Sorry about not getting the second post up last night, life stepped in and delayed that.
Now is as good of time as any for the other ….
The upper valance received 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of satin black paint. I finished it off with landscape fabric for the skirting. It's complete all the way through Jefferson. The valance from there on will not be storage but more like a light weight box kite on it's side. For now it's on hold as I really want to start laying track. Enjoy the vista view a little longer……….
The backdrop from the yard all the way through Jefferson will be directly on the builder's textured drywall so it received 2 coats of mud to fill in the texture and was sanded smooth. That also got 2 coats of primer and a single coat of blue just to give it some color. It will get a 2nd coat when the backdrop scene gets added. Right now I really want to start laying track.
All of the 2” foam subterrain has been cut to fit and glued in place using Liquid Nails for projects. A quick layer of gray paint went down in the yard and Siskiyou Lumber while a light tan went down for the rest of the layout to tone down the pink foam. I'm thinking it will need a second coat but at least I can start figuring out the exact track arrangement.
I had a power failure the other day when I was in the layout room. Being deep in the garage with no windows in any of the garage it was DARK. I added a power outage flashlight to the room for a simple emergency lighting. Here is the link in case anyone wants it
Power outage Flashlight
Lighting has been the biggest PITA. I tried various types of LED strip lighting, multiple strands and still wasn't getting the results I was after. I finally decided that LED strips are not for me and I wasn't going to spend any more effort chasing that.
Looking for alternatives for under mount lighting I found a guy on You Tube with a nice BNSF layout using T5 LED fixtures that he was getting good results from, and at a good price on Amazon. His You Tube link is railfan220 His T5 light video is here T5 light video
Being I have zero patients I rushed out and over paid for a similar one at the big box store (which got returned). Being it was 4' at 1800lm it was close enough to know that I was on the right track but this was not “it”. I figured that dual strips of 2200lm might just be good enough. These T5 lights can be daisy chained together for 15 lights, the connecting cables are provided, so no extra outlet is required for me. They also come with solid connecting terminals that you can plug them into each other but I went with the cables to make the 90' turns.
At $36 for a 6 pack of them, and with a special deal from Amazon offering $60 off if you apply for the their credit card (I'll cancel that next month), I ordered 4 boxes to get the 50' of layout covered with a dual set of lights. Here is the Amazon link for those interested T5 Lights
Being they were ordered from Amazon they were delivered on a Sunday. Man these things have a nice small profile. Made in the USA, included all of the cables, wires and mounting hardware for most situations these things are great. They have a 5 year warranty so I hoping the will hold up well for my application.
Again, I have zero patients so I quickly tore open the first case and tacked up the first one. These things are bright! I hung a second one and was thinking that it might too bright. I rehung the first one down the center and it seems to be working well with just a single light. I chained the rest of the first set of 6 temporarily to see how I like them. My wife says l reminded her of Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway clicking the little light while looking at his Helen Hunt picture.
So here is how the layout looks tonight (in 2019) without the lights on and with them on. So far I am happy and have started playing with track configurations…. You can see the emergency light plugged in too
![[Image: vWNFlLG.jpghttp:]](https://i.imgur.com/vWNFlLG.jpghttp://)
![[Image: zK1oWoM.jpghttp:]](https://i.imgur.com/zK1oWoM.jpghttp://)
Now is as good of time as any for the other ….
The upper valance received 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of satin black paint. I finished it off with landscape fabric for the skirting. It's complete all the way through Jefferson. The valance from there on will not be storage but more like a light weight box kite on it's side. For now it's on hold as I really want to start laying track. Enjoy the vista view a little longer……….
The backdrop from the yard all the way through Jefferson will be directly on the builder's textured drywall so it received 2 coats of mud to fill in the texture and was sanded smooth. That also got 2 coats of primer and a single coat of blue just to give it some color. It will get a 2nd coat when the backdrop scene gets added. Right now I really want to start laying track.
All of the 2” foam subterrain has been cut to fit and glued in place using Liquid Nails for projects. A quick layer of gray paint went down in the yard and Siskiyou Lumber while a light tan went down for the rest of the layout to tone down the pink foam. I'm thinking it will need a second coat but at least I can start figuring out the exact track arrangement.
I had a power failure the other day when I was in the layout room. Being deep in the garage with no windows in any of the garage it was DARK. I added a power outage flashlight to the room for a simple emergency lighting. Here is the link in case anyone wants it
Power outage Flashlight
Lighting has been the biggest PITA. I tried various types of LED strip lighting, multiple strands and still wasn't getting the results I was after. I finally decided that LED strips are not for me and I wasn't going to spend any more effort chasing that.
Looking for alternatives for under mount lighting I found a guy on You Tube with a nice BNSF layout using T5 LED fixtures that he was getting good results from, and at a good price on Amazon. His You Tube link is railfan220 His T5 light video is here T5 light video
Being I have zero patients I rushed out and over paid for a similar one at the big box store (which got returned). Being it was 4' at 1800lm it was close enough to know that I was on the right track but this was not “it”. I figured that dual strips of 2200lm might just be good enough. These T5 lights can be daisy chained together for 15 lights, the connecting cables are provided, so no extra outlet is required for me. They also come with solid connecting terminals that you can plug them into each other but I went with the cables to make the 90' turns.
At $36 for a 6 pack of them, and with a special deal from Amazon offering $60 off if you apply for the their credit card (I'll cancel that next month), I ordered 4 boxes to get the 50' of layout covered with a dual set of lights. Here is the Amazon link for those interested T5 Lights
Being they were ordered from Amazon they were delivered on a Sunday. Man these things have a nice small profile. Made in the USA, included all of the cables, wires and mounting hardware for most situations these things are great. They have a 5 year warranty so I hoping the will hold up well for my application.
Again, I have zero patients so I quickly tore open the first case and tacked up the first one. These things are bright! I hung a second one and was thinking that it might too bright. I rehung the first one down the center and it seems to be working well with just a single light. I chained the rest of the first set of 6 temporarily to see how I like them. My wife says l reminded her of Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway clicking the little light while looking at his Helen Hunt picture.
So here is how the layout looks tonight (in 2019) without the lights on and with them on. So far I am happy and have started playing with track configurations…. You can see the emergency light plugged in too
Modleing the Jefferson Branch in HO on the Southern Pacific