A Major Milestone Reached, The Benchwork is Done!

Well benchwork is finished. All in all I'd say this phase of the project went rather smoothly. The next step is covering the top with a layer of 2-inch thick styroafoam. Originally I had planned on going with four inches of foam. But at $32 per sheet, I realized that was going to cost me a whole lot of Benjamins. At any rate, that will probably happen in the new year.

Finished Cornerstone's George Roberts Printing Kit

This Cornerstone kit is a nice, generic industrial building that should look right at home in central Pennsylvania. It took me nearly a week to get this thing put together, mostly because I've become much fussier about painting my buildings since the last layout.

I started off by painting the concrete parts of the walls Floquil "Concrete." Next I painted the brick sections Floquil "Boxcar Red," which makes a nice brick color. I painted the roof, water tower roof and supports and fire escape Floquil "Grimy Black." The water tank got painted Floquil "Roof Brown."

After all the paint thoroughly dried, I used poster paint to simulate brick mortar. Once all that was finally done, I actually put the kit together, hit it with a coat of weather wash applied the decals and sprayed on some Dulcote and called it done. I must say I'm really glad I took my time with the painting. The building came out awesome.

In other news, I finished some more benchwork.

I added the raised section over the "smurf door" and another six foot section along the wall. As you can see this is about as much as I can do until Cherokee is dismantled. Since I have a sneaking suspicion Santa is going to bring me some new motive power for Christmas, I still want to have a functioning layout for a little while longer. As such Cherokee gets a little stay of execution.

Major Benchwork Progress

After taking a break for Thanksgiving, I decided to get back to work on the benchwork. I actually built the narrow section along the wall shortly after the initial 4 x 8 section but just never got around to posting it. Yesterday I built the large peninsula in the center of the room.  Nothing really to exciting to report here, just a whole lot of measuring, sawing, clamping, drilling  and screwing.

The main challenge will be the back corner. As you can see, there is a small white door that leads into the attic space. There's no storage beyond it but it does allow access to the duct work and therefore must be able to open. That particular section of benchwork will be four inches higher than the rest and topped with a thin sheet of plywood. The rest of the layout will be topped with four inches of pink Styrofoam, so it should be seemless.

Now, I would have been well served to remember the old adage about measuring twice and cutting one. It turns out the room was a foot wider and a six inches longer than I first thought. So yay, a happy accident! My railroad empire is even more vast than first thought.

Also you can probably see I added some new track lights. These came from Lowes and are equipped with 60 watt GE Reveal bulbs. I prefer the Reveal bulbs as they show everything in their true colors.

I also decided it was time to go ahead and acquire a fire extinguisher. The one I selected is the dry chemical type. It's rated to put out A, B and C-class fires. An A fire is buring debris, like wood. A B fire is buring oil and chemicals and a C fire is electrical. All three types of fire can occur in train room so it's best to have an extinguisher intended for all three.