Rest of details
Around the Walls
The first step was to mount the rails for the shelf bracket. As discussed in the prior post we mounted them on 32” centers. During this part of the process it is important to make sure that they are all mounted at the same height.
Be mindful of things like mounting them all the same direction (based on type and brand, some mounting rails have a “top” and a “bottom”). If you need to splice pieces together (to efficiently use leftover scraps – like in the photo below) be mindful of maintaining the proper gap between slots.
You will likely want to use the floor or ceiling as the “source of truth” for measuring heights during installation. Don’t assume they are level. Take measurements along their length and determine what is level (and where it is level) before you start mounting the rails. Older houses tend to be more uneven but newer houses can be uneven as well. For those folks building in a garage, garage floors usually (required by building codes) have a slant of 3 or more inches from the front down to the main door. If you are not careful your layout will slant too.
After doing this and the lessons I learned, my recommendation would be to:
a) Determine what is level and what you will use as the source for all your measurements
b) Determine which slots you will use on your mounting rails
c) Measure from your source of truth to the slot you will use in the rail to set each mounting location
This will help you avoid issues due to manufacturing differences in the rails or variances introduced while splicing rail sections.
Once the mounting rails are in place, the next step is the leveling process. As I mentioned in the previous post, the brackets I am using have a built-in cant that results in the front edge being ¼” higher than the back. In larger scales you may not even need to worry about this but a ¼” in N scale is significant. Also, when I discuss the corners you will see why you really want everything as level as possible an both the X and Y axes
While the slotted rails allow the shelf brackets to be adjustable, all you get is a coarse adjustment +/- 2” at a time. What we need is a fine adjustment. Additionally, I need some way to fasten the door slabs to the brackets. I solved both these problems by adding what I call a “shoe” to each bracket. This provides the fine adjustment to height, allows me to level out the cant, and provide a flat surface to attach the slab to the bracket.
The brackets are made of stamped steel and are light and strong. They are also essentially hollow. I cut some small filler blocks that get inserted into the brackets, then I drill a hole through the bracket (and block) so I can bolt the shoe to the bracket. You can see this in the upper bracket in this photo. The block is needed when it comes time to tighten down the bolt while attaching the shoe. Without the block the hollow bracket just crushes closed.
Each shoe is just a pieces of 3/4” pine board I have ripped into 1” strips and cut to 14” lengths. In the picture you get the idea of how it goes together. My process is this:
- Insert the filler blocks into the bracket at the bolt locations.
- Drill holes through the bracket and blocks.
- Temporarily clamp the shoe to the bracket in the approximate position it will be mounted.
- Measuring from the floor (my source of truth that I have verified is level in this room) to the top surface of the shoe, ensure that the front (end farthest from the wall) and back (end nearest the wall) of the shoe are precisely at the height I want and level. Adjust and re-clamp as needed.
- While clamped, use the holes in the bracket as pilots and drill through the shoe.
- Add nut/bolt/washer.
- Rinse and repeat until every bracket is done.
A couple notes about this process:
First, the amount of adjustment that will be needed here really depends on two factors: A) The amount of slope your shelf brackets have built in (or any variance due to inconsistent quality in manufacturing) that you are trying to correct, andb) how precise you were when you mounted the rails on the wall (making sure the rails were all at the same height). My shoes are 1” tall which means I can only really deal with a max variance of +/- ½” across all the brackets in the room. I have a design requirement to keep the shoes at 1” (to avoid the need to make the facia too thick) so I had to make sure my rails and brackets were fairly precise. Before I started mounting shoes I measured all the brackets to ensure that none were too far out of whack. Glad I did. Out of 14 rails, two required remounting to the wall to get them within tolerance.
The second thing here is the width of the shoe. Some folks looking at this might be doing some math in their heads and arrive at the opinion that only ¾” wide for support and attaching to a door skin is asking for trouble in the long term. Well, it turns out I accidentally did a long-term test on how strong these doors really are.
I first encountered this idea of using door slabs about 10 years ago. I got excited about it and immediately picked up two doors, mounted some shelf brackets to my wall and tested the doors – then promptly got side tracked by life and stopped railroading for a while. So, for the past 10 years I have had two doors sitting on the bare metal shelf brackets (which are only about a ½” wide) with stuff piled on them (acting as shelves rather than benchwork). After 10 years, the doors are still true (they did not warp) and the narrow metal brackets did not poke through (or even dent) the door skins they were supporting. This tells me that a ¾” wide strip of board should be even better. If I was really concerned about weigh distribution, I could add a second shoe on the other side of each bracket, but I don’t think it is needed. Plus, I am trying to maximize space between the support brackets to facilitate lower level lighting.
So, after leveling and attaching shoes to all the brackets, I now have a level surface at a precise height from the floor to mount the door slabs. I set the slabs in place to see how it looks.
