I’ve finally finished my “bench work” which is, really, as you can see, a large box. I haven’t installed the lighting behind the valance but there is no hurry on that because it’s going to be a long time before I am ready to be dealing with the backdrops on the ends and back. As the next photo shows, after I got it all together, I took the “lid” off to expose the foam. I’ll work on it this way for some time using the lid as my table for now. The track and wiring is going to be easier to install this way.
I have a friend who is an architect. He has a plotter to print his plans. I installed my track planning program on his computer and printed out my plan on a 6 foot by 2 foot piece of paper with the scale of 1 inch equals 1 inch. That’s going to make it easy, I think (hope?), transferring the plan to the foam top since the entire layout is 6x2.
I’m going to wire for DCC but test it with DC initially, as was suggested here on the forum. I hope to be able to run a train by the end of the month. Then I need to weather the tracks. Next will come roads and starting to build the structures.
I’ve not encountered any problems to this point. But, other than the track plan, it’s been pretty basic. I expect I’ll be up here again with an update but also with some question I can’t answer or a problem I don’t know how to solve.
Thanks for the feedback on my first posting about the Portland Terminal. I really appreci
That’s a good looking cabinet. I remember seeing the discussion of your plan a while back and am looking forward to seeing the finished product. Good luck!
M
Oh: I would be interested in seeing the inner details of your benchwork if you wouldn’t mind sharing info and a drawing or two.
Here’s a photo of the frame under the pink foam. I used ¾ inch plywood cut to 3 ½ inches wide with 2 x 2 blocks to screw and glue the frame together. Then, in case I wanted to remove the top from the frame at a later date, I screwed the ½ thick plywood base, to which I will glue the foam, from underneath using L’s made from 1 x 2s.
Next, I attached, with screws only, to the two end pieces, ¾ inch plywood again, to the ends of the frame.
Then, I placed 3 stringers between the ends using ½ inch plywood cut to 3 ½ wide. To these I then attached top which is both ½ plywood. The back is the same and is screwed to the back stringer to which I screwed and glued some 1 x 2 blocks and also screw to the back side of the frame.
All that was left then was the front. I used ½ plywood for the valance at the top. It’s about 12 inches wide and should block the viewer from seeing the lighting I’ll install on the center stringer. The front of the frame was concealed behind another piece of ½ inch plywood glued then screwed from the back. Finally, I cut two ¾ inch wide strips of ½ plywood to cover the front edge of the ¾ inch end pieces.
Once it was all together, I took it apart by removing the screws that attached the ends and back to the frame.
Very nice work. I missed the discussion on your plan, but it looks very good. This should be a fun railroad to build and operate, and look good as furniture, too.
