My wife and I are cleaning, sorting and reorganizing our house.

On the w/e, we decided to get rid of some large, folding closet doors from our basement. As I took them apart, my eyes lit up because I realized they would work well for a model train layout! You could either splice 1 or 2 of them together, or even all of them. They could work well for an HO shunting/shelf layout or, even better, for an N-scale layout. They're approx. 2’ wide by 5’8” tall and a couple inches thick (very sturdy).

We’re planning to throw them out when the garbage is picked up on Thursday as we want to quickly de-clutter our place.

If I didn't already have 3 small layouts on the go, I'd seriously consider using one of these. Things like this sure get the mind whirring, thinking of the possibilities!

Please see my post below -- I'm now offering these to any GTA members who can come by to pick them up.

Cheers,
Rob

Sure,one of the best N Scale loop layouts I ever built was on a 36" x 82" hollow core door (known as a HCD)..I seen a small HO switching layout on a HCD and it was rather nice.

As for folding doors one would need to use foam for the base.

Brakie Wrote:Sure,one of the best N Scale loop layouts I ever built was on a 36" x 82" hollow core door (known as a HCD)..I seen a small HO switching layout on a HCD and it was rather nice.

As for folding doors one would need to use foam for the base.

Hi Larry,

Yes, these are hollow doors. I forgot to mention that. Initially, they were 2 folding doors. But, when you separate them, you end up with 4 pieces (24" wide by 5'8" long). So any one of these pieces could be used for something MRR-related.

Rob

A guy from work offered me a pair of old-style flat-faced bi-fold doors, with each section 16" wide. I shortened them to 65" so that they'd fit into a closet off my workshop (under the basement stairs), then, with some 1"x4"s, made them into a bookcase for my train magazine collection (and a lot of other junk).
I used all four sections, with one sitting directly on the floor to help distribute the not-inconsiderable weight. An upright 1"x4" at each corner and the midpoint makes it very strong and stable.
Because of the location, I couldn't get a full-width view through the doorway:


Wayne

The completed part of my N scale layout is on a hollow core door. I even hinged it on one side so I can work on the wiring without crawling underneath. You could secure the smaller pieces together using biscuits or dowels and some glue since there is usually a good 1" wide strip of wood on the both ends to secure the hinges.

Are there any Gauge members living in the GTA that would like to have these doors? They're free if you can come & pick them up! My wife wants me to take them to the dump in the next couple days.

Rob

Around here, I just put stuff like that out by the road before garbage day - if it's anything at all useable, someone will pick it up. We're supposed to notify the collection company if we have large items to be picked up, and they want a detailed list of what will be there. One day, on the afternoon before pick-up day, I was moving stuff to the roadside from my garage, which is located well-behind the house. As I came into view of the road with the second load of stuff, it was apparent that the first batch was already gone. If I put out anything metal, someone usually stops as I'm placing it at the roadside, and will wait if I indicate that there's more.
We recently replaced quite a bit of wall-to-wall carpet with hardwood and I put both the carpet and underpadding by the road for garbage day. It was cut into 4' widths and rolled and tied (as specified by the collection company). I had cut the carpet before lifting it from the floor, so the edges were not especially neat. Within an hour, all of the carpet was gone. I don't know if somebody has a very long, narrow hallway to carpet, but at least somebody's getting further use from it - it was clean and in good condition, although fairly old, and as Cousin Eddie would have said, "That there's a quality ah-tem, Clark."

