August 2016 - Michael Bromander

Wow, it’s already mid August and the list of projects around the house continues to grow. All of which needs to get done before the snow flies here in Minnesota. The good news is that I’ve put all the wood cutting projects on a calendar so that even if I’m not able to actually to get any actual work done on the benchwork, I’ll have everything ready to go even if the weather turns cold.

So with the free time that I’ve had, I decided to start the roundhouse. Probably jumping the gun, with so many other small projects started. But it sounded the like the most fun.

First thing I did was to glue all the base sections together. After I had them glued together, I scribed in concrete panel lines as I doubt anyone would pore one humongous slab.

I kept the them to around 10ft sections, as this seems to be around what is done in the real world. After I had them all scribed I positioned the base on the layout and marked, then cut out the rounded section that intersects the layout edge. I primed and painted the base in a concrete color.

One of the differences between Walther’s roundhouse and their modern roundhouse is that the interior walls are not detailed. The modern roundhouse has brick detail on the interior walls where as the regular roundhouse does not. Since the interior is very visible I had to add interior brick work to the walls.

Once the end wall was done it was off to the races. I glued the end wall into place and the first inner support beam section. Then I glued the front end wall section (the one that supports the doors) and the transom section into place to set the correct spacing. I then added cross bracing that matches the support beams.

Once I finished those I added the end wall, also with brick facing on it. Then it was on to the next section. and so on and so forth.

You will also notice that I removed a little of the brick work around the windows so that the window casting will sit into place.

One other thing I noticed as I was looking at the pictures is that I will need to A: get the backdrop into place and B: put into place any backdrop buildings behind the roundhouse before it goes into place. Because wow, it would suck to try and place them working over this finished scene.

Well that’s what I’ve been up to. I will continue to update as more progress happens. Stay tuned…

Hello and welcome to August, my how summer flies by. Why isn’t it that way with winter? Perhaps if I was involved with the right winter activities it would.

I am almost tempted to say that July was a bust as far as the railroad went. Work ate up a tremendous amount of time as I was out of town for half the month. When I was home, projects that suddenly popped up pretty much ate up the rest of the time. When I was home early in the month I kind of sat downstairs (when I had a chance to get down there) in a funk, not really getting anything done. I think we all have these periods of time.

What kind of turned around the month for me was me sitting in front of my computer, binge watching “Rehab My Railroad” on Model Railroader Video Plus. Yup, all episodes, plus the first one on the outdoor railroad.

Now, I’m a long way from rehabbing my railroad as I would have to have something to rehab. But it made me think more in terms of small projects you can get done in a short time. So with a new mindset and renewed enthusiasm I tackled some more small thing that needed to get done.

First thing up was to build the quarter round corner fillers. I haven’t talked about these before, but they are filler pieces for the squared inside corners so that the fascia panel flows around the layout. Below is a picture I had posted before that shows the corner before the filler piece and one that shows with the piece in place.

The small stock yards and meat packing plant.

Corner filler piece installed along with track to staging yard.

As you can see in the second photo I also added the second track to the staging yard as I needed the filler to lay the track across.

I also added two more fillers in the dead end aisle that is in the New Brighton area.

The plan for this area is a turntable and roundhouse, I know, pretty cliche’. However, I need a turntable to turn the steam locomotives and this is obviously the best place. The problem is that it isn’t big enough for a turntable and a roundhouse. The solution is to place part of the roundhouse in the aisle.

Turntable template in place with lines extended for the roundhouse tracks.

Part of the roundhouse obviously will be cut open which means that I will get to do some great super detailing in the roundhouse. I have done this before, again the picture below is from a previous post.

The roundhouse at night, weathered with a detailed interior.

Because the new roundhouse will be right at the edge I will have to step up the detailing to the next level as compared to the one above. I will post on this as I get around to the build of the roundhouse.

I also got the backdrop installed in the port scene and painted.

Upper level harbor scene backdrop in place.

As well as another backdrop building flat for the scene. The building isn’t finished as I want to paint the building name on it, but I’m not sure yet what to call it.

Another backdrop building flat in place for the harbor scene.

That’s what I have for right now. As far as August goes we’ll see how it goes.

Till then, Happy Railroading…

Michael Bromander

Monthly Archives: August 2016

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