This past week was spent working on getting the workbench area into shape. Specifically the biggest thing needing to be done was the relocation of the electrical outlet. During the planning of the layout, I envisioned having a relatively high-up workbench and to work on stuff on a bar stool which I had used on the previous workbench. Thus, I sited the electrical outlets at around 43-ish inches from the floor.

Turns out that height is smack dab in the way of the trackage coming off the wye under the stairs for my programming/test track. Whoops.

Thankfully I did leave myself enough electrical wire to be able to move the outlet down enough to put it underneath the trackage, so out the outlet box came (and thankfully the back of that wall was still open!) and a new hole cut. I fashioned a patch from another scrap of 1/2″ plywood and secured it to the wall in place and then started to sand it smooth with the rest of the plywood wall.

Ever have that dreaded feeling that once you clean one spot that you’ve now got to clean everything else to ensure that one clean spot doesn’t highlight the dirt everywhere else? Guess what? I ended up sanding that one spot so smooth that it would stand out from the rest of the plywood wall. So, out came a second sheet of 80 grit sandpaper and started sanding the wall smooth. Then came the wood filler, patch the cracks as best I could and then sand again with 150 grit. Following that is a fresh coat of primer, which will be sanded smooth to be followed by another coat of primer and then two coats of black paint, each with 400 grit sandpaper. At the end, I’m still undecided as to what will be on the wall other than the test track…

Here then are some shots of the progress on the wall after the patch has been installed and outlets moved:

So Murray showed up today with the ladder (a little giant system, which allows for an uneven base (ie: stairs) for it to work in a stepladder configuration) so I can now finish the painting. Cam and Murray also brought a chopsaw later in the day and proceeded to build a fair amount of the workbench. Time constraints for Murray (and by extension Cam whose stuff was in Murray’s truck) meant they had to leave a little before the task was complete, but the stuff they did leave were tasks I could handle easily on my own.

Except for the fact I decided to take advantage of the chop saw and finish another task I’ve been itching to get done, and that’s installing the accordian door for the utility room. Voila!

Granted, I’m not done with the door quite yet as I’ve got the casing/baseboard/whatever-the-heck-you-call-that-moulding to go around the doorway, but the major bit is done and it works as well as can be expected for a relatively cheap vinyl accordian door. At least the aesthetics are satisfied!

Spent a bit of time today going through the turnout needs for the layout. As in getting a substantial amount of sticker shock at how much I’m needing to spend to get the stuff to build the 68 turnouts in the layout. Thankfully it’s still nowhere near what it would cost if I bought them, but still…I think I’m going to order just what’s necessary now to build the skeletons of the turnouts and then the QuickSticks later.

Of course, this isn’t including the massive amount of flextrack needing to be acquired to connect the turnouts or the parts needed to actually control the turnouts (and the polarity of the frog) themselves.

Still waiting for the ladder, chop saw and friends to help out with getting the workbench installed and the partition wall built…All in due time I guess.

Admittedly, this website should’ve been up far before this point, but on the behest of those on the CanModelTrains Yahoo! group, I decided to get something going. I’ll also confess to being quite encouraged by Tim Warris of Fast-Tracks fame and his blog about the Bronx Terminal of the CNJ and it’s construction.

So at this point, the basement walls still need a second coat of paint, the stairway painting needs cutting in (need special stepladder for that) and a second coat of paint, windows need casing, doorway needs to be installed for the Utility Room, and lastly, the workbench area needs the floor primed and painted before I can claim the basement development complete and then I can move forward to getting things built. Oh yeah, I guess baseboards would be nice too.

Happy Thanksgiving!