Jim's layout topic/blog

[riogrande]

Still about six months from starting layout construction but it's a major step to get drywall in mudded and painted. I'll try to get a couple photos up by the weekend.

[riogrande]

Got a coat of colored primer on all the walls. Was getting pretty sick of mudding and sanding!

[riogrande]

Lowes paint computer can't seem to color two can's of paint to match, so I went back and got a refund. Wife went to a different Lowes and got 3 more can's of sky blue and this time we mixed it all together in a five gallon bucket to make sure it would be uniform. Then at the start of Memorial Day weekend on Saturday, we repainted the entire train room area over again. Now it looks as it should.

Starting on Sunday, I was up on a step ladder locating and marking studs with the stud-finder and tracing a line around the top ceiling for the location of the drop ceiling outer railing. There are at least 4 sections that have to be hung - here is the first done. My back was complaining after all that time on the step ladder:



Next weekend, to be continued. We got a large lot of drop ceiling framing and tiles for basically free so it is taking some extra time to clean up and spray paint the perimeter railings before hanging them. I'll probably need to buy another four 12' sections to finish off the train room ceilings.

My wife wants to do the far 12x12 room with a drywall ceiling - which I'm not thrilled about after all the hanging, taping and mudding we've done so far.

[Colin 't Hart]

It's shaping up to be a really nice space, Jim!

[riogrande]

Wife was busy doing out of door stuff over last weekend like getting the gazebo set up on our deck and putting down more mulch around the east side of the house. Then the neighbor asked if we wanted to share the cost of putting up a privacy fence between our properties so that took some time. All the post holes are now place for the fence.

Anyway, in the picture below, the approximate location of the ceiling beams are outlined in green, which divides the ceiling into essentially four sections as if there were four rooms. Each has to be completely surrounded with L brackets for the drop ceiling grid.



All those L brackets are in and I did a scale drawing for the ceiling so I could design the grid pattern for installation. It's basically a 2x2 pattern but will have a row of 2x3 sections so I can space the flat panel lights out a little better coverage of the layout. I may need to fill in a few spots but hopefully the 16 flat panel lights I ordered will cover most of it.

I've also revised the light locations on the plan above. The drawing with the ceiling grid is off from this as each ceiling section is it's own grid.

[riogrande]

Looks like it's been a couple months but to let you know things are progressing, the drop ceiling grid is installed in all five ceiling areas which are separated by 4 boxed in beams running across the ceiling:



What my wife calls "the wife den", which is just off the end of the train room area:





And presently the basment bathroom is being worked on. Before I can get the basement inspected, need to wrap up the bathroom.


Basement bathroom: The hard part was chipping out the cement floor around the rough-in 2-inch PVC shower drain down about 3 inches to allow the shower drain flange to seat down near flush with the cement floor. Once that was chipped out using a hammer drill and masonary bit, I could install the drain flange. Theninstall mortar sloped base, then PVC rubber liner to water proof it, and a second layer of mortar, and a wire bloody mesh over the curb and more motar. It's true, when you cut that wire mesh, there are many sharp pointy wire pieces that try to shred your skin!

I'll add some thin-set this weekend to level the curb out and my wife will install the shower tile and bathroom tile floor. She is handy like that!

Here is a photo from last weekend with the rubber PVC liner in but before the next bed of mortar is installed. I've also installed the toilet flange but need to drop by Lowes on the way home for some anchor scews with hex heads.



Cement board seems to be the standard thing to install in showers these days before tiling.

I'm getting some bills paid off and then get the electrician in late summer to wire in the flat panel LED lights and then put in the tiles. Then the ceiling should be complete.

Lastly, buying floor tile to finish the floor.

[Gary P]

Wow Jim - I've been away from the forum for a bit, but you certainly have been busy. The room(s) look great!

[riogrande]

Thanks Gary, welcome back!

The majority of the work started late last Dec. Wife is doing the tile work in the bathroom.



All the shower tiles are now in so I'll need to get a photo of it. She will be finishing grouting the tile over the weekend, then I will take over to finish mudding and painting, then floor tile goes in and finally sink and toilet, which we found ones second hand in good condition.

[riogrande]

Tiling finished on the bathroom. My wife did it all and I assisted. Photo shows tiles in and partially grouted - all grouted by Saturday morning.



After that I went back to finishing any mudding left and it's mostly sanded and close to painting. Did I mention i'm sick of sanding mudded drywall? This has been a big project but to keep it it from draining us financially too much, we've opted to do most of the work ourselves.

We need to level the floor since there is an expansion crack and the floor peaks there. Wife plans to tile the bathoom floor and with that finished, can installed the toilet and sink, and then move back to the main room in the basement. Expect to start installing the floor 2nd half of September.

[Deleted]

Looks great to me! I am envious and congratulatory at the same time. Jim...first rate work.

