Friday, April 10, 2009

I was framed!

Working for higher education has its perks, and since I had the day off today I was finally able to get started on this project.

Model Railroads don’t just hang in midair. They have to sit on “benchwork.” An evil word, to be sure, and one which I wish I didn’t have to deal with. I hate messing with benchwork. It’s a pain in the butt. My last layout, I used a traditional wood frame made of 2x4s, topped by a ½ inch thick sheet of cheap plywood. Of course, the wood was warped in about 5 minutes thanks to Waco’s wonderful humidity. So the whole layout was kind of “wompy-jogged.” Interesting fact: wood is heavy. You may not think so, since wood can float in water. But it is heavy. Now think: I’m still in college. This thing is going to be moved a number of times. See where I’m going? Bad idea.

So I was never really happy with the benchwork, but I put up with it, because unlike virtually everything else on the layout, you can’t rip up the benchwork and redo it. Once it’s done, it’s DONE.

So for this layout, I’m using “modern” construction method of pink/blue foam insulation. Of course, you still need some sort of frame to hold all this stuff. I wanted it to be lightweight, but still sturdy. My Dad had the suggestion that I use PVC pipe. The more I thought about this, the more I liked it. It’s strong, lightweight, and can be put together very quickly. My only concern was how I was going to build legs for it. Ideally you could get a coupling that was a corner with a third exit going down. But I didn’t see any of those online.

So, off I go to Lowe’s—the first of no doubt many trips.

The first thing I did at Lowe’s was check out the foam sheet situation. They had the blue variety, but only in ½ inch. 10 bucks a sheet. This was disappointing as I wanted 2 inch sheets. And $40 is a lot to spend on foam. So I decided to pass on that for the time being.

On to the PVC. When I finally found the stuff (oh yeah…the plumbing section, why didn’t I think of that), my eye caught hold of a 48” long pipe with threads on either end. Hey…that’s the exact height that I wanted my layout legs to be! I started looking at the various couplings available, and found a “T” that snaps on to the exterior of section of PVC, and has threads for screwing on the aforementioned legs. So…the legs problem has a potential solution.

Next I looked at the various lengths and sizes of PVC available. I had thought that I would want 1 inch, but quickly found out that was gigantic. ¾ inch looked about right. I was elated to find out that the pipe was available in 5 ft sections. I was worried that they would only have the big long sections and I would have to get someone to cut it for me. You can’t fit all this stuff in the back of a VW! So I picked up a scary-looking generic pipe cutting tool ($10 for something I’ll probably use once every 5 years at the most), five lengths of 5-foot ¾ inch pipe, 6 t-joints, and a bag of corners. I had initially planned on getting the foam, too, but I was disappointed with the ½ sheets and thought I would give Home Depot a try. So $45 later I’m on the way home.

I set up a cardboard table in the living room as a makeshift work bench—the guest bedroom (neĆ© layout room) doesn’t have a TV, and there was a Doctor Who marathon on. Woot! Now, I had already drawn out the entire plan before hand, so theoretically it was just a matter of getting the various lengths of tubing cut.

I quickly realized, however, that this wasn’t going to be that easy. You see, PVC couplings don’t butt sections of pipe end-to-end. No, it adds about 1 inch to the inside. So I knew that I had to reduce my measurements some in order to end up with a finished product the size that I wanted.

Now for those of you that don’t know me that well, let me just say this: I hate math. I’m only good at math if I have an HP calculator. Oh, I do all right with something tangible, like Lego bricks. I can usually tell with a casual glance if a piece is 6, 8, or 12 studs long, and how many Lego units high it is. But to do real-world math, in my head? Forget that. If I want to do math in my head, I have to imagine a sheet of paper, and then imagine a pencil writing out the figures and physically doing the work.

The long and short of it is that I was wracking my brain trying to figure out exactly what needed to be cut, and I finally came to the conclusion that since I didn’t have the foam yet, it didn’t really matter as long as I was consistent across the board. So I decided that ½ inch would do it, and cut my first length of pipe.

Well, that was easy. Those aforementioned pipe-cutting shears I got cut through the PVC like butter. I used a “Quik-Grip” to hold the pipe to the cardboard table. Those things are great, by the way. You should get some if you don’t have any. Keep them around the house and in the car. Take them with you to work. You’ll always be able to get a grip on the situation.

The frame came together very quickly after that first timid cut. I would say it took about 30 minutes to get the whole thing cut out. Of course, I ended up being short about 1 foot of pipe. Sigh. Story of my life. Time for another trip to the hardware store. I decided to check out Home Depot this time. I was elated to find that they have 1 inch thick foam sheets for only 12 bucks, which means I can get two for $25 and have enough left over for most of the scenery. So I’ll be foam-buying tomorrow.

Frustratingly, Home Depot only had the ginormous lengths of PVC pipe, and not the five-foot lengths. I also couldn’t find the leg-pipes (I had determined that I needed at least two more. So I had to skip over to Lowe’s to pick up more pipe. After Lowe’s, I hit up Hobby Lobby to see what kind of stuff they had. Sure, I’m not laying track yet, but I will be soon, so I might as well go ahead and buy a bunch.

Well that’s where I hit my first major snag in this layout.

I scan the shelves (by the way, the checkout lines were 10-people deep. It’s like this EVERY Time I go to Hobby Lobby). Anyway, I scan the shelves. You got your Woodland Scenics (hey! You can get DPM buildings here now, too!), you got your Bachmann junk. Your Model Power slightly-better-junk…..Hey, wait a minute….where’s the Atlas Snap-Track? I don’t see any track. I look more closely. I don’t see ANY Atlas product at all.

WTF!? They’re only the world’s largest track manufacturer! How can you NOT carry them! I don’t know if Hobby Lobby and Atlas had a falling out or what, but they aren’t carried by them anymore. I checked Atlas’ store locator. Nope, nada, zilch.

Deterred, I decided to stop by the Local Hobby Shop. Now I haven’t been in this place in about 5 years. The last time I was there, they had inventory from the 70s gathering dust. A sad site, but I thought I would do the community good and give them my business.

I was not encouraged when I drove up and saw dusty model rockets in the place where previously there were dusty trains. Come to find out, he got out of the model railroad business years back.

Well…Shit! That means the closest place to buy track was TEMPLE. And I’m not driving 40 miles to find some dinky local hobby shop that has very little inventory. I considered driving to Dallas on Monday to go to Discount Model Trains (A GREAT Train store—lots of good stuff!), but I looked around online and found discounttrainsonline.com (not related to the aforementioned store). They offered flat $7.95 shipping on any size order. I quickly calculated and realized that I would spend double that in gas getting to Dallas. So I gave in and placed a $55 order with them. Hopefully they are good!

Anyway, after all that jazz and running around I was dead tired so after cutting the final piece and putting the frame together, I called it a day. I’m still not sure about the layout legs, yet…they are a little iffy. But more on that in the next post—and I’ll try to get some pictures up, too…

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