Holes in the Wall

[PAL_Houston]

Nice holes, guys.   


...
Best one I've personally seen, was my Uncle.  He blew through the back of his garage wall, and had a helix under the roof of the dog house that was attached to the back side of the garage.  The roof was on hinges, so you could lift it up in case of a problem.

 
Your uncle had some big, big dogs I guess. 
Must've been pretty smart too, to rate an upstairs train room! 

[Flatrat]

The most expensive "hole in the wall" I ever saw was when a retired co-worker's 10 x 12' HO railroad of 25+ years reached maximum density in the underground front corner of his basement. He had a another 10x 12' room back behind/adjacent to it underneath the kitchen area upstairs and figured the hole in the wall he needed...was to remove the entire wall and double his layout space back under the kitchen.
But that was his woodshop space underneath the kitchen and he hated the thought of sacrificing his nice woodshop to railroad layout space. What to do, what to do? The solution he came up with was to tell his dear wife that HE had decided she needed more space upstairs off the back of the kitchen so he would blow out the back wall of the foundation of the walk-out basement and build another 10 x 12' addition off the back of the house. Twice the kitchen for Helen upstairs and he moved his woodshop back underneath the kitchen addition so he could open the former woodshop space up to add onto his existing layout.
I think I might have just built a seperate building in the backyard for a nice woodshop myself. He continued the new layout off the original one around the perimeter of the room and it gave him even more layout space than he already had in a nice big 'U' shape and Helen likes the addition to the kitchen and the kids were just going to inherit that money anyway so...why not?

[John]

Then there is Howard Zane - he has expanded his basement several times to make his railroad fit ..  the house didn't get any bigger

http://www.zanestrains.com/layout.htm

[Flatrat]

2850 square foot basement layout huh? Sounds just about big enough to me.

[Bsklarski]

I did this for a wall that stuck out into the basement for a room that was off the main room. It never got completed as it was my HO layout. I was thinking of hiding the hole by a highway bridge of by buildings.



And the back side. 

[Flatrat]

Nice work Brian. I've seen "Wall Tunnels" hidden quite succesfully in an urban city scape of tall buildings and underpasses to 'trick the eye'. Too bad you never got to finish it. I'm sure it would have looked very convincing. There's other great examples of dealing with modeling through walls here too. Examples like the ones posted here show that if you plan ahead for a believable mountain or city scape or some other convincing 'trick of the eye' that people won't even notice you bored through the wall. It could also be a useful segue if you wanted to model something completely different in the next room. You could model an urban landscape and then on the other side pop out into the rural countryside through a mountain tunnel. The transition could work to your advantage that way nicely.

Scott

[mcjaco]

 
Your uncle had some big, big dogs I guess. 
Must've been pretty smart too, to rate an upstairs train room! 

Dog when the layout was built, was a 90 pound Golden.  Next tennant in the house (when it wasn't my Uncle - hee hee), was 110 pound Rottweiller.  So yeah, it was a sizable dog house. 

I probably have a picture of the hole out the backside of the garage somewhere.  The upper level disappeared behind structures, the lower lever returned through a tunnel portal.  It was a nifty little layout that was just a loop on two levels, with a peninsula. 

[PAL_Houston]

I cut up half of an Atlas bridge kit to use for the bridge approach over the Galena River.  (The other half of the bridge kit was used as the road-bridge over the tracks at Savanna.)   Here's a view of what I was thinking about doing, sans the actual hole in the wall, and sans scenec-ing and ballast.....



I probably would need to do something about lighting, owing to the shadows.

But, what do you guys think about this?

[Flatrat]

A bridge is going to be a tougher scenic 'sell' than, say, a tunnel through a mountain [easy]. It will depend a lot on how you build up the trees behind it and the station house and paint the backdrop to blend in with the tunnel hole you will need. It could work though, but it will take a lot more trompe l'oeil than I'm capable of. I'm guessing you may have to paint the inside of the hole to resemble the bridgework and trees to give a believeable vanishing point/perspective.

Tough one, but could work.

Scott

[cv_acr]

On my club layout:



Not really a fixed wall per se, but this spur goes through the backdrop and down a helix.

[PAL_Houston]

On my club layout:



Not really a fixed wall per se, but this spur goes through the backdrop and down a helix.

This is nice.  Thanks for showing it.
The problem I have is having to hide something right at the front of the layout, and really very little space to do it in.....

I also think that Zox' idea about making a really big hole may have some merit.....I'm just not ready for that yet. 
I'm still looking for some ideas for a "planning basis" -- then it's "cut twice, then measure once". 
Right?   

[Flatrat]

I also think that Zox' idea about making a really big hole may have some merit.....I'm just not ready for that yet. 
I'm still looking for some ideas for a "planning basis" -- then it's "cut twice, then measure once". 
Right?   
[/quote]

In my case it sometimes seems more like measure with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, and cut it with an axe.

Scott

[Zox]

In my case it sometimes seems more like measure with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, and cut it with an axe.

I hear ya, brother. My woodworking skills have improved with time, but my circa-1998 loop module had half-inch gaps in the frame, spanned by drywall screws to hold everything approximately in position... 

I have subsequently gone back and fixed the most egregious snafus, and the module continues in service to this day. I'm just lucky the hardboard top (and that's another thing I'll never do again) kept everything together.

[Flatrat]

I hear ya, brother. My woodworking skills have improved with time, but my circa-1998 loop module had half-inch gaps in the frame, spanned by drywall screws to hold everything approximately in position... 

I have subsequently gone back and fixed the most egregious snafus, and the module continues in service to this day. I'm just lucky the hardboard top (and that's another thing I'll never do again) kept everything together.

Actually, my woodworking skills have advanced dramatically. I no longer use an axe. I now use a chainsaw.

[PAL_Houston]

I photoshopped a photo put up by BCRail_FSJ to use to create some "distance" behind Galena Jct.  What's cool is that the photo has a train waiting on the north bridge approach!! After some fitting I repainted the masonite backdrop to try to blend the scenery at the edges....




Compare what was there previously, in reply #22, above.

let me know what you think -- before the glue dries!~