Found the house to be way too hot when I got home this evening. After a meager dinner, decided to head down to the basement as I figured it’d be cooler than upstairs where I would otherwise spend my evening.

I was right. Numerous degrees cooler. (or as Jason Shron would say – absolute zero).

Got to work on putting cork down on the bits of secured benchwork installed yesterday. Have I mentioned how much I like using contact cement for application of cork to the subroadbed?

Also took care of a couple other bits of benchwork as well.

Now to bed where it’s still too warm…

Been a little while since anything of substance has taken place in the basement, and I blame it on desires to get outside and to also get out of the city. The camping trip to Waterton was great as was the shopping in Kalispell.

But after no progress in several weeks, I wanted to get something done. While I’m still working on getting a curved turnout built, I figured other benchwork could be worked on.

So Cam came over and we tested, drew track centres using the sweepsticks from fast-tracks and the secured the subroadbed for the trackage between Bryn and Nanaimo. As I mentioned in the last post, I decided to put this little bit of trackage out of main view to provide for a longer distance visually and physically to reinforce the fact Bryn isn’t exactly next door to Nanaimo’s outer reaches. So it’s a bit of a squeeze underneath Parksville, but we got it secured well enough.

Next up is the trackage out of the main helix towards Courtenay. Risers were cut, attached, track boards drawn on and then secured. We got mostly into the south siding switch of Mud Bay before we found the rolling stools a little hard to be sitting on for extended periods of time. Still glad we had them though!

Next weekend will be spent primarily cleaning up as next Monday sees my hot water tank being replaced with a tankless hot water heater. Aside from the gas bill going down a little bit, the biggest benefit with relation to the layout is the removal of a head-knocker of a flue from the HWT. No nod-unders going into the staging area!

I promise to post pictures soon, likely after things have been cleaned up!

In what’s sounding like a rather similar theme to the last few weeks, Cam again came over to push some more progress on the layout.  Except we needed a bit of materials.  Specifically, wider strips of 3/4″ ply.  After some measurements in my Kia Rondo, it was determined that indeed, the car can actually hold strips of 8′ long materials.  And thus, off to Home Depot to pick up a sheet and have it ripped into various lengths.  A couple 6″ wide strips, a few 3″ strips and the balance in 4″ wide strips.

Why 4″ wide strips?  Reason for them is for support of the Summit region of the upper deck.  We constructed the usual grid of front and fingers together, but owing to the height of the upper deck, they ended up resting on top of the wall.  Kinda tough to secure using screws through the web of the plywood as it would do nothing but split the wood.  So, we backed the entire shebang with 4″ wide strips, and then secured everything to the back of the wall. The plywood will eventually be hidden behind trees and a mountainside. Some additional shims underneath the plywood fingers ensured we’re stable and level.

The upper deck is now definitely going to be in the range of 68″ from the floor.  Awfully high up for those who aren’t of average-or-taller male height.  I’m debating the inclusion of turnouts and other derailment prone trackwork that high up, but we’ll see.