What will run on the layout?

Today worked out the consists I will run the first show. That one is planned end of October 2016. Made lists earlier (2 years ago) so I have a pretty good idea what I could do. Main focus will be the 80's with 4 and 6-axle SP power with a occasional UP:

My wife experimented with sisal rope as part of making trees for the layout. More about that later:

More benchwork

Middle of the center pieces:

The place where the center plates will be:

Measuring up:

Too low!:

Filling up with a thin piece plywood:

And spiked and glued:

Level!:

The middle center piece:

Hole for lining it up:

Spiking:

Gluing:

Second batch:

Build:

Lining both sides up:

And both pieces ready and drying:

Preparing more circle pieces:

Dry:

Both seperate pieces:

More to come!

Started benchwork.

Start building the two head ends of the layout modules (halves).

Start gluing:

Dryed:

Cut to fit:

Bolted together. Clamps are temporarely:

Design V2:

Christmas

Maybe we start with Christmas if bored? Who knowes.....

Merry Christmas!

Grtz, Ronald.

Redesign

Did some redesign this morning. This way I have only 2 staging tracks but with very long capacity. The first will be 5 meters, the second 4,5. It should fit the overall look better.

Drawing in the living room:

The new design:

In detail:

More to come!

More drawings

Little update about the way I want to build the benchwork:

Drawings

Bought some stuff and made the first 2 drawings. The first one is the pure plan with the rail geometrie:

The second one is with the only visible rail. In the bottom the showpiece of the layout, above the staging:

The plan is still named project unnamed.

Later!

Grtz, Ronald.

Still running!

Did some testing today on this lazy afternoon (have my free days between shifts). Downloaded some track templates from Fast Tracks (http://www.handlaidtrack.com) to experiment with. Took the #10 and #8, printed them and cut them out (above two #10, below the #8):

And found that the #10's would fit:

Above is the #10 28/24 (28 inch outer radius, 24 inner radius), below the #10 24/20. Together they would fit nicely.

Problem; nobody makes them commercially. I could take the #8 from Walthers/Shinohara but a other option is that I build them myself. I already handlaid track on my 0N30 exhibition layout and on my 1:55n3 exhibition layout. So I do have practice enough to handle this task I hope.,

Soon more to come!

Grtz, Ronald.

On the planning highway!

To get myself going I started the Walthers watertower. The kit is well done and pretty easy to build. Fit is good.

Kit:

Tank:

Ready:

Parts:

First coat of paint:

Till so far:

I already try to plan a new layout and going a whole other way. Instead of going lenghtwise I try to do it circular. The idea came from two layouts, one is Beautiful British Columbia from the builders Evan Daes and Erik Block:

 The second one came from the internet:

 This is what I think I will build. In doing so I made a sketch with simple pen and paper:

The layout will be 160 or 170 centimeters in diameter. That is based on the lenght that will fit in my Mazda 5 van. 

As seen it contains two halves which will be build as one. The staging part will be folded under the scenicked part. Then the layout can be transported on the side, resting on the middle of the layout parts.

To visualize it I use some wood pieces which I had and are suitable for building. The parts are 4 inch high (10 centimeters). The standing part(s) are 60cm high, about 24 inches. That will be for the light valance that has to build over the layout:

It's a quarter circle:

Trying with some equipment:

I like the shorter cars better, even if the outer radius will be 70cm or 28 inches:

 Well, first plans are born. Stay with me!

Grtz, Ronald.