The Countdown Begins

I had Darren drop off some 42mm  x 19mm pine lengths at my place on Friday, along with 8 strips of plasterer’s angle.  After finishing work on Friday, I got out my white spray can and painted 4 strips of plasterer’s angle.  When they were dry, these where screwed to one of my strips of pine -  strips back to back with two lengths end to end.  These strips become my pelmet when I install a length of LED strip in between the plasterer’s angle.  I got everything out I needed to hang the 5.4m length of pine from the roof trusses in the shed.  I found my chain and then I was in a state of confusion as to how I cut the long length of chain to the required strips to hand the pine.  I could not remember how I did the previous one many years back.  That evening, I went looking for my stash of 6A power supplies.  But I could not find any left.  So I purchase another 4 power supplies online.  That was a day after I also purchased another 4 strips of LED lights for the top deck of my layout.  That may not be enough though.

On Saturday this week I ventured over to John Kennedy’s place for the NMRA meeting.  It was good to catch up with those in attendance and grab another glimpse of John Kennedy’s layout.  It was about 2 years ago that I last visited John’s place.  His layout is a multi-deck affair in a purpose built shed.  There is no helix, just a nolix around the walls to get to the higher level.  The scenery is very nice, the buildings are very well detailed and the scenes everywhere are just fantastic.  I was given some homework from the meeting to get some articles about NSW North Coast trains for a member.

On the way home, I stopped off at Bunnings and picked up two bolts to allow me to hang the chain lengths from the roof trusses.  I installed my LED strip in between the plasterer’s angle and allowed the glue to dry.  Later that evening, I carefully moved the strip from my work area in the pergola onto the top deck of Fisherman Islands Yard in the shed.

So today I used a hack saw to cut the links in my chain and then removed the links of chain so they were all the same length.  I then hung the chain from the roof trusses and waited for my apprentice to become available to hold up one end of my 5.4m length of pine while I screwed the chain to my end of the wood.  I then screwed the chain at his end of the wood to the chain and voila a new string of LED lights installed.  My only issue is that I do not have any power supply yet to test them with.  I need to wait a week for delivery.  I also received some additional pine from Darren and this will allow me to build the support structure for the lights around Runnings Creek on the top deck.

So after lunch, I decided to reinstall all my location signs around the layout.  These were removed while I painted the fascias.  I then vacuumed the shed.  I then washed the floors around where I will be installing some painted yellow strips on the floor to indicate locations where crew should not stand still during an operations sessions as this stops people from moving past them.

I have also been planning to add a mini scene to the road over rail bridge on the left as you enter the shed.  I plan to have some bridge painters preparing the bridge for painting.  To do this, one lane on the bridge has been closed.  So I have installed witch’s hats to outline the lane.  I was also given a set of traffic lights by Ken at yesterday’s NMRA meeting.  These lights will be placed on the back of a 6’ x 4’ box trailer and the traffic lights will iterate through the different various colour aspects allowing traffic to be regulated through the now single lane bridge.  I will use an Arduino to do this.  It will be basically my standard traffic light sequence code but with only a single set of lights attached.  The other set will be off scene at the other end of the bridge as it disappears out into the layout aisle.  So this should be a nice little talking point.

I also decided to plan for the installation of some fencing around 4 houses and a railway property on the layout at the southern end of Cassino.  I have laid out the fences and realised that I am just a few lengths short.  So I will drop a mate in our Club a line and ask him to laser cut a few more lengths of fencing from him and have them at the next Club Meeting day in 2 weeks time. 

Tonight I will be making quite a few more witch's hats as well as some guide posts for a section of road.  This will be done while watching the State of Origin on TV.  I'm trying to tidy up a few loose ends before the NMRA guys visit my place on the 17th of July - Covid willing.  Only 4 work days left!