I’ve been out of model railroading for a few years now since I left school and moved away from my hometown where I was into the hobby with my father. I want to do it here where I live now, however, my fiance has two cats who have access to the entire house and I can’t safely always guarantee doors will be shut.
I have two options:
A) Build a small n scale layout in the office
B) Build a HO scale layout in the bedroom since it’s so massive we have the extra room.
I’d like to go with B because of the fact I have the trains, track, etc and it’d be much more cost effective to do this but I can’t find a way to solve one problem. Getting the cats to not jump on the layout. My only thought was building some type of plexiglass border so they can’t that would hing together on each side keeping it supported in the air and then use almost door hinges on the bottom section so it can fold down when i need to work on the layout. This, however, sounds very complicated and I was hoping someone might have had to try and do something like this to prevent animals in the past and has a better idea!
I have three cats. I am building an around the walls HO layout in a spare bedroom. The only way I know of is to keep the door closed. As you probably have already discovered…cats can jump really high.
To satisfy their inate curiousity I will occasionally carry them in one at a time and let them look around and smell things. It works for me and mine. Hope this helped.
I am no expert on the subject, but aren’t there certain specific aromas that are repellant to specific critters? If you can find something that is either totally odorless or non-obnoxious to humans, but absolutely revolting to cats, a spritz or two every couple of days would be a lot simpler and less expensive than any physical barrier.
This might also be extended to other places you’d like to keep feline-free.
Go into the old forum records and find the thread “I’m going to shoot my cat”! It won’t answer your question but it will give you a good laugh… and a couple of recipes… [:D]
MRR in the mariatl bedroom is not a good idea… unless you want divorce… FAST!
My wife is willing to accept a shelf layout in the bedroom or the living room. But reality is that it must have finished, furniture quality appearance from the beginning - or she’ll end up changing her mind real fast! The 1st time guests come over (for the living room), or she is not happy with you for some reason (layout in the bedroom), and she’s see a pink or blue foam shelf with tools and materials laying on it - the cats will be the least of your troubles.
2nd issue with layouts in living spaces is the horizontal surface becomes a magnet to set down the mail, small packages, and in your case - cats.
Another issue with shelf layouts is lighting. Bedroom or living room (in my case) lighting is seldom set up to light up a shelf layout nicely. You will have to install some lighting for it to look good and win your wife’s approval of your workmanship.
Finally, all layouts have issues with dust collection over time. A shelf layout makes the dust more up close and personal.
I think you can guess where this is going. Build a cover right from the beginning. From my research, lighting works best if it’s set on the aisle side of a shelf layout by a few inches. Whether you set the lighting into or on the ceiling or hung from a shelf 24" above the layout is up to you. But from the lighting valence, you can extend a vertical cover (with a nice finish, mural, hangings, or art on the front) down to the front of the layout. Hinge it so that it hooks up to the ceiling or folds over on top of the lighting shelf. Note the hinging arrangement means the backside of the cover must be finished, too! If you managed to get the lighting set into the aisle a few inches, that gives you space for a small shelf for your car cards or controls, and keeps the cover vertical.
More work than a contained basement room, but your wife will be proud to show off your craftsmanship, and the space will always look good when you are not using the
personally,I’d like to see you modeling on a regular modular type bookshelf ala Ian Rice. You just dedicate a bookshelf to a diorama and if you’re using modular shelves you can extend them thru. In the past there have been some nice examples in the magazines and Ian Rices books should be available either on line or at your favorite train store. To keep the cats out, aclear cover can easily be made that will be left in place all the time. Maybe barristers book cases would work well for this. Happy Fiance, happy cats, happy modeler.
one of my freinds has 2 cats. he built his layout with barriers made of two peices of metal window screen that he can roll up when he want to use the layout. when he is finished he unrolls it and attaches it at the botom with velcro tape. it works very well and the cats cant get on the layout
I dunno… maybe it’s just me, but it seems that the easiest solution is to simply get rid of the cats…
If that’s not an option, then keeping the door closed so the critters can’t get in makes more sense than designing all sorts of screens and barriers and doodads which will, despite your best intentions and dedicated designs, a.) NOT work, and B.) Cost more than all your benchwork by the time you’re done with it.
Thus, the only 2 logical solutions are to either lose the cats, or close the door.
