Moving Along

In retrospect, I like seeing how the layout is coming out, but man, it's sure taking a lot longer than I thought it would.  Maybe that's because I'm not retired, I have a job, and I have an involved life outside of the basement. Or maybe it's because I underestimate the small little tasks that add up.  When you're following someone's progress on a blog or internet forum, it's very likely that they'll not mention all of the little jobs they did, a lot of times because doing them just doesn't look like much.  For example, sanding the corners on the backdrop.  It doesn't look good on the internet, but it makes a difference in real life.

In any event, I got some more work done on the layout today.

Early this week I had spent some time cutting sheets to size and had even put one up.  This morning I did some work on covering up the screw holes from mounting.

I also started to think a little bit about doing some "finishing" work today as well.  You can see in the above picture, on the far left, the area behind the curve of the backdrop is visible.  I wanted to give this a nicer finish than just raw wood, so I also cut a sheet and mounted it over this area.

This little "wall" divider thing has become my test area for things.  My biggest question was, "Is the approach I'm using to hide screw holes going to work after it's painted?"   The main concern being what will this look like on the actual backdrop -- will there be visible defects on that painted sky? Well to that end I rummaged around for some primer and tried it out!

And here's a closer up shot...

For the most part, I think the answer is, "yes", this will probably work like I was hoping it will.  In the above shot there are actually 4 screw holes.  With a final (solid) coat of paint, I'm pretty sure they will totally disappear.

Moving along, I also put up more backdrop sheeting...

The above is a panoramic of how the layout is looking at the moment.  On the far right, the backdrop "plate" isn't finished and will at some point be built out along the wall and jutting out for the peninsula.

One of the small tasks I was talking about was "trimming" up the wood.  There were some places where corners of the wood stuck out a bit or where the supports for the backdrop plate popped up above the backdrop.  I went along and cut those all off, either with a handsaw or a circular saw depending on the size of wood to be removed.  You can  see in the far right corner there is one remaining which I can't reach.  However for the rest of the backdrop it gives a MUCH cleaner look to the whole thing (compare to previous pictures and you'll see what I mean).

Also, I didn't mention I before, but I found moving out the benchwork from the backdrop made it way easier to work.  As kids used to say in elementary, "major DUH!"

One last thing I did today was I committed to an idea:  Vertical scenery is just as important (and I'm going to include it).  To this end I'm cutting the benchwork down to have a table top of 45".  It was previously at 51" (which is where the backdrop comes down to).  A lower table top will allow more vertical scenery (think bridges, cliffs, gorges, etc.) to push down below the track.

Here's a shot of the lower benchwork next to the backdrop to give you an idea of how much lower I went.  After I cut the first section and set it back up, I instantly knew this was a change I really liked.  I've already started sketching ideas about how to use this new vertical space and hopefully it will really add to the layout in the end.