This is a view of the left wall looking back towards the door. The slabs aren’t attached, just sitting in place to test the fit. You can see that they are all sitting evenly on the shoes and there is no daylight indicating any gaps. Ultimately, I will glue them to the shoes but I am not yet ready to fasten them down. I want to get the skyboxes built first and there is some prep work for attaching the facia that needs to be done before the slabs will be ready to fasten down.
The Peninsula
My first interaction with a model railroad forum many years ago was due to a friend telling me about some Australians who had framed up some portable railroad displays using aluminum framing. A gentleman had posted some notes about a project he was working on. My interest in that project encouraged me to join the forum and since then I have enjoyed learning a lot about modeling across many online venues. So here we are, all these years later and I am finally getting to really apply the idea to an operational project.
The peninsula attaches to the vent wall that sticks into the room and runs most of the length of the room filling the center space.
The peninsula support is going to be made from aluminum framing components and consist of a series of legs with cross arms attached to support the door slabs. Since all three layers (2 layout decks and the upper lighting facia) are all so similar in construction, the support framing for all three layers is essentially the same. Here is a top view looking down:
I chose aluminum for a number of reasons. First, it is strong and light. Second, no warpage whatsoever and it will stay that way forever. Also, I need to keep the layers as thin as possible to manage access and sight lines on both levels and keeping the middle facia as thin as possible. Aluminum gives me a lot of strength in a small space.
Yes, it is more expensive than wood but for my use here, the cost is well worth it. Plus, I am only using it on the peninsula, not the whole railroad so that helps manage the cost.
The product I use is by 8020.net. There are a few companies out there that make similar materials. I tried one other that had a local distributor. The pricing was similar and I liked the idea of being able to purchase locally but found the quality differences significant enough to encourage me to stay with 8020. Ordering on line hasn't been a problem. Over the years I have placed a number of orders with 8020 and the service is always prompt, accurate, and shipped without issue. I live in Seattle and they are back east. Typically, I get my order within a week of placing it. Also, they have updated their website and you can now order direct (you used to have to go through distributors) and the process is fast an easy.
While they have an extensive line of products, I typically use three of their extrusions and just a handful of the connectors. These are the typical parts I use:
Top row, left is called Quick Frame. It is a simple 1” square tube. The center and right examples are called 10-Series T-Slot. The center is 1010 (1” square) and the right is 1020 (1” thick and 2” wide). The slots are centered ½” in from each edge.
The second row are examples of the connectors I use. The first two are examples of the type of connectors available for the Quick Frame tubing. These just press fit into the ends of the tubes. Assembly is fast and solid.
The third item in the second row is a tee-nut used for the 10-Series products. These nuts slide into the slot and accept a standard 10-20 ¼ in bolt. Without going too far into the engineering, if you use these nuts, you don’t need lock washers because the way the slot is designed in the aluminum channel, when the nut is tightened, the channel flexes ever so slightly to act as a locking force. One of the great things about the slotted channels is that you can easily loosen up parts to make adjustments whenever needed.
As for working with it… You can order it bulk and cut your own or order it cut to length. You can also order it with all the holes you need pre-drilled (for an extra cost). I have a carbide blade in my chop saw that cuts this material like butter. I tend to order my parts mostly cut to length knowing that I can make adjustments if need be and I drill all my own holes.
For the peninsula, I used the 1020 material for the vertical leg posts and then used the Quick Frame tubing for the arms. The first step was to mount the rails that will be used to attach the peninsula to the wall. The rails were simply two pieces of the 1020. I drilled through the inside slot and drove screws into the studs.
From the wall I ran a couple lengths of Quick Frame tube to attach to the first leg. The remainder of the peninsula will be supported by cross arms on three legs.
Each leg is made of two vertical lengths of 1020 supported by a cross piece of 1020. The cross piece has adjustable feet to make leveling easy (sorry about the finger).
For reinforcement, I found some heavy shelf brackets that were square. For the adjustable feet I driller 3/8” holes through each end of the cross piece and then dropped in 5/16” tee-nuts like these:
Each nut has four teeth that would normally be pounded into wood to keep them from turning during use. I trimmed two teeth off each and the remaining two just dropped into the slot in the aluminum to prevent them from turning. Each foot runs through 2 tee-nuts. One dropped in the top hole in the cross brace and a second inserted into the bottom hole. I thread two nuts onto the end of the 5/16” bolt that acts as the foot and them press a rubber chair leg foot onto the end.
The adjustable feet were especially useful when we originally setup the layout in the garage. We had about 3" of slope to deal with from one end of the peninsula to the other due to the required slope in the garage floor.
The first leg is attached to the wall rails via a couple horizontal tubes. The last two legs are attached to one another via horizontal tubes as well, creating a free-standing support frame for the end of the peninsula. I am relying on the doors, lighting panels, and facia to attach the free-standing end legs to the wall set of legs (if that makes sense).
Depending on where they are needed, the arms are attached either to the horizontal tubes or directly to the vertical leg posts. I pre drilled these holes. If you look closely you can see some small holes and some larger. The larger holes are needed where I needed to have the bolt heads countersunk, so to speak. It took a lot of planning to make sure that I did not have bolt heads sticking out where I needed things to be level and smooth.
