We had a boat in Florida and buying lumber there for projects I went to Lowes and Home D. and found about all the lumber and plywood no cheaper and worst quality vs. the lumber yard in our town of 3700. If they haven't been put out of business where you are I'd check 'old fashion' lumber yards also, Sumner
@Sumner Ya, there is a family run, 3rd generation 5 location lumber yard 15 minute walk from me. They will deliver for free on orders over $100. I have made it clear to them I only shop there for my wood. Unfortunately they don't carry foam. Most likely I will be re-using / re-purposing card board boxes.
Don't have a concrete plan, it's an open canvas. Aside from the staging, everything is pretty fluid. For example, I'm mulling over where to locate the classification yard. I know I want it on one end of the railroad. One idea I have is to put it on the first (bottom) peninsula on the long stretch before the blob curve. Trains would come out of staging and after a short run enter the yard and perhaps do something there. There wouldn't be any crew changes or such, most trains are either locals or pass-thru. Then, there's the long wall at the top of the layout which offers a good length for a yard, except that it's more at the mid-point of the railroad. This all considering people traffic, and there isn't really an ideal location due to narrow aisles.
Up here, Home Despot and Lowers sell shittiest possible quality wood (many items imported from China or South America). That despite Canada being a big exporter of raw wood, it appears our local market is not worth bringing those goods to, as export pays better.
My friends that live where there are a lot of big box stores feel sorry for me thinking I don't have access to things living in a remote small town 90 miles from the nearest Walmart and 140 from a Home Depot or Lowes but actually it is quite the opposite as those stores have not run the good ones out of business here. The lumber yard is 300 feet from the house and has a large range of really good lumber/plywood, any kind or thickness of foam you could want. Got almost all the lumber and trusses there to build the house and my store. I also get my gas bottles there for welding. I buy steel from a guy a mile down the road that has a really nice shop at prices a lot lower than I could find in the towns 90 and 140 miles away. If for some reason he doesn't have it he'll have it on the next truck but usually he always has what I need. A half mile up the road is the largest Ace Hardware that I've seen any place regardless of the size of the city. Unbelievable stock of nuts, bolts, tools, plumbing, electrical and about anything else you would need. Grocery store is about 200 feet from the house and Dollar store is on our one property line. A tank of gas lasts over a month as everything is so close. About anything else I need comes UPS or one of the other carriers in 2 days or so. We travel to one of the larger towns a few times a year and get to Walmart and can't come up with anything we really need so go find a nice place to eat, the one thing we are short on here. Yep, glad there aren't any of those big box stores anywhere near, Sumner
Oops. Just noticed I missed the plan in your earlier post. I'd say the lower side of the second peninsula (next to the swing gate) looks like a natural location for a yard other than the somewhat restricted aisles at the blobs, unless you had planned some type of scenic feature there. Really like the nice long mainline run and substantial staging- a real advantage of N scale.
These are some of the options I am considering, although I did not make a mock-up with a yard on the upper peninsula, placed adjacent to the gate.
Benchwork progress update: Looking from the entrance, now with a pair of dominos on the east peninsular. The west peninsular, now with an alcove connecting piece. East peninsular also has the alcove connecting piece. Nothing is yet tied together though. I need to go around and check levels because some benches on the peninsulars need adjusting to match what's on the walls. Even though everything appears in level, my OCD is driving me to measure a dozen more times before committing nuts and bolts to the benchwork.
Most of my effort this past week has been directed toward my removable window box back drop section. Lots of trial and error but have now got it all built and will soon starting building the scenery on it. It is the yellowish area on the left side in this photo. On Saturday I was able to get to the hobby shop and picked up some more plaster cloth. Today I started to build up the scenery around the eastern bridge abutment and the rear track that is next to the window. Great seeing everyone's progress this week.
This week has been all about the Moore's Warehouse kit. This was the only P2K structure kit. It wasn't very popular, the experiment was never repeated, and as I recall, my LHS had it at a reduced price so I bought it to use for backdrop flats. A buddy of mine looked at it and said, "That's a really cool building." I decided he was right and stuck it away to use sometime in the future That was something over 20 years ago. I discovered right off that this was a more involved build than I thought. If built to the instructions, there are 76 doors and windows, and I've spent considerable time just installing the "glass", separating and filing parts, building the tower and attaching the upper insides of the walls. I also blocked the rear basement windows with a piece of styrene so there won't be light from the basement spilling out under the loading dock. This kit is far above and beyond the level of the average plastic kit. For that reason, I'm sure it didn't appeal to most folks who build plastic structure kits, and probably didn't appeal to those who build craftsman kits because it's- well- plastic. One of the really insane things I found was the assembly of the entry doors. There were four scale size plastic door knobs. I lost one taking them off the runner and lost two more trying to install them before I gave up. The solution turned out to be no further away than my wife's sewing kit. She let me make off with four straight pins, which I stuck through the holes in the doors, attached with CA and trimmed short. A dab of paint (bronze for the front entry, black for the other two) finished the job. They're about a scale 1-1/2" too large, but I suspect my HO scale people won't care. The last thing I addressed was the tar and gravel roof. It looked way too clean, so I broke out the craft paint and gave it a thin wash of medium gray. (Maybe this proves I've been watching too many Jason Jensen videos, but I think it's a big improvement ) The only thing I'm not sure about yet is the tower roof that came with the kit. I'm not sure if I want anything that ornamental or perhaps just a flat roof. Input is welcome.
That is a really cool looking building Tom and looks like you are off to a good start on it. Looking forward to seeing it progress.
More roads and ground cover plus a building went up for lease this week. There's a full recap in the N scale JPT Sub thread. Need to figure out who the leasing agent is for this place.
Got a couple packs of screws bout it license tabs killed this check. Feeling much better. Though got rid of the pneumonia garbage. So waiting on lumber Budget next month lol. Can't win for losing lol.
I like what you are doing with this scene, tracks and industries in front with a main street behind it. I plan a similar scene on my layout based on Carlin, Nevada. That won't be for another year or more before I get to it. Where did you get that post office LLV that is in the left hand edge of this photo and also shown in earlier photos ?
Took a bit longer than anticipated, but I've got the framing for the 'yard core' complete. Got my 'compatible coupler' rolling stock inventoried, and have repaired the 'step' bars on some WFEX reefers I picked up out of a bargain bin. I'm done now, right? Frame complete by Gary Helriegel posted Jan 15, 2020 at 1:18 AM (yes, I really did have to do that, this is the first chance I've had to get these out of their boxes . Super glad I decided on 22" minimum curves on the mainline.) Next up is getting foam cut to shape and glued in, then I can start the long process of getting all the lines drawn. Meanwhile, I can start inventorying my Rapido couplers. I also ended up tweaking the yard design. Ended up only doing 4 tracks past the main, but I made them longer and double-ended. This ends up a) looking more like the prototype, b) less cramped, and c) looking MUCH better.