On another occasion, I put a large dehumidifier by the road. Around here, you're required, by law, to purchase a $20.00 sticker to place on anything containing Freon - supposedly to cover disposal costs for the Freon - even if the item has been run-over by seventeen cement trucks and is completely Freon-free. While the dehumidifier was still in working order, it iced-up badly whenever it was used. I skipped purchasing the sticker and, sure enough, the garbage guys put their own "You need to buy a proper sticker" sticker on it, and left it by the roadside. My wife said, "Looks like you might as well put it back in the garage until next week and, in the meantime, go get a sticker." "Naw", I replied, "Somebody will pick it up."
Well, it sat there for the rest of the day, then, just as I was about to bring it back in, another garbage truck pulled up and stopped. (At that time, our road was often used by these trucks as it was one of the better access roads to the dump, and was used by trucks working any in-town route.) A guy hopped out of the passenger side of the cab, walk backed to the lonely appliance and picked it up. Alright! However, instead of throwing it into the back of the truck, he carried it to the cab and very carefully placed it on the floor, then hopped in and away they went. My guess is that somebody knew how to fix it and it's probably humming away and doing its job today in somebody's basement. Much better, in my opinion, that simply being scrapped.

Wayne

doctorwayne Wrote:Around here, I just put stuff like that out by the road before garbage day - if it's anything at all useable, someone will pick it up. We're supposed to notify the collection company if we have large items to be picked up, and they want a detailed list of what will be there. ... My guess is that somebody knew how to fix it and it's probably humming away and doing its job today in somebody's basement. Much better, in my opinion, that simply being scrapped.
Wayne

Thanks, Wayne. We might just try that. We've already "off-loaded" two very small bikes that our sons had outgrown. We put a sign on them saying "FREE" and, after a couple days, both of them went.

Cheers,
Rob

RobertInOntario Wrote:

doctorwayne Wrote:Around here, I just put stuff like that out by the road before garbage day - if it's anything at all useable, someone will pick it up. We're supposed to notify the collection company if we have large items to be picked up, and they want a detailed list of what will be there. ... My guess is that somebody knew how to fix it and it's probably humming away and doing its job today in somebody's basement. Much better, in my opinion, that simply being scrapped.
Wayne

Thanks, Wayne. We might just try that. We've already "off-loaded" two very small bikes that our sons had outgrown. We put a sign on them saying "FREE" and, after a couple days, both of them went.

Cheers,
Rob

Here in Northern California (Stockton) we have what I call "okie Trash Day" about once or twice a year. i live in an apartment, so I don't have to deal with it, but you can usually spot mostly rednecks in old pickups running around the neighborhood looking for treasures, and though I joke about it, more power to 'em. Like the good Doc, I'd much rather see someone get some further use out of an item that someone paid good money for originally. However, aside from Okie trash day, if you try to put something like an old appliance out for sale here, if you put a sign on it saying "free", it'll sit. So you have to put a sign on it saying "$20" or something small like that to get someone to just pick it up and take off with it. Sign of the times around here I guess.... *sigh*

Down here in Lehigh Acres, Florida, it's known as the "Curbside Mall." I once put an older 26" TV out there on Saturday afternoon. (Trash day for me is Monday.) I went into the garage to get an old MDF shelf unit left by the previous tenant that had some water damage along the bottom and when I came out the TV was gone ... 6 or 7 minutes! The shelves lasted about an hour.

Tom Wrote:Here in Northern California (Stockton) we have what I call "okie Trash Day" about once or twice a year. i live in an apartment, so I don't have to deal with it, but you can usually spot mostly rednecks in old pickups running around the neighborhood looking for treasures, and though I joke about it, more power to 'em. Like the good Doc, I'd much rather see someone get some further use out of an item that someone paid good money for originally. However, aside from Okie trash day, if you try to put something like an old appliance out for sale here, if you put a sign on it saying "free", it'll sit. So you have to put a sign on it saying "$20" or something small like that to get someone to just pick it up and take off with it. Sign of the times around here I guess.... *sigh*