[riogrande]

Thanks Tom, have to give my wife all the credit for the tiles work. She took it upon it to teach herself how after a contractor botched our master bathroom shower floor and it looks as good as any professional job. (not perfect but very good - most bathrooms I look at in commercial buildings aren't perfect either).

The bathroom floor is now tiled over Labor Day weekend. We picked up faux wood floor tiles for the basement floor over the weekend as well. Will try to get the basement bathroom drywall sanding finished up and painted this weekend and prepping the cement basement floor for the vinyl floor tiles.

[riogrande]

Bathroom is basically finished now, just need to hang a mirror.




Lights are all in and dimmable - 16 2x2 flat panel lights at 4k temp. I had the electrician leaf extra wire so I could shift the position of the lights over in the grid if need be. Most of the ceiling grid parts and tiles were obtained second hand to save on cost but some are bowed so I'll replace some of them in time.



We are starting work on the floor, need to level it along the expansion crack and then install the floor - that will be taking the next few weeks. Hoping to wrap this all up by end of October or early November.

[Colin 't Hart]

That's going to be a really nice space when you're done! Trains running by Christmas? :-) :-) :-)

[riogrande]

Would love to have trains running by Christmas but I'm not that fast at layout construction. I do hope to have some of the bench-work up by then and be laying track in the staging yard.

[riogrande]

Floor finally going in. Had to clean it well and prep first. Expect it will take until around Nov 1 weekend to get it all down. After that, just the baseboard.

[riogrande]

I have to give my wife credit for the basement vinyl floor work. While I helped, she did the bulk of it including washing the cement floor first to clean up much of the dust generated during drywall mud sanding and also cement dust from grinding the expansion cracks level. She also rolled on a sealer liquid to seal the cement and prepare it for the tiles.

Since the self stick adhesive on some of the tiles was kind of dried out, she also applied a layer of adhesive to the floor (that yellowish stuff) and let it cure to the point it was tacky before putting down any of the vinyl planks.

All that prep-work has paid off as the planking is adhering well. The floor appears flat but there is a bit of "wave" or unevenness that isn't visible but is there. The vinyl planking follows the slight contours well.

Here are a couple photo's showing all the vinyl planking in now.





The only semi-major thing left to do is install the baseboard around the walls.


We had the county code inspector in last week. He flagged 4 things that needed done before he would pass the basement.

1) caulk the back of the sink,

2) caulk around the base of the toilet,

3) need 12 gauge hanger wire every 4 feet (I used 18 gauge wire sold by Lowes and labeled for hanging ceiling grid - what the heck?).

4) Lights need to be tied up at corners

The caulking is small potato's and on our to-do list once the flooring was done. Easy to fix.

Suspension wire I replaced in the ceiling grid over the weekend with specified 12 gauge - that wire is major thick and hard to bend, but it's done now. I spoke with the inspector about the flat panel lights and he said actually they can be clipped to the grid or tied up at corners. He said I could use the 18 gauge wire I have on hand to do the tie ups. I've already done 5 of the 16 but wanted to check in case the type of tie-ups mattered. He told me over the phone if I did the 12 gauge wire and would take care of the caulking and tie-ups, he would go ahead and mark the permit final as passed. So that's a year finishing now passed to code.

So once the baseboard is in and some ceiling tiles replaced, I can start working on bench-work, probably mid-Nov. We got a lot of the ceiling materials including the tiles second hand and some of them are bowed and look crappy, so I'm going to buy a box of new ones to replace the bad ones - would be good to get that done before too much bench-work makes it hard to get at the ceiling.

[slowfreight]

You will be SOOO glad you did all this before you started the layout! It's completely worth having a pleasant train room with finished walls, floors, and ceiling. No concrete dust...good lighting...solid walls to tie in your benchwork.

I added my backdrops over the walls before I installed the benchwork in some places, and added it afterward in others. Kinda depends on how deep the layout is, but I would say that 2' tall tempered hardboard backdrops are worth the effort.

[riogrande]

slowfreight, what did you use for backdrops?

Today I put up two 8 foot sections for a total of 16 feet. I'm re-using two 2x8' sections from the old layout and will be adding on. I"ve lowered the elevetion to 39" above the floor and the yard above it will be 51 inches. That will give 12 inches from the staging deck to the upper deck with 11 inches clearance above the staging deck.



Here is where those two old benchwork sections drop into the scale drawing:



Added another section on Monday:

[slowfreight]

Riogrande,

I just saw your question...sorry for the slow response. First, I've been revising my construction methods as I go. Normally, I'd give lots of photos, but I'm held hostage to photobucket's new charges and can't get motivated to pay the $5/month.

I find it easier to install the upper deck first, and then mount the backdrop above it. My backdrop is 1/8" tempered hardboard (masonite). I run the 4x8 through the table saw to rip it into 24" tall sheets. Depending on height, 18-24" is plenty adequate. I screw it directly to the wall. Joints and screws are best filled/sanded with DAP's Alex spackle that contains a hefty dose of vinyl. Regular joint compound cracked at the seams, and cracked again when patched with the DAP. I also found on hardboard that I have to use fiberglass mesh instead of paper joint tape.

