Boardman River Branch switching shelf

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Do you think the Vinyl is superior to the aluminum?

Absolutely. It's far easier to work with and I haven't been afraid of slicing my hand off with it.

[nickelplate759]

How paintable is vinyl flashing?  the HomeDepot Duraflash roll might be just the thing for the front fascia on my layout (I was going to use Masonite(tm) but not looking forward to cutting it...), but I don't want it to be white.  Dark grey would be better....

[Ed Kapuscinski]

There's a matte side. I think it takes paint just fine.

[freedj]

The track crew has been very busy this week.  Track has been laid through both turnback loops, aided by my 3d printed track staples.  Since the Atlas track has a lot of spring in its flex and I was struggling to get a good result with T-Pins alone, i designed these staples to help lock the track down while I apply the glue and weights.  Between the staples and overlapping the joints between segments I couldn't be happier with the results.  I have put my longest rolling stock through the helix and so far everything seems reliable.

I am hoping to connect the loops up with a shoefly later today and run some trains!  I'll come back and put in the second staging track and permanently link up the loops after I modify the two turnouts it needs with the solid point rails and pcb throwbar.  I need the switch machine to be centered under these two turnouts due to space considerations.

I've put the staples up on thingiverse if anyone wants to print their own: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3664708

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[CRL]

But it looks like you forgot to use curved rail joiners on your curved sections.







 

[freedj]

But it looks like you forgot to use curved rail joiners on your curved sections.

My LHS was out of stock!

[iandrewmartin]

After a 20 year break from model railroading I decided to build a small N scale switching layout on a shelf.  I really enjoy logic puzzles and so the englenook or timesaver really appealed to me.  I liked how small they could be, and that it would offer a lot of switching puzzle for its space and cost.

The small Layouts page on Andrews trains gave me a lot of inspiration (https://huntervalleylines.wordpress.com/layout-designs/small-layouts/) as well as the work of Lance Mindheim (http://lancemindheim.com/).

Freedj;
Thanks for the mention. Greatly appreciated that you found some inspiration at Andrew's Trains. I'm looking forward to watching the layout come together for you.

[freedj]

Absolutely. It's far easier to work with and I haven't been afraid of slicing my hand off with it.

Work on the backdrop continues.  I picked up a roll of 18" x 50' white vinyl flashing per Eds suggestion and when it arrived it was two rolls!  It looks like it will provide that really nice continuous surface I am after, but it is very thin, measuring out at 0.035".  It was just too thin to feel confident that I could get  smooth result over my standards. 

I built a cove for the corner and have started covering the cove and standards with 1/8 masonite.  In order to get the 1/8 masonite around my 5r cove I had to kerf the back of the masonite every 1/4" and get it wet when installing it.  It did give me a very good result though!  I've glued the masonite up and anchored it with screws for the time being.  I may remove the screws before using some contact cement on the vinyl flashing to get that continuous backdrop.  I feel like rolling the vinyl out over the joints will be far stronger and more crack resistant than drywall tape and mud.  I am not looking forward to wrestling with a 14' piece of vinyl covered in contact cement though.

 I also installed shelf brackets at the top of the standards to hold my lighting shelf.  The masonite runs up behind where the shelf will be except where the shelf has to run over the backdrop at the cove.

[freedj]

After a long hiatus I got the trains running again and resumed work on the backdrop.  I applied vinyl flashing to the masonite for a smooth finish.  My roll was slightly to short so i've painted in the top strip of masonite (which will eventually be covered by a shelf.  Its good to be moving again.

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[freedj]

Two projects have been completed on the layout in over the holiday break.  I built a retracting modeling desk to let my computer desk go back to only being for work, and I got my backdrop sky in place.

The desk is 15" x 48" and swings out from the wall using a parallelogram mechanism.  When deployed it rests on two legs and is very stable.  When put away it rests against the wall and hides neatly under the layout.  I can leave a project in place on the bench and move it from position to position.

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I also painted the sky.  My backdrop is only 12' long so i tried to brush paint it and get a fade from blue to white.  I think it turned out pretty good, but I would like to see less blotchyness and brush strokes in the white.  I've taken two attempts at it so far, and may try again in the future but it's good enough for now.  Any tips on how to get a more even result without spraying would be very welcome.

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Finally, this holiday season saw a (BLI) C&O NW2 #5224 join the roster.  This little engine resolves the tight radius helix issue i was having on the east end of the layout.  My Kato NW2 could only pull 4 cars up the helix while the BLI can tug 7 up!  I think the Kato will be looking for a new home soon.

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[dcarrell8]

Very nice!
I particularly like the fold away desk!!  Is that your own design or did you find some plans for it somewhere?

~Dennis

[txronharris]

Man, nice work so far. Really good construction tips in here. Excellent solution for the return loops and staging. May have to use something similar.   

[freedj]

Ive spent some time noodling on a kitbash of a George Roberts Printing kit.  The unpainted wood structure is what i've been able to come up with and in general I really like it.  The challenge is that my track spacing doesn't match up well with the pull through part of the structure.  As it sits now, some of my rollingstock is unable to go into the structure.

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I am thinking of re-aligning the track so that it goes into the building centered on the opening.  That would involve pulling up a 18" of track and adding a slight S-bend between the painted and unpainted structures.  I know i've seen some wonky track-work in industrial areas on google earth but I still don't like the idea of the S-bend.  I just don't see another way to use the kit because the curtain wall system really should be consistent.

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I could potentially uproot the track all the way back to the switch and put a straight between the curves and built the red building to be at a slight angle. 

[Hawghead]

Ive spent some time noodling on a kitbash of a George Roberts Printing kit.  The unpainted wood structure is what i've been able to come up with and in general I really like it.  The challenge is that my track spacing doesn't match up well with the pull through part of the structure.  As it sits now, some of my rollingstock is unable to go into the structure.

(Attachment Link)


I am thinking of re-aligning the track so that it goes into the building centered on the opening.  That would involve pulling up a 18" of track and adding a slight S-bend between the painted and unpainted structures.  I know i've seen some wonky track-work in industrial areas on google earth but I still don't like the idea of the S-bend.  I just don't see another way to use the kit because the curtain wall system really should be consistent.

(Attachment Link)

I could potentially uproot the track all the way back to the switch and put a straight between the curves and built the red building to be at a slight angle.

Seems to me that you need to create more space between the "mainline" and that back spur.  I would separate the crossover switches leading to that back spur just a bit to force that spur toward the back drop just enough to center the spur in the opening of the building.

Like this:
 


Scott

[txronharris]

Scott is on to something there. A short bit of track between turnouts will sit your siding back just where you need it and fix the problem.