The placement of the arms and pre-drilled holes took a lot of planning as well. The door slabs will attach to the arms by driving 1" screws though small pilot holes in the arms and into the frames of the door slabs. The slab frames are slightly less than an inch thick so you need to be very careful to make sure that arms and the edges of the door frames always align where needed. In some places your margin of error is less than +/- 1/4" for the screw location.
The last step in assembling the frame is the end section. This was a bit more complicated because the end of the peninsula requires a bit of a cantilevered support system to allow the railroad to flow uninterrupted around the end.
The tag line for the 8020 is “The Industrial Erector Set”. This picture is a good example. Where you see the tubes extending beyond the far leg, this is the end support structure before the doors are in place.
Some Notes on Prepping Door Slabs
The next step is adding the door slabs. At the wall end I can use full length slabs so no modification needed. At the end that sticks into the room I need to cut slabs in half and modify them to fit around the end of the peninsula. Fortunately, the lengths and widths all work out and I can do each layer by cutting up one slab without a lot of extra left over.
I use my Skill saw and my band saw to do the cutting. Door skins are soft enough you could use a hand saw if that is what you have access to.
There are some things to keep in mind when modifying door slabs. Door slabs are made up of a simple square frame laminated between two door skins. Inside the frame there are some cardboard baffles glued in to provide additional support for the door skins.
From an engineering perspective, a door slab is really just a box. A very light yet very strong box. When you start cutting them up you need to be mindful of maintaining the structural integrity of the box.
The reality is that these slabs are pretty much just cardboard. The only real wood is an incredibly thin veneer of actual wood on the exposed surface of the door skin, all the rest is cardboard – including the frame. The frame is like particle board made from ground up and compressed cardboard (red arrow)
When I saw up a slab I make sure that I put a wood filler strip into the open edge. My fillers are just 1x pine ripped to fill the gap. It pays to rip the fillers as precisely as possible. If they are too thick, when you insert them they will add a hump along the edge of the door. If you make them too thin they will create a low spot.
When you go to insert the strip, it is likely you will need to get some of the baffle material out of the way. Most of the time this is easily done by simply pushing it back with your finger far enough to be out of the way. It is just a cardboard strip that has been lightly edge glued between the door skins. Every once in a while you might get unlucky and made a cut through an area where a bunch of baffles all come together. It might mean you have to push back 6 layers of cardboard instead of just one. A little more work but not too tough.
Also, as you can see in the above photo, I don’t worry about a tight fit end to end. A small gap doesn’t matter and in fact it makes it easy to adjust the piece while you are gluing it in. This is important because one other thing you want to be precise about is making sure it is glued in precisely flush with the edge of the door skin. If it sticks out it makes the edge uneven which will be problematic when attaching the facia. If it is inset, it can be problematic if you need to join it to another slab.
An additional consideration here is screw placement. When adding filler blocks be sure to consider whether or not the filled edge will need at accept screws (while attaching facia or mounting to the support frame). Make sure that you don't leave any gaps where a screw may be needed.
In my case I do have a few places where I do need to join slabs together for some odd shapes. The most significant is the upper and lower modules that will go into the closet area next to the vent pipe wall. Here you can see the result after cutting up and reassembling a slab to fit into the closet.
Once again I got lucky and each module could be made from one slab with very little left over.
When I join edges I simply used wood glue to attach them and then make sure they are on a smooth level surface while the glue dries. Then I turn them over and screw/glue some plywood reinforcement to the underside of the joint - making sure that the reinforcement patches will not interfere with any of the mounting arms or shelf bracket shoes.
When it comes time to join the slabs when mounting them to the shoes on the wall, the plywood reinforcement will be screw/glued to one slab and only screwed to the other. That way if need be it can be taken apart later.
Wrapping Up
So that is about it for framing the peninsula. I laid the door slabs in place and this is the current state of things. Note that we haven't yet added the arms that will support the upper lighting facia. Those will come later after we get the lower levels fastened down.
I want to call out two things that we noticed almost immediately after placing the door slabs. First, it became obvious that having square corners on the end was going to be problematic for folks walking around. While they provided more modeling real estate, they really got in the way when walking by. The decision was made to trim the corners with 45 degree miters.
Second, while assembling the aluminum end frame it seemed like there might be an issue with the cantilevered portion if someone leaned any significant weight on the outside corners. The frame tended to flex more than we were comfortable with. Trimming the corners shortened the "lever" which helped and we are confident that once the door slabs are actually attached to the cross arms the structural integrity will be such that there will be very little flex.
At this point the main benchwork is all roughed in. Our helix was already built for the previous layout and is already in its position in the corner of the room. Here is a brief walk-through of what we have now:
View from the entry door
View around the first corner
View behind the peninsula
The only benchwork we haven’t yet tackled is the section across the window. In the photos above we have a couple door slabs just sitting as placeholders, but they are temporary. Since this section needs to be removable, I’ll discuss that in its own post later.
