Bear Creek and South Jackson Operations - BC&SJ III Op Sessions - April 12, 2014 - 18
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This view shows the bare Browning plywood in the foreground. Tracks leading east out of Bear Creek yard are visible on the
raised benchwork behind it. Mill Bend (right) and South Jackson (left) are visitble in the far background.
A Masonite spline is laying on the raised benchwork. It's 7 laminations of 1-3/4" tall 3/16" Masonite. It's part of a grand experiment with backdrop construction. I built the splines by gluing cleats to the outer edge of the raised roadbed, then clamping the splines to the cleats creating a spline that should nearly exactly match the shape of the roadbed. The next step is to screw the spline to the ceiling directly above the raised roadbed's outer edge. After that the backdrop, consisting of a two layer lamination of 4x8 1/8" think tempered hard board will be screwed to the spline-cleat in the ceiling and to the edge of the raised roadbed below. Definitely a non-trivial construction process. I'm hoping that by gluing the two sheets of hardboard together it will be strong enough to stand and that I can get the waves out of the individual sheets. The reason for this was saving space for railroad. The dual laminated backdrop is 1/4" thick. If I'd built it with a 2x4 stud wall it would be closer to 5" thick. Plus I was very concerned about the concrete floor in the train room heaving and causing problems with the floor to ceiling wall. I'll let you know how this works out. Once the backdrop goes up the long view across the room will disappear and I'll be a little sorry to see it go - it will definitely make lighting the layout for high quality photography much more difficult! But the backdrop will give train crews a greater sense of isolation. No more being able to see the next station before you leave the current station. |