I apologize for the lack of posts this month. October Tends to be a busy month work wise, with a heavy travel schedule. Add to that trying to get everything done around the house that needs to be taken care of before the snow flies and the thought of getting anything done downstairs seems like wishful thinking.

But the good news is that I have been able to make progress on the layout. I managed to squeeze in a little here and there, and before you know it the benchwork is nearing completion. It seems like when you don’t have big blocks of time to finish something, you kind of write off the little bits of found time as not enough to get anything done.

I know this will be different as I get into later stages of layout construction, such as track work or scenery construction, where you can accomplish a lot in small blocks of time. But I put aside the natural inclination to say “oh well, maybe tomorrow” and do what I could with what time I had. And it’s truly amazing what you can get done when you do that.

First off, finished the last set of major cabinets on the other side of the peninsula. There will be a couple of small cabinets that go on the turn back portion of the peninsula. Now I know there are some out there who are throwing the arms up and saying “what is it with you and cabinets”. Let me explain. There are a lot of modelers out there who build their layouts and use the underside for storage. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I’ve done this and I have found that the stuff under the layout tends to pile up and slowly creeps out from underneath.

And even though my loving wife totally supports my hobby and consented to the whole basement as a layout room, still thinks of it as the basement and thus a place where things go that she doesn’t want upstairs. So storage was important.

Anyway, cabinets are done.

Second, finished the lower level benchwork over the new cabinets.

And last but not least, I was able to temporarily install the upper level of benchwork  along the entire peninsula. The reason I did it this way was so that I could get all the pieces cut to size and all wire run holes drilled. For the most part the pieces are a solid stringer that extends all the way across. But there was some fitting of pieces around the support posts and the pieces that make up the outside corner. Now that I have them all cut and drilled I will take them out, paint them and reinstall them. I can then install the rim joist.

Side note: I was sure once the other cabinets were installed on the other side of the peninsula that the stability of the center support “wall” would be fairly solid. I was surprised, happily so, that it is rock solid. I felt so confident in its strength that I played around with the idea of having my wife take a picture of me laying across the upper benchwork stringers. Common sense got the better of me and I decided not to press my luck.

Lastly, I’m posting a couple of pictures of display cabinets. The first two are ones that my father had made for me after I got back into the hobby after I was married. He tried to match the original. The doors were made of 1/4″ plywood and warped badly. I replaced them with clear plexiglass .

All but about 6 of the engines are old Athearn Blue Box or Bachmann DC engines.

The other case was the original one that my father made for me about 45 years ago. At one time it held all of my engines and train cars, but that was along time ago. I’m repairing some damage on the doors and will paint them to match the cabinets.

Next up: either the end of the peninsula or the base for the helix.

As they say, stay tuned…

As promised and long overdue, I have an update on the further adventures of benchwork construction.

First up, I finished the second set of base cabinets. I love these as they hold a ton of stuff that had been sitting around in boxes. This set holds a bunch of old dvd movies, a ton of cd’s ( that someday will be loaded on my computer, someday ) and a good portion of my model railroad magazines, plus. As you can see the aisle width is rather generous and thanks to doing a lighting plan ahead of time the fluorescent lights are centered over the aisle.

Next up, I finished the lower deck on the south and west walls. The upper deck is done up to the window.

The lower deck is the New Brighton yard, the upper deck will be the Duluth yard. I had planned on running the Duluth yard across the window, but the nagging thought that I may have to access the window from the inside ( due to a broken window pane or… ) made me rethink this. I decided that I would have to make the upper deck semi permanent in front of the window. Still working out the logistics, I think I have the benchwork figured out, still working out the wiring portion. So as not have to tear out a portion of the yard, I decided to move the bridge scene in front of the window. This is going to truncate  the yard, but I believe that I can still make the yard work.

Once I get the upper deck in front of the window figured out, I will proceed around the upper deck and be able to finish the area over the west wall. I have all the joists for the upper west wall done and ready to install. Two things in this aisle – the west wall is the deepest scene at 3′ and this aisle is the narrowest, again 3′. The DCC tower marks the aisle width plus 6″ overhang for the benchwork. 3′ was what I had set as my minimum aisle width and is still plenty wide. Even though there will people working the yards there is nothing on the opposite side that will have someone in the way. The DCC tower is a leftover from the last layout and needs to be cut down to match the cabinet height. To its left will be an “electronics” cabinet. This will have the detector circuits for signalling, the Digitrax DS-64 stationary decoders for the switch machines, power supplies for lighting, etc.

The last photo shows the area is where the base for the helix will go. For the keen eyed out there, I know that it is narrower then it is long. I will be “daylighting” the wall to the utility room. It had to happen or I would have to compromise a curve radiuses on either the track coming out of the yards, the helix or both. Did this last time and I was sorry I did.

I finished the first set of cabinets, installed and painted them. I won’t bore you with the details of construction as they follow standard base cabinetry construction. I painted them white as all the woodwork in the house is painted white. Also I had painted the cabinets in the work area white and wanted continuity between the two areas.

The space above them is the main staging yard, so I will be using these for storage of the engines and train cars. Shelves will be added soon, but the doors will be made after the rest of the cabinets are done as it is easier to do them all at the same time.

As the paint was drying I went back out to the garage ( also known as the woodworking shop ) and cut the “joists” for the upper and lower decks. I then made three drilling jigs for the three different size holes that I’m using for wire runs. Each joist has two 1″ holes, four – six 5/8′ holes and four 1/8′” holes. It may seem like a lot, but I figured it would be easier to keep like wires grouped together but separate. I also notched the upper deck joists for lower deck lighting.

The picture above shows the joists set in place. The first step was too screw the end of joist to the stud and the outer edge to the cabinet. Again I started with the end joist to the left in the picture, mounted it, then using a spacing jig ( like the one used for the stud spacing ) moved down the line. I can’t stress, at least for me, how much of a time saver the spacing jig is. You’re not trying to measure the spacing for every joist. I then added a ” rim joist ” to the outer edge of the joists. I will then add a fascia to this after I start the scenery.

Once I finished the lower deck I painted the upper deck joists white for better light reflection, when dry I then installed them same as the lowers except instead of screwing them to the cabinet, I screwed them to the 3/4″ lip on the horizontal.

The plan was to keep moving around the room with bench work, but everything was working out as I had hoped so I wanted to add the sub roadbed to this area to see if there would be any sag or deflection. I cut the plywood for both decks and mounted it. The lower deck was solid, although with it sitting on the cabinets that was really no surprise. What brought about a sigh of relief was that the upper deck was also rock solid. No sagging and no deflection, even when I pounded on it.