As an alternative to getting rid of the cats and possibly losing your fiance, check the Dr Foster & Smith Pet supplies catalog. They sell Scat Mats described as follows:
Scat Mats and Strips
*
Safe and effective training aid
*
Consistent training at the problem location
*
Static sensations generated are sufficiently surprising
*
Environment, rather than an owner, doing the ‘conditioning’
Safe and effective mats release a static electricity type pulse when cats touch it. Three static levels to choose from: low, medium, and high. Low setting is for kittens, medium for cats, high for longhaired cats, but use your discretion. Use for room restriction, car hoods, furniture, kitchen counters, windowsills, and garbage cans. Use Strips for windowsills and Mats for furniture, walkways, or in the car; Mat Jr. can be used on counters and furniture.
Clear design practically disguises itself and prevents pets from becoming “product-wise.”
Well, actually, I’d consider asking myself which was more important, the fiance and her cats, or the trains…
22 years of marital, er, bliss, will cause you to re-examine those priorities, regardless of the fervency of your initial youthful intentions.
Back long before I was born, Rudyard Kipling was told by his fiance to choose between her and his love of cigars. He wrote a poem about it, wherein he opined that: “A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke…”
I don’t know specifically what cats hate, but a doctor I knew marketed a trash bag which had (and I hope I spell it right) delimonene which smells like lemon and lime. It worked great! I could put a bag of trash on my back porch in the mountains of north Georgia and it took nearly a week before the critters could stand to get into it. Coca-Cola, which sold the physician the (and I hope I spell it right) delimonene, said they had never thought of using it for that. He got the idea looking at oranges and noting that they had no bug holes while apples were easy targets for bugs.
About the time my son turned 3 and wanted a cat, I was remodeling a mansion for a slumlord who had had a tenent leave behind a mother cat and a litter of kittens, of which two ended up at my house.
They know the rules, but they don’t care. They go where they want, when they want, only on matters of great importance am I able to achieve a draw with them, by use of a water pistol and the will to use it. They know the master bedroom is off limits, but if I leave the door open, they will stroll right in while they see me standing there watching them. “No” means no, only if they think I am willing to back it up with wet whiskers, and they’ll defy a voice I used to used to save people’s lives, from aross a construction site, over multiple bulldozers.
You can take the cat out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the cat.
Even so, they do not jump up on the layout. Pretty sure one of them did once, rolled a tenwheeler on it’s side and leaned a few trees over, but apparantly they just didn’t like it up there, because they haven’t been back since. I think it’s a combination of the sawdust grass, the lack of anything interesting up there, and the terrain, they just aren’t a problem.
Great idea! Put three modulars side by side, bore through them and you have a diorama in the middle with a fiddle yard to the left and right. You might be able to find some with flip up doors so the whole thing can be hidden away.
Another option is using an 8 to 10-feet wide closet with bifold doors. Good article in MR on that a couple of years back, but it was N-scale. I have a 7-ft by 3-ft alcove in my den that I considered converting to a closet, but I didn’t want to pull up the carpet for the door track. Now when the day comes to replace the carpeting…
Thanks for all the advice. I’m not the greatest at construction and will probably get all the pieces for the table alone from a book and have Lowe’s pre-cut them for me so I don’t mess that up but I think right now the easiest thing might be to convert to N scale and put it in my office which is the least used room. The computer is in here which my fiance uses but only from time to time once or twice a day.
I’d like to stay with HO scale but the only way i found to do a oval was a 8ft by 4ft surface which in the master bedroom i’d have to put against the wall making it impossible to reach the back of the layout.
still trying to figure out my definite plans. hopefully the oklahoma city show i’m going to next weekend will inspire me with some more layouts and/or ideas.
I’m not sure what odors will keep a cat off of your layout, but I know what doesn’t work. Forget about Hartz Help! Stay Off Training Aid because my cat pays no attention to it being sprayed on anything, I have heard that there is a product that smells like tomcat urine, but I wouldn’t want to be spraying it anywhere inside the house.
Curiosity killed the cat. But satisfaction brought him back. As jeffers_mz said, if they get up there (curiosity) and find nothing interesting (satisfaction), they may never return. Trains running around in their sight can bring on the attack mode, however. Now plants on the other hand, those they can eat, (bad for them) and they forever offer a challenge.
After awhile the cats will become yours as well, if you stay with their human mother.[:)][;)]
For my 1st B-day, we had a large sheet cake on the counter. Cat jumpes up, sees the cake, tries to straddle it, and lans right in. Never again did he jump up on the counter.
Since one is on the back of the chair, keeping tabs on what I type right now, I’ll have to be subtle, but escalation is always possible. If they get to the point where they think .50 BMG is a treat, I’m in trouble though.
