type of other support, won't the whole thing come crashing down? I added a temporary 3/4" plywood sheet on top of the joists and screwed it down securely to hold this thing together once cut. There aren't any pictures of me doing the actual cutting since I wanted to keep all of my fingers!

Here's the "after" shot when the deed was done and the plywood brace removed. Now's it just a matter of carrying out and cleaning up!

Opps! I almost forgot the most important part - rail stops to keep the locos from running off the track ends. I will still be running a track cleaning car back and forth during the re-constructions and I don't want any more locos on the concrete. It may not be prototypical, but it works. Bubble wrap (for a soft impact) backed up by push pins for that certain stop.

Man, it's just SCREEMING for some benchwork and track!!! The plan will be an "around the wall" with a center aisle and then through the wall to the right just before the door. What's on the other side of the wall? - the expansion area. The loop will be re-assembled and temporarly provide the return back into the room.

Details, details! When I removed the leg angle brackets from the floor that where secured by "shot in" nails it left a couple of holes that will need to be patched, painted and patterned. They will be hidden by benchwork, but I'm still going to repair them because if I didn't, it would bug me!
The whole process of removing the loop from the alcove took me about 2-1/2 hours. I'm glad that it's over, but now I've got to re-assemble the loop outside of the room and get busy in that alcove!

I recently had an article published on the AroundAbout Cumming website about the Richlawn Railroad and model railroading as a hobby. It's possible that the article will also be published in print in their monthly magazine that is distributed via mail and available at a number of retail outlets. You can check the article out at: http://www.aroundaboutcumming.com/lifestyle/from-boats-to-trains/

Potter's Pond - in memory of Mr. Potter

My good friend and fellow model railroader Mr. Potter passed away recently and I wanted to post this picture of "Potter's Pond" that is located behind the roundhouse in his memory. Mr. Potter was an avid N scaler that had a super layout featuring over 400 feet of double main line. He will definately be missed! Rest in peace, my dear friend.

Just a shack - click on pictures for a larger view

Well, it's not a masterpiece - just a shack I added to the forground area of Hoovertown. This area was originally done with ground foam and about 50 "store bought" trees. After purchasing and watching Joe's videos I was no longer happy with the way the area looked. I decided to add long static grass and some better looking trees. The shack is a little wood kit I did including interior (bed, stove, table, chairs, shelves, and lighting. The area is still under construction as I make the trees. I'll be adding an outhouse behind the shack along with some junk.

Curving hardboard for coving corners

I recently added curved (coved) corners in the train room addition using the "brute force" method. I took flat hardboard 4' x 8' x 3/16" panels and forced them into the corner. This was an extremely difficult and frustrating method.

I'm getting ready to cove a corner in the expansion area and decided to use a curving method that I had used previously on some fascia board they worked very well. Here are the steps (refer to the picture below):

1.) Clamp boards on the edges using C-clamps evenly spaced (spring clamps will NOT work for this).
2.) Tie a rope to one of the end C-clamps and thread it through the other clamps going back and forth from side to side.
3.) Push on the face of the hardboard to start the curve and then tie off the other end of the rope.
4.) Wet the back (unfinished side) of the hardboard - I used a pump up sprayer because of the size of the panel. You just need to wet the back - don't soak it.
5.) Wait for awhile (I never looked at the clock) for the hardboard to "relax" a little.
6.) After waiting push down on the long edge "just enough" (I don't know what that is, but I do know what "too much" is!) and tighten up the rope. Take your time so you don't break it!
7.) Repeat steps 4 - 6 as many times as necessary to get the curve that you want. NOTE: the board will relax quite a bit back to its original shape when the rope is released so you will need to curve more than the final curve. If you're looking for a 90 degree curve you will need to curve is 110 degrees or more.
8.) After the back of the hardboard is COMPLETELY dry seal it with a good grade sealer. NOTE: latex paint is not a sealer.