BNSF Seattle in HO Scale

gregamer

 

A nice day and generous parents led me to a construction marathon this afternoon. I spent a total of 8 straight hours cutting, trimming, fixing, gluing, tacking, and screwing.

I built the frames for the East and South valance. And I screwed up in two ways.

  1. I cut the East valance at 17″. It should have been 18″
  2. I tacked the skin to the underside of the valance. It was supposed to go on top.

I can live with the narrow valance, because I have a 2 1/2″ ledgerboard that will hide the mistake. I think I’ll need to cut another skin to go on top of the valance frame, so if I put stuff on it it doesn’t punch out the bottom.

I cut the deck for the closet. I used the deck that I had screwed up cutting the West deck. I made the main cuts on the new West deck. I cut the final 12″ section of the East deck.

I installed additional ledger boards along the West and East sides of the layout. I also, added a few braces to stiffen the frame.

I cut the L-girder ledger boards for the valance. The East board is installed. The South board had to be removed because I didn’t cut it correctly. I recut the South board, but haven’t had a chance to reinstall it.

I cut and glued L-girders for the closet frame.

Very productive day. I went through 2 sheets of 3/4″ plywood; 2/3 sheet of 1/16″ plywood; one box of 1 1/4″ brads; one box of 5/8″ brads; one box 1 1/4″ FastTap screws. I also depleted my supply of 3″ Spax screws and 1 1/4″ pan-head Spax screws. I used just about every tool I have: table saw; miter saw; skil saw; jjg saw; router; brad nailer; drill; vacuum; trammel; tape measure; square.

Apr 132012
 

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Apr 132012
 

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Apr 132012
 

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Apr 122012
 

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Apr 112012
 

Thanks to two great apps I’m now taking The Industrial Lead mobile. Now I can easily browse my website an upload photos from my iPhone.

On the front-end I’ve added a WordPress plugin called WPTouch. WPTouch detects mobile browsers and displays a mobile friendly application like page. The plugin also adds an easy toggle button to turn the mobile theme on and off.

The second app is an iTunes app called WordPress. The app also acts as a mobile browser to display your WordPress website in a mobile theme. But more importantly it gives you functionality to add and edit posts, and upload photos from your phone. This is exactly what I was searching for, a way to move photos from my iPhone to my website.

L Girder

 Posted by gregamer at 11:59 am  Consctruction  No Responses »
Apr 112012
 
Benchwork (21)

Benchwork (21)

Primed FJ Pine L Girder for valance. This primed pine is 30% cheaper than Home Depot’s common pine and it’s a much higher quality board. It is straighter than the common Home Depot junk. These L-Girders will act as a ledger board for the lighting valance. I made two of these using the glue and screw method.

I also finaly got some more plywood. I don’t know what happened to the generic $32 3/4″ sheets, so I ended up buying a $45 sheet of Birch; Ouch!

Apr 022012
 

Progress has really been stifled by rain, sick kids, injury, illness and RAIN. And did I mention rain. So in between the crappy weather and sore body, I’ve been trying to take advantage of a few short sun breaks to drag the saws out to the drive way and cut some wood. I’ve managed to get joists and ledges installed and one portion of the deck. I have a second deck portion that has been cut, but I need to prime paint it before installing.

 

 

Lowering the Bench

I got all of the brackets and ledger boards installed and then decided to listen to some advice from Alan in my Shelf Bracket Benchwork 1 Post. I tested the benchwork with my 3 year old son Patrick and it was too tall. I need the benchwork to be tall enough to fit the kids step ladder underneath the fascia. This will allow it to be stored beneath the fascia and also will allow my kids to scoot the top handle beneath the fascia to acheive their maximum reach across the layout. Of course everything looked great with the brackets and ledger board installed and I even put up the old drawer cabinet I made for the old “Halland Yard” layout.

I took everything down today and reinstalled two inches lower. The new layout height will be 53 3/4″ or 54 1/2″ tall instead of 55 3/4″ or 56 1/2″ tall. I have a 3/4″ range because I haven’t decided weather to lay a 3/4″ cleat board below the deck. This board will be a better attachment point for the fascia around the drawer openings and also allow me to secure the deck from beneath the layout (which should be helpful when I want to rip this layout up.

I also took the drawer cabinet to the garage to paint it “Stealth Jet” before reinstalling.

 

Stealth Jet

In my quest for colors, I thought I’d found the ultimate in Behr “Starless Night” however it turned out to be too blue. I wanted something more dark gray. I found “Stealth Jet” Ultra Flat Enamel. This will be the color for the underside of the layout and the fascias.

© 2012 Greg Amer
The Industrial Lead
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