Constrution: spline roadbed

I had experimented with spline roadbed construction on a previous layout that never as far as track laying (had to move before then) and liked how it worked, so I'm doing that again. My method is a little different from anyone else's I've seen.  1/4" hardboard would probably be the better choice, but I had a supply of 1/8" hardboard so that's what I'm using. I make a sandwich of hardboard and Styrofoam: two triple laminations of hardboard strips (one under each rail), with a strip of 1/2" Styrofoam in the middle for spacing, and then another strip of 1/2" Styrofoam down each outside to widen the roadbed (including as a scenery attachment point). It's all held together with yellow carpenter's glue, and I have no issues with adhesion, it's as solid as could be desired.

So how to cut all these strips? The hardboard I ripped into 7/8"-wide strips by first ripping two 4'x8' sheets of hardboard into four 2'x8' sections, then with the edges lined up, drill through all four strips and bolt them together so they can't move relative to each other. So I effectively had a 2'x8' sheet of 1/2"-thick (4-ply) hardboard. I then rigged up this guide frame & support with a 2x4 and some 1x4's on each end of my bench saw, carefully aligned with the rip fence, so I could then just set the stack of hardboard on one end and slide it through the saw without worrying much about alignment. It worked very well, all the strips came out nice and straight and uniform width.

But sawing hardboard produces dust. Lots and lots and lots of dust. A dust mask and eye protection are essential. This is what my saw looked like after ripping 4x24 8-foot strips, and that's with the shop vac hooked up to suck dust away. There was more than a grocery bag of dust just on the floor immediately under the saw, not counting all the dust floating around over everything. This is something that should ideally be done outside or somewhere well-ventilated which you don't care if you get dirty.

In the end I had a big pile of hardboard strips all set aside ready for installation. Now I needed to figure out how to cut 1/2" Styrofoam into uniform strips. I rigged up this simple contraption with 3 blades. I found that trying to cut the whole 1/2" at once was too much, but cutting 3/16" or so with each blade lets the sheet slide through smooth and easy. I just have this rig screwed to the wall and it's extremely easy to cut strips of Styrofoam from the 2'x8' sheet.

 Then it's just a matter of sticking it all together. Pretty simple, really, as long as you have clamps. Lots and lots of clamps.  I found these beautiful ones (oversized clothes pins) at the dollar store (10-pack for a dollar, can't beat that) and they have about a 2" opening (enough for almost all of it, but can't quite clamp with the last layer of Styrofoam on the outside. The inner notch just below the hinge is perfect for starting out, it provides tremendous clamping power for up to 3/8", which coincidentally is just the size of each set of hardboard splines, then the end of the jaws can hold the hardboard-foam sandwich together just nicely. I do also have some heavier-duty spring clamps and C-clamps, especially for the ends of each spline on curves where a lot of clamping pressure is needed to keep it from springing out of alignment.

Track plan

I guess a copy of the track plan would be useful. I spent the month of July reading track planning books (such as John Armstrong's Track Planning for Realistic Operation), and doodling rough plans on paper. I spent August refining the design in XtrkCAD (which is now freeware). This is what I came up with:

I can cheat a little bit by wrapping the triple-duty loop (helix, hidden main line, visible main line) on the left side into the space under the stairs, which gives another two feet of room length and makes things fit much nicer.  What isn't well conveyed by this track plan image is the elevation changes. This is a mountain railroad with a perpetual grade of 2-3% along the 100+ feet of mainline. The visual crowding on the plan shouldn't be the same in 3D, since apparently-close tracks are quite vertically separated. For example, the two loops around the centre peninsula are about 24" apart in elevation.

I did omit from the above plan a logging line that goes from the terminal at the left side, along the bottom wall (above the staging area) to the logging camp above the access hole in the lower-right corner. This line will be unconnected to the main track of the layout (potentially narrow-gauge) and feature sharper curves and steeper grades. Main line is 30" radius at 2-3% grades; logging is around 18" radius and 5% grades.

Construction: 2010 September

I'm two months into construction on my new layout, but methinks I should start a blog to post some progress photos and tips, since I found these useful on other blogs.

I'll run through this and catch up on two months of photos with some comments:

[07-Sep-2010] This is what I started with. Completely empty room (roughly 19'x14'), bare concrete floor and walls (top half of walls overlaid with about 2" of pink Fiberglas insulation wrapped in plastic), open studs for the ceiling, unfortunately no studs on the walls, and a single dim lightbulb in the middle. Unfortunately there's two plastic pipes in the way down the left side, but I can work around that.

[16-Sep-2010] I replaced the single lightbulb with five 4-foot fluorescent fixtures and it's looking much better. Studs are laid out with a horizontal pressure-treated lower piece on the floor, then the vertical stud laid parallel to the wall offset by the thickness of a 2x4 to leave room for the insulation behind the top half.  Bottom is screwed to the lower member, top is screwed to the floor joists above. Nothing is secured to either the wall or the floor. In this photo I'm starting to put up the backdrop, which is 4x8 sheets of 1/8" hardboard (aka Masonite) glued with LePage No More Nails construction adhesive.

[13-Oct-2010] This scene looks a lot happier; the backdrop is all up and painted. The right half of the room will be mountainous and only need half the backdrop height as the track will come up above that level. The section on the left will be a yard at the lowest elevation of the layout, so it needs the full 4-foot backdrop height. Backdrop is painted with a couple coats of white primer, then blue #059-63 from RONA for the sky colour. My artistic skill for drawing and painting is frightful (I can't draw a convincing stick man), so I was terrified of ruining the nice smooth blue sky, but I went ahead and used The Clouds cutout templates from New London Industries and some Krylon flat white spray paint, and after a few attempts at practicing, they actually come out quite well. The key is to keep the template a little away from the backdrop, maybe 0.5" or so. If it's right snug against the backdrop you'll have an unconvincing sharp outline of the cloud, but the small separation gives a nice feathering effect. Don't worry about a lower half for the cloud at all, the overspray is highly desirable for producing a realistic fading effect. Start at the top of the backdrop and work your way down, overlapping the lower cloud on the overspray from the previous cloud. I found you can do about 10-12 linear feet (2-foot high backdrop) of fairly dense clouds per can of spraypaint. Spraypaint, however, is highly undesirable in an enclosed room. Despite my best efforts at ventilating the area, and wearing a dustmask (prevents breathing paint particles, but not fumes) and trying to breathe as little as possible, I could only work for 20 minutes or so before taking a break to recover.  Much ventilation and a respirator would be recommended.