We used to have a similar bi-annual pick-up (and I liked it much better). They'd pick up just about anything unless the curb crawlers beat 'em to it. However, the week of these collections was a real event, and you'd see the full-time scavengers working right alongside some pretty-posh individuals driving very expensive cars - no one was embarrassed or looked down upon. I used to go out picking up firewood, as anybody who had cut down a tree in their backyard wasn't permitted to put it curbside other than those two days.
One year I had to re-single my garage, a fairly good-sized building over 125 years old. It was the equivalent of a two car garage, with an upstairs, plus a rear addition about 15'x25', which I sometimes use as a workshop. At one time, it had been a house. Well, some of the roof deck needed to be replaced too, so we had to strip the entire roof of shingles, all five layers worth. The bottom one was was cedar shingles.
Now, scrap building materials cannot be put in the garbage here - you either rent a dumpster bin or take the stuff to the landfill yourself, where you pay to get rid of it. Well, when "big pick-up day" arrived, I had 20 banana boxes at the curb, each with a section of newspaper immediately under the box lid, blocking the view of the contents. Another twenty boxes made the trip across town to my father-in-law's place, too. (Twenty boxes were the cubic equivalent of material allowed per household.) A couple of people stopped to check out what might be in the boxes, but, for some reason, weren't interested when they looked. The following pick-up, another twenty boxes waited at the curb, with another twenty at the other end of town. After the third collection, the final forty boxes were gone.

Wayne

Like a couple of you guys, I just leave unwanted stuff out on the sidewalk. Nothing trashy, or dumpster worthy, just stuff that we don't need anymore, or got soemthing newer.

One day, we were having a new kitchen set delivered. The one we had wasn't in bad shape, we just gotten something newer. I took the table apart, put the top and legs on the sidewalk. Went back made a "Free" sign and taped it to the table, went back to get the chairs, when I returned, not even five minutes, some guy already had the table loaded up in his pick-up."I was just going to knock on your door to see if you had the chairs."

Of course, when my nieghbors put stuff out, I have gone and picked up some nice things, which I'm sure, eventually a couple of years later, ended up back on the sidewalk.

eightyeightfan1 Wrote:Like a couple of you guys, I just leave unwanted stuff out on the sidewalk. Nothing trashy, or dumpster worthy, just stuff that we don't need anymore, or got soemthing newer.

One day, we were having a new kitchen set delivered. The one we had wasn't in bad shape, we just gotten something newer. I took the table apart, put the top and legs on the sidewalk. Went back made a "Free" sign and taped it to the table, went back to get the chairs, when I returned, not even five minutes, some guy already had the table loaded up in his pick-up."I was just going to knock on your door to see if you had the chairs."

Of course, when my nieghbors put stuff out, I have gone and picked up some nice things, which I'm sure, eventually a couple of years later, ended up back on the sidewalk.

We used to have an officially endorsed day from the city called "Large Garbage Disposal Day". It was when you could leave out stuff that normally doesn't get picked up. So you'd see furniture, applicances, etc, etc. Some of the nicer parts of town, you'd even get big TV's etc. We used to call it large garbage exchange day. Some friends and I got a fridge that would not fit down our stairs - we put it back at our curb, and it was gone 10 minutes later.



Andrew

doctorwayne Wrote:

Wayne

Are those Cereal boxes? and to think i almost went out and bought a ton of magazine boxes!

doctorwayne Wrote:Around here, I just put stuff like that out by the road before garbage day - if it's anything at all useable, someone will pick it up. ...
Wayne

That reminds me of something that happened like maybe 20 years ago. We had just moved our business and had a few things that we put out back while we got things organized in our new location. My bad, I went out back the next day and found that some stuff we put there was already missing. One day I bought a bunch of stuff at an auction and among them was two large sheets of aluminum clad fiberboard. Very heavy and not easy tow work with so [Insert bright idea icon here], I put them out back in the alley. Sure enough, the next morning they too disappeared, much to my delight. A few days later, I went back out into the alley and what do I find? You guessed it, the sneaky thieves didn't know what to do with them either, so they brought them back. I'm not sure what I did to get rid of these things, but from that point on, whenever we had anything large we'd do like you Wayne, we'd put it someplace where it could be found and taken away. Some things, like the refrigerator, took a few days, but it too went, even though it wasn't working at the time.