Okay, my layout is finish and looks real good, but I havent run trains since last september. And now it has a dust on it. It also has peanut shells, sunflower seeds, wood chips, plastic shavings, and other crap on it. Is there a way to prevent anymore dust from falling on it?
Cover it with a thin sheet of clear plastic.
What kind of ceiling is over the layout? It almost sounds like you have your layout in a garage with no ceiling or a basement layout with the same. Garages are hard to keep the dust out. Most beleive that a basement layout would be free from this, but open floor joists can allow a lot of crap to fall through the cracks from normal use on the floors and expansion and contraction of the frame of the house.
covering it with plastic is the simplest and most effective way, but depending on the size of your layout, sturdyness of scenery and how often you run train, it is not aways ideal. also a big ugly sheet of plastic is quite an eyesore.
i use one of those ‘ionic breeze’ tower fans that catches dust and that has fairly reduced it for me. still, my layout is pretty small so i still use plastic if the trains arent going to be run in a while.just be careful, it can snap off tall trees and and damage buildings if the plastic isnt supported.
The most effective method would be a close-fitting lightly constructed box-like cover that could be lowered and raised on pulleys. Placed over the layout when not in use would keep rodents away, some insects, and would effectively eliminate all dust. Next in efficacy would be a properly finished train room with proper walls and ceiling. After that would come a cotton sheet that is not threadworn enough so that some stuff could still migrate through the weave.
Plastic (picnic table cloth or clear vinyl) would be great if it were not so heavy. If you have trees, count on them getting bent tops over just a few hours. If you could glue slit-open garbage bags together to form a suitable cover, that would be best since that material is very light…and cheap.
I had a nice layout in the corner of the garage with wall open to studs and no protection over it. It ran great as long as I first spent an hour cleaning it. Dust was a major problem. So I tore it down and put wallboard up and intalled a drop ceiling, but only over the RR. Now I almost never have to clean the track and although the dust makes its way in the layout its not too bad.
I’m going to have the same problem; my basement is exposed with open studs on the ceiling, and as has been discussed here and other threads, I’m concerned that dust on the layout could be a significant problem. My plan is to do as Spidge suggests, but in a drop ceiling over the layout area–seems as this would be fairly easy and not too expensive to do.
Jim
well, actually it’s in my bedroom, so I have a regular ceiling.
If it’s in your bedroom, how in the world is this happening? You wrote “It also has peanut shells, sunflower seeds, wood chips, plastic shavings, and other crap on it.” Curious minds want to know…
Don Z.
I guess you’ll have to nix those wild parties that are trashing your layout.
Don’t you know that all that crap belongs on the floor, just ask any of my kids!
[(-D] I think what he means is that someone dosn’t know where to put some things, so they put it on your layout. This happens to me ALOT, since my layout is by the computer. Paper, pencials, soda cans, wire, etc. ends up on there. People have no respect for your layouts, even if it’s your family.
On my previous layout was built under an unfinished basement ceiling in an old house which had long used coal heat and had built up a good supply of soot and dust inside the walls which slowly filtered into the basement. I protected it from dust by using plastic drop cloths glued to “wands” of furring strip so they could be lifted straight up off the scenery before being moved aside. Lifting a sheet straight up went a long way to spare the scenery.
They were fairly effective but had to be replaced often as once they collected some dust, removing them and rolling them up to get them out of the way produced a cloud of dust that settled right back on the layout!
My present layout is in a house which also had coal heat for a large part of the century since it was built. But I got smarter and stapled very heavy plastic dropcloths completely covering the basement ceiling. Next a cheap drop ceiling with flourescent lights was installed.
On those instances when I’ve looked above the drop ceiling, the drop clothes have accumulated a layer of dust that is almost opaque to a flashlight beam but very little has accumulated on the top side of the drop ceiling.
This house, as the last, has a rubble foundation wall which, after a century, crumbles and efflouresces considerably. But this time I took the trouble to repair it, re-mortar it, and seal it all with paint.
When things do need dusting, a feather duster works better than a soft paintbrush as it holds the dust in the feathers until vacuumed out. Also handy is a can of compressed air (keyboard cleaner) held in one hand to blow dust off as a small vacuum is held in the other to collect it before it settles somewhere else.