January 5, 2011

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

So it’s been a little while since I last posted an update, but can say there’s been only a slight amount of progress towards the basement, due to family visiting and spending time with people who want to spend time with me. Life does have to spend some time out of the basement at some point y’know!

Anyhow, a few updates with photos and links to follow:

I’ve got the workbench area painted, and have been building a few code 83 turnouts (2 #6 regular and 1 #6 wye so far) for use within the wye leading to the workbench track. I’ve also taken advantage of PWRS’s sale on Atlas Code 83 flextrack and ordered a fair amount of it for use within the staging yard and helix. Should be showing up sometime reasonably soon. I’ll get the staging yard trackage done first most likely, though time will tell exactly how well that plan goes!

Cam and I also went to acquire several sheets of 3/4″ G1S plywood and had the helpful folks at Home Depot do the bulk of the cutting of the sheets into strips useful as “shelf brackets” of sorts for the trackage along the peninsula. We also got a few pieces cut for the staging yard and the major flat spots like Parksville. Several hours worth of debating, planning, etc. have led to a near final decision to build a 1 turn helix at the end of the peninsula to lengthen the run between Bryn and the Parksville industrial area (namely, the team track and National Silicates). A fair amount of 3D thinking to make sure that one decision doesn’t sink the chances elsewhere along the line.

Lastly, I spent a fair amount of time in both CadRail and Illustrator coming up with a plan to have “Goodship Lollipop” help us with building the helicies and corner segments. So for those not in the know (which would be everyone except Cam, Michaelea and myself), Goodship Lollipop is a company which owns two computer controlled cutting/routing tables. Basically, save me the pain and frustration of having to cut perfectly perpendicular corners on curved segments to build the helix pieces. Was a little expensive, but likely a lot less fustrating and less than doing them on a laser cutter. Thanks to Timothy Horton for giving me the inspiration to have a computer help me out with those bits. Onto the Bolt Supply House to get the ready rod and associated hardware to get the helix into a more 3 dimensional shape!

Cheers!