Lesson 1 - Caulk for Laying Track

No question that laying flextrack with caulk is the way I will do it in the future.  The ease of both putting the track down and, with a careful hand and putty knife, ease of pulling it back up again.  I maybe damaged two or three pieces of flex and one or two turnouts pulling it up.  And with the flex, I just trimmed off the broken part and now I have a shorter piece of flex that will almost certainly be useful in the future to someone.  

Here is the before, for those that don't want to go looking for it:

Lesson 2 - Screws Are Handy

I always prefer working with screws over nails as its just easier to put them in and take them out, plus my hand-eye is such that I almost always hit something I'm not supposed to, like my finger or something delicate.  In this case, screws are extremely handy for pulling stuff apart quickly without much damaged.  With nails, it would take more time and would also create a lot more damage coming back apart.  With screws, it helped me pull things apart so that almost everything can be used again.

Here you see the former reverse loop extension leaning against the wall.  This took me 20 minutes to dismantle, and most of that was unhooking the wiring:

Another shot of the mess of drywall after the road bed was pulled up:

And just the plywood left.  You can see the chunks of grass/fusion fiber I've saved to use another day:

Lesson 3 - Get Rid of the Mess!

One of the biggest problems I have when going into the train room is finding what I need to do a task in the time I have.  I may only have 20 minutes or an hour or 45 minutes, but I find a lot of time is eaten up looking for the tools or things I need to work on.  In fact, I will often not bother to do anything because its too much effort to find what I'm looking for.  Take a look at my shelving where much of my stuff is stored;

What a mess!!!  I aim to change that.  I found some small, stackable storage containers at the orange place for 97 cents each, so I bought a dozen (and will probably buy several more).  We already had the label maker, so take these two things together:

And you get this:

Still some work to do yet, but doesn't this look much easier and make it much easier to want to go to work:

Screw it!

I totally  agree with your comment about using screws instead of nails. You won't find a nail (other than "track nails") anywhere on or in my layout.

George

Been using those storage

Been using those storage containers for years, as Tony the Tiger says...THEIR GREAT !!!.......Mike

Totally Agree

I totally agree with all three aspects of your approach to rebuilding your layout and the lessons learned. When I rebuilt my Kawartha Lakes Railway a few years ago, one of the biggest fears was how much was I going to re-purchase materials instead of recycling. With the new track plan came some new turnouts just due to changes in the track geometry, but I found that my use of a water based adhesive allowed the flex track to easily come up. A few pieces of new cork roadbed and I was ready to re lay track. I even went the further step to save all of my ballasted areas, since I wasn't sure that I could match the ballast I had previously used and wanted it to match some of the areas where I didn't change some sections of the layout. A little water spray, putty knife and strainer was all that was necessary.  I would run the ballast under hot water for a few minutes and then spread it out to dry. Amazing how easy it was to reuse the materials.  I had one club member tell me that it was crazy to try and glue ballast down and that you could never re-use track or turnouts again. Done with a little thought before hand, and it's easy to see what you can do if you want to reuse the materials and take a little care.

The other way that I got my construction organized was buying an inexpensive wheeled cart at the local Harbor Freight store. Two levels to park tools, materials and scenery supplies and all I do is wheel it around to the area I want to work on. Bottom level has enough room to even store some cheap plastic show boxes.

Last Ditch Effort

Before I head off for my week at work, I got a bit more done, though not as much as I had hoped.  I bought another shelving unit and a few more 97 cent containers but haven't quite filled them up yet:

I plan to put my rolling stock on the shelves nearest the camera and the dremel drill press stand I want to affix permanently to a workbench at some point.  The top shelf is going to be about the bottom of where I plan on putting the layout benchwork.  I'm hoping it will work fine to have the cork roadbed sit there just underneath the benchwork, but we'll see.

And I removed another section of the old benchwork:

And one last shot to show I still have some cleaning and organizing to do when I get home again:

Its getting there, but still much to do.  

Ken

I think that's another good point for chainsaw layouts - build them knowing you will take them down and you want to use most of the stuff over again.  Track (and especially turnouts) can be pretty expensive and if you manage to save 80% or more, you are well on your way to the next layout without a lot of extra expense.  Unfortunately for me, though, I now have a pile of used N scale track and I'm now building an HO layout.  Still might use it for a small display shelf/diorama, or a couple FreemoN modules or something.  We'll see.

them dang screws

'ay thar  skiloff,

I ust to work with them thar screws, but the MISSES done stepped on some that fell outta' muh pocket one time, and she pitched a fit 'bout them goin' inta her foot. so... I dun found me somthin' else~

elmers water based school glue. I laysed down some onna cork bed,with a brush, smooths it out, and lays the track down and holds it with a pin in place. got suh good with it, found I could lay the track, an' then lays down thuh ballast right with it. come back next mornin' and brush of the extra ballast an whollah! track and  ballast all dun up right then and thar! and whot's best... ifinya gonna bust down yur chainsaw, take off alla stuff sept them tracks and take er' outside, just hose er' off, give few minutes fur the glue to turn white agin',  and pop em' off with a knife! thuh track come off clean an' no broken ties! finish up by putten' the track under a rinse of warm water and the glue melts like butter. even works with  the ol' flex tracks.

Dave, the question is.....

If you can keep it that clean during construction. I've has several "clean and organize" seesions over the years and they tend to end up falling into " the best laid plans" category once I get going on construction of a major modeling project. The bench and railroad invariably get piled up again with stuff " temporarily".

I like what you've done and wish you good luck in keeping it that way....better luck than me anyway!

Michael

OH LOOK A FLAT SPOT!!!

I see a flat spot on your workbench!!! Don't you know that is not allowed! LOL!

It only took about 18 hours after I literally cleaned off the workbench space before I had stuff piled all over it again.  It's amazing how quickly it takes to start piling stuff on a workbench and how LONG it takes to sort through everything and find a proper place for the stuff and clean off the workbench!

Ken L

That will be the trick

Michael and Ken, that will be the trick - to keep putting everything back in its place.  Once construction starts, we'll see how it goes.  One thing I tried to do with the organization is put similar task things in their own bin, so I have a tracklaying bin where I can have it out and then put it all away, and I have a soldering bin and a bus wiring bin and feeder wire bin, etc.  I'm hoping if I don't have to open too many bins at once, I'll be more likely to put everything back.  Time will tell, though.

screws over nails as its just easier to put them in

the key to using nails is to know what joints will need to be disassembled and which can stay together as a modular unit. With a nail gun it's much easier to nail things together than to screw them. I just use bolts or screws at module joints and to fix the modules to the wall or bench work and use nails everywhere else. I have some box grid module frames  that have been used on 3 or 4 layouts and are stored for more.. ..dave

Dave, one word:

Good call

I was actually thinking once I get my work desk built that I would put pegboard up at the back of it to hang regularly used tools and other such things, too.  I have two sheets of it in my garage and it comes in very handy indeed.