Reworking the layout

[Terry Toenges]

I'm thinking this kind of reminds me of building a gallows. Maybe a project for down the road a piece. I still have to make the steps and the railings. I see I have a piece sticking up. I'll have to reglue that. It came loose when I was cutting the hole. The platform is basswood and I had to use that thin strip of balsa that I had to fill the gap.

I screwed up cutting the hole so I had to put the piece back in.

[Terry Toenges]

I got one set of the hinges today for the engine shed. These are 1/12 scale Dollhouse Miniature cabinet hinges. I kind of like the look. I have another set ordered that are 1/48 scale hinges. I'll decide once I get those. I messed up the windows. I painted the doors before I detached them from the sheet. Once I detached the center window pieces out, the inside was still the original tan color. I put the acetate between the door halves and glued them together. It didn't look right with the light inner part of the frame so I tried to paint it by dipping a straight pin in paint and going around the inner edge.
I'll blame it on little Jimmy, the kid who was hanging around the yard. He asked Seth the yard guy if there was any work he could do to make a little money. Seth told him the shed doors needed painting and to go fetch the ladder and the paint over yonder and get 'er done. Jimmy got 'er done but he just weren't none too careful when it come to paintin' around the windows.

[Terry Toenges]

I got the other hinges today. Here is a comparison. I think I like the bigger ones better. I'm going to remove those windows and replace them.

[WoundedBear]

I would use the silver coloured hinges on the left side of the photo.

Sid

[Terry Toenges]

I should paint the silver ones black too and see how they look. The black ones came as an assembled finished product though. The silver ones are raw two piece castings and will take some work. The black ones came with the brass nails I could push into the doors and clip off. They would look nice. I wouldn't even attempt to paint the heads on the silver hinges. On the flip side, the black ones look pretty large. I just checked the fit on the frame and the black brackets will fit the frame, too. I'll paint the silver ones black and check it before I make a decision.
I'm going to cut the windows out. I have a couple more door pieces that are just like framework but I haven't cut the individual pieces out of those. I can cut the parts out where the windows will be and paint everything. then, cut more acetate and glue to the back of the doors as they are now. Then, put the framework door over that so it will be three layers of door instead of two. It just now hit me that maybe I was supposed to put the framework pieces between the two solid door pieces. There were no instructions that I remember. I just figured it was a choice of either/or frame back or solid back. To fix the window, I'll have to use the frame back because the two solid pieces are super glued together.

[Terry Toenges]

I'm getting down to the final stages. I'm trying to work out the wiring on the lights. These WS lights have pretty long wires and I'm trying to fit everything up in the ceiling. I have long piece of wood for a light bar with the overhead lights. I was hoping to be able to shorten the wires.
The ends with the plugs have some type of gadget wired in with shrink wrap over it. A resistor maybe? That means I can't do away with all the excess wiring.
There is no room under the roof for this thing and it wouldn't look right on the wall with all the wires sticking out. Plus it has 4 holes and I have 4 overhead lights and the door light so I have to combine something.

The door light also has it's own linker plug that has a resistor attached to it so I can't do away with the linker plug. I cut some excess plastic from the linker so it will fit up in the ceiling.

I'll have to cut the wires close to the plugs so I can keep the "resistors?". I don't want to cut the wires shorter and then have to resolder the resistors in. I figure I'll solder all the light wires together and stow them above the light bar. I can solder a single pair of wires coming off that and run that into a splicer plug that I can mount inside on the ledge. I cut out the center part of the splicer plug out and glued the two halves together so it's not as wide. I painted it black.

I have a spool of WS wire and I can run wires out the bottom of the splicer plug and down the wall to where they exit at the same place as the track wires.
The light hub will be adjacent to the train power supply so I will run the light wiring under the layout to it.

[Terry Toenges]

This is inside the wall. I cut a notch for the light wire to run down to the base and out from the base under the wall along with the track power wire. I'll run the wires from the roof to the top of the black connector and the wires at the bottom will go to the power.

I have my overhead lights on the light bar. I got all the wires soldered and all the lights work including the back door light. I sure am glad to get that done. I had to solder all the light wires together and to a buss wire. This way, I only have the buss wire running down from the light bar to the connector on the wall instead of a whole bunch of wires.

[Terry Toenges]

Because of the hollow space under the E-Z Track, it sounds really noisy when the trains are running. I bought some foam window insulation from Lowe's (1/2" wide x 1/4" thick) and I will stick that under the track before I lay it. I tapped a Sharpie along the top of the track and it is definitely quieter where the part with the foam is stuck under there.

[Terry Toenges]

I have the walls all glued together now and I got the hinges glued on. That was a real tricky situation to deal with. I had to use the tape to keep the doors in place within the frame. I glued the long pieces to the doors first, Then I snapped the vertical pieces to the doors and glued to the frame. I just hope the super glue holds when I try to open the doors.

I have the push-down connector for the light wires glued in place now. The bottom wires are already run out the bottom. I have a piece of balsa wood covering them on the wall.

A guy on an On30 Facebook page spoke of "analysis paralysis". I think that is a constant affliction with me. With these two projects, I spend so much time thinking and rethinking what and how I should go about doing a particular part that I get bogged with the thinking part. I lay awake at night trying to figure out how I'm going to do something like how to attach the doors or how to do the wiring. Sometimes it takes a week or two of thinking before I even attempt to try something. Since these projects are one of a kind things it makes it harder because there are no plans in place other than an idea I started with.

[Terry Toenges]

I have it assembled. I just got the wiring all done and the light bar glued on. It was a real hassle trying to get all those wires together and taped up. There's a whole jumble of them in there from the four overhead lights and the light over the door.  I see a couple places that I should tape a little more. It ain't pretty but the lights all work. The only thing left is to glue the roof on and take the tape off the doors now and hope those hinges are going to hold ok. I'll probably just kind of tack the roof on in case I have to open it up for something.

[Terry Toenges]

I know the photography is crappy. I just wanted to get a couple pics with it finished and my hands aren't all that steady. I'll get some better pics later on. I was really worried about the placement of the hinge pieces as to how far in or out on the frame and doors to glue them. I am so relieved I got it right just by guessing.

I had this kneeling figure and I figured it would be cool to have him repairing the roof. I had to do a lot of filing on his feet to get him to kneel upright. I glued him down and glued a piece of the tar paper material to his hand and the roof. I forgot to put the ladder in the pic.