I have a coil of aluminum roofing flashing, painted white on one side, that I use to form the curved corners. I cut it with tin snips, and by experiment found the best way to install is as follows:

1) Cut to shape so that it curves nicely along the benchwork
2) Glue to the *front* of the hardboard backdrop with construction adhesive
3) Fill/sand the joints with DAP flexible patching compound.

The thinnest, most invisible joint came from gluing the curved flashing to the front of the hardboard. It was also the fastest to fill/sand. And I'm all about fast.

My lower deck goes in afterward, and I add a hardboard/aluminum backdrop after I install it.

BTW, when you build your upper deck, I've had great luck after a year of season changes with my 3/4" thick upper deck. It's a sandwich of 5mm underlayment from Home Depot (don't use the Lowe's underlayment), with 1/2" pink insulation on top. It sits on standard shelf brackets. If I want the upper deck to be shallower than the lower, fine. If I want the lower to be shallower, I bring the lower deck backdrop forward so that it sticks out as far as the upper deck everywhere. The lower deck is still 1.5" foam on 5mm plywood underlayment (saves $10/sheet over 2" foam).

Why thin? I wanted to use ramps, not helices, so I made the deck as thin as possible, and by going shallow can have as little vertical separation as possible without losing visibility or access. I have about 7" between decks and it's really made multi-level layouts possible for me.

[riogrande]

It's completely worth having a pleasant train room with finished walls, floors, and ceiling. No concrete dust...good lighting...solid walls to tie in your benchwork.

That's my feeling too. I realize it's tempting when you move to have a large layout room to rush in and start building. Not only is a layout much MUCH nicer in a finished room, it also increase the value of the property too, if done to professional standards.



When Photobucket pulled their stunt, I switched to Imgur. So far that's worked well for me as a host.

As for backdrops, I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. Attaching them to hardboard instead of directly to the drywall would keep them separate. What would be ideal is if the backdrops had a backing sort of like a post it not, something that would make it adhere but would allow it to be peeled off if ever needed.

This layout isn't really planned to be double decked, except partially. Sort of like Rob Spangler. Staging will be under the main yard and use the existing sections pictured above. Twelve inches above that will be the main yard. I plan a branch line on the lower level around part of the free standing part of the layout that will be scenicked but that's it. I have read that a lot of people who have done double decked layouts later didn't like that format. This is also my first shot at something this big so this is about as complicated as I want to get. Mostly single deck running with a branchline on the lower level for operating interest.

At present, I prefer not to used foam for sub-roadbed under track. I'd rather nail/spike the track down old school. It's easy to adjust or revise track in the early stages that way.

[riogrande]

No update pictures atm but maybe this weekend. Here is a schematic representation of benchwork built so far.

[heavyfeather]

Thanks, I have been looking forward to an update.

[riogrande]

As promised, here are a couple more photo's showing more benchwork up. Unfortunately, last weekend part of these weekend has gotten sucked away with other things.



There is another 8 foot section to attach to the corner piece near the stairs as well.

[riogrande]

Worked on the existing bench-work to fill in corners:

[Gary P]

Jim - No apologies needed. I think it is progressing very nicely!

[riogrande]

Last weekend I assembled a bench-work section that will be in the helix area.



This weekend I did some more work on the layout bench-work.

I did a mock-up of four benchwork sections on the floor to make sure it all checked out measurement-wise from the drawing. So far so good.





Then got two sections up on legs. They are at a lower elevation to allow for a branch-line that will drop down while the mainline climbs in elevation.



I am attaching the benchwork lower and lower in a step-wise fashion to accommodate a lower level branch-line. I'm not real skilled at bench-work but have an idea on how it it will go.

[riogrande]

Managed to get some bench-work assembled and up this weekend.

This is about 80% of the area where the helix is planned to go.



Overall view of the bench-work so far.

[nwp0ncrr]

Looking great Jim. Making some great progress.

[riogrande]

Here are some more progress photo's on the bench work. Working my way around to the peninsula.

Here is the helix area benchwork mostly done:



This time around I'm using my old camera tripod as a Trammel pivot.



Roadbed leaving staging up on risers, max grade here is 1.8%



Here I'm mocking up a section to figure out what needs added to handle the curves through here - planned curve radii expected to be approx 33" and 36":



Assembling the next section that will attach to it.

[riogrande]

Last weekend I got hijacked for yard work and rain barrels but I did get some progress on the benchwork.

I got most of the next section of bench-work measured and modified for a corner section on Saturday.

Sunday, I had to mask off the floor and ceiling and paint the support pole with gray primer. Then I put the bench-work section that goes by the pole in place. I still need to attach the legs and add a piece of wood or too, then the section in the back ground can go up next.