I attack a couple of small tasks that need to be completed. The track from Lompoc to White Hills climbs out on a steep grade. The roadbed needs to be supported above the flat homosote/plywood sandwich that will become Lompoc. I cut supports to go under the spline roadbed. They still need to be glued in place.
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I turn to the White Hills shelf which is also a homosote/plywood sandwich. The shelf is reasonably level along its length but needs some shims to make the shelf level front to back. It turned out that a 1/4 inch shim was perfect, so I cut some small pieces of left over roadbed masonite strips for the shims. Putting the shims in place, I drilled and screwed the shelf into place through the shelf brackets directly into the plywood. Now the shelf is quite solid and level all directions. I will need some grade at the back of the mine but that will come later.
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I have finished the major constuction tasks of the second level and the rest of the tasks -tracklaying, scenery, structures, operations aids - are more detailed and less "dirty". Because of this I spent a day procrastinating progressing by cleaning up the residual "mess" which was produced during the second level construction. I had put newspapers down on the first level to protect against some of the debris that is created during the construction of the walls, painting the walls, installing the supports and the roadbed before all the detail work can begin. I dragged out my wet/dry vac and vacuumed up the dust from the roadbed, the supports, the stiffeners and other horizontal surfaces. I put away tools and removed all the extraneous material that had accumulated over the extended period of construction.
Once the upper level was vacuumed, and the newspapers were carefully removed, there was still some dust on the first level. I carefully used the vacuum on the first level. Then I slowly worked my way all the way around the layout room sweeping the floor of everything that had managed to get all the way down. I swept the foam pads and reinstalled a few that had been removed for the duration of the construction.
Another post-construction need was the re-installation of the curtains below the fascia. Several of the velcro fasteners had come off the back side of the fascia. The 1/8 inch masonite I use is smooth on one side and rough on the other. I put the smooth side out and paint it. The back side does not provide for good adhesion of the adhesive that comes on the velcro strips. As a result they fall off the back of the fascia. That is not to say that the adhesive does not work. As luck would have it, many of the velcro strips that were attached to the fascia found their way to the curtain material itself and stuck with a vengence. The curtain is just black weed block and does not do well when the errant velcro strips are removed from its surface. I tried to be careful but in quite a few cases holes were created in the curtains. To reattach the velcro strips to the fascia, I used a hot glue gun, using yellow hot glue. It seems to have worked fine but time will be the ultimate judge.
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Double track and second level
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Santa Barbara on the left, west staging on the right with Lompoc above
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Surf above and Carpinteria below
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White Hills above and east staging below on the left and Goleta siding below and Devon siding above on the right
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The last minor job, I completed was attaching the new second level power bus to the command station. I did so and checked the voltage and got a good reading.
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So much for procrastination. The layout looks more attractive but I need to get the track down so that we can start running trains again.
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