Hey Gang!
I checked out some older threads about some cases that you have built and/ar bought. I have acute woodworking skills and am wondering if I could bother you all for some photos of your train displays at home. I have checked out many websites that are extremely high priced. I guess my question would be;should it have a mirrored back?;open or closed front?;glass shelves?; what sizes or sizes are the most comfortable? I have aroud 20 locos and 100 RS.
What do you professionals out there think?
Please attach photos if you can.
Much Appreciated, Marty
Cleoecho,
Welcome to the forum, Sorry your question hasn’t been answered, but that happens sometimes.
Display cases: I don;t have a camera but will try to discribe the one I built. It might be considered small by some but works for me. 32"Lx24"Hx4"D, I groved the sides to hold (5) 1/4" shelves then put track on each shelf and the bottom, this will hold 36 steam era cars/engines. The top and bottom are groved to accept 2 sliding glass doors, 1/4 ply on the back and little router work around the front outside edge, stain/urathane and it’s done.
I too looked at store bought and thought I didn’t buy my RR why buy a display case and I think it looks better.
Hope this helps
That’s a good idea. But like your layout, do as you like. Just remember, mirrors need cleaning and can add significant cost and weight.
If you don’t go with a mirrored back, you could paint a simple landscape scene – a few hills and a sky with a few clouds. Nothing too complex, but something to make it more interesting than a plain piece of plywood. Use light colours so the back doesn’t appear too dark either.
A closed front would help keep dust off your trains. A set of clear plexiglass doors would do that while still allowing you to see your trains.
Like the mirror, that depends on you. However, you may want to consider using lengths of track on roadbed to set your trains on; just to give them a more “stylish” look. Also take note that objects on glass shelves will slip and slide around easily.
If I were you, I would select what locomotives and rolling stock you want to display and design your case to fit them. Be sure to allow for expansion of your fleet, as, inevitably, you will acquire new stock that you’ll want to display.
Each shelf need only be wide enough for one “track” (actual width depends on the scale you’re using). You could have multiple “tracks” on one shelf. A neat trick for displaying multiple “tracks” on the same shelf is to elevate background “tracks”, forming a step (or series of steps). This will not only allow you to see what is in behind; but to reach them more easily without disturbing the things in front.
To add visual interest, you can add some scenery elements – trees, telegraph poles, signals, people, etc.
Bob, my answer is that it doesn’t matter what others have and it should suite your needs and wants. In other words, if you are just going to store your trains, why all the fancy stuff,like mirrors and all. However, if you want to “show case” your models then I would think, mirrored back, glass shelves, nice stained oak, and the anything that would “set them off”, even interior lighting. Next, where is this case to be used would also enter the picture, design it to “fit” the room, much like matching furnature to a room. Size would be determined by what scale trains are to be stored-- may need two or more cases. Hope this is some help, Ken
I need to start thinking about a case, being a smoker, I load the air with a lot of sticky dust and don’t want that stuff on my expensive, in terms of time or money, locomotives and rolling stock.
One thing you can be sure of, I won’t be buying any of the ready-made display cases I’ve seen. $200 for a five sided piece of plexiglass and a routed oak base? I bought a 1 by 10 by eight feet in gorgeous oak for $25, enough to make easily eight similar cases, routing is simply a matter of selecting a bit, flipping a switch, and vacuuming up the dust, and you can actually finish any wood within a 24 hour period if you aren’t going to be closely inspecting the wood. Make it three or four days, 99 percent waiting for a coat to dry and you can have several layers of deep gloss.
Mirrors shouldn’t be a problem. You can buy inexpensive ones at Wal-mart and six the frames, or else buy mirrored tiles, $6 for five 12" by 12" ones at Home Depot. I’m thinking mirrors both along the back of the case and along the floor of each shelf too, for a variety of viewing angles on nicer pieces of train equipment.
One thing I might do is buy a plexiglass case, the extreme expense seems to come from the routed hardwood base, but something to consider when mixing mirrors and glass or plexiglass is internal reflections. Get a mirrored reflection of a lighting fixture bouncing around inside the case and you stand a good chance of not being able to see the equipment through the reflections. I guess the best move would be to play around with the mirror and case positions before gluing anything down or committing yourself.
Since these cases will end up on bookshelves, the wood stock used shouldn’t be a major expense, allowing experimentation with some really nice stock. I don’t want the wood to distract from the railroad equipment, so I’m thinking some nice Cherry, stained dark and deep red might strike a nice balance. Zebra would be too distracting, Blood Wood has that purple shading I find unnat
Here’s one I built for around $40.00 with pre-cut wood from Lowes.
That looks real good.
If you wanted the save some money, and were planning to make glss or wood door, you could use all veneer plywood for what the picture shows, then make a face frame from 1x2 in the same material as your veneer. The door would be framed in 1 x 2 as well, then have the panel filled with either bevelkled glass or veneered plywood or even solid wood if you wanted shaping like a kitchen cabinet door. For examples, look at any kitchen cabinet to see how it’s put together.
if someone hadn’t done this kind of work before, i strongly recommend the Kreg jig for face framing, and also a look at any of the Kreg videos, which go for around $8 at woodworking shops. Once you use one, you won’t want to wait on glue joints ever again. Glue it, screw it, and keep on moving.
Fritschsr, Cleo…
I’ve recently joined a club and enjoy running my HO passenger trains on it.
I’ve seriously thought about using a “modification” of the display case idea. I would like to build two or three “transport shelves” for my passenger cars. They would be 4 to 5 feet long with a built in track. Inside, already coupled together, would be 4 or 5 Walthers Budd cars already in the proper train order.
Scenario:
When I arrive at the club, I would align the open end of the case with a yard track on the club layout, place the plastic rerailer on the end and out rolls the cars already on the track! Same thing with the next case and so forth until I have my long streamliner coupled together.
May sound a little far-fetched, but since I plan on running 12 to 18 HO car passenger trains (Walthers and Rivorossi), it sure is a hassle to transport those cars in suitcases and have to sort out, place on track and couple each one…and at the end of the session, break it all up to transport home.
My idea is to use 1x4 pine boards for this. I would appreciate suggestions. [:D][;)]
Peace.
I would suggest you don’t have a mirrored back. I collect diecast cars as well and one of my display cases had a mirrored back. It reflected way to much light and took away from the cars because there was just to much to look at, your looking at both sides of the cars at the same time, your reflection and everything else that is reflecting in the mirror. I actually got white wall paper and covered the back with it and it made a huge difference. The model cars really stood out and there was no visual distraction.