By The Beach Extension

It's March, the Australian summer is now over, and the layout extension that I first talked about building just before Christmas is now in place after a rather inglorious past few months of set-backs and near misses. So much so, that for a bloke who isn't short of words, I don't really want to talk much about it. Believe me when I say there were more than a few times when I just wanted to palm the layout off to someone else, and start over. Or walk away from the hobby altogether.

Thankfully, the rebuild is now behind me. I can get to work laying some new track and having the layout ready to operate in time for Philden's next exhibition. So without going into too much detail, I'll let the following photos show you how I almost butchered a perfectly good layout, and how I somehow managed to bring it back from the brink of disaster to now have a great opportunity to build something that will be better than the original.

Remember the antique signal box plaques from my post Making Awful Look Awesome?

They not only disintegrated when trying to remove them, but gouged out my timber panelling....

....so I cut a new panel using 3 mm fibreboard lined with the same self-adhesive steel checker-plate film I used here.

Remember the exhibitor plaques from my past layouts that once guarded the mouse-hole door?

The panel is 3 mm MDF board with blue sky backdrop on the other side. Removing them almost tore through the backdrop.

It called for another cut-out panel to be glued in place over the top and a strip of film to cover the removed gold trim.

So after months of problems with matching the paint to the original layout's timber stain, almost butchering the sky backdrop at the mouse-hole end of the layout and destroying once valuable railway artefacts that were glued a little-too-well to the layout, I could finally remove the door that once covered the mouse-hole exit, and join the new section to the existing layout.

To do so required a flush-fit between the two sections, so I had to remove the gold timber trim that runs around the bottom perimeter of the fascia from the mouse-hole end of the current layout. This not only destroyed the paintwork, but also gouged holes from the timber fascia, calling for ample amounts of wood putty. Already aware that I was unable to match the timber stain on this original section, I simply cut a strip of self-adhesive checker-plate contact film and hid the mess. The two sections will bolt together flush, and no-one will ever see it anyway.

The former exhibitor's plaques from my past layouts now have a new home on the bottom of each end panel.

The re-painted leg panels bolted back into the same places. There are now only 3 instead of 4.

As for the vintage metal railway poster plaques featuring the retro poster girls I wrote about on my post replacing legs with panels, they bent completely out of shape when I removed them. At around $7 Australian plus postage on eBay, they are cheap enough to replace. I have another 4 on their way from the UK, so there will be another 2 to fit between the Blackpool girl and the gold trim above the exhibitor plaques, and likewise on the other end panel.

Before: the layout with a short 700 mm two track staging shelf and bulky lid that was clumsy to move.

After: the layout with a new 800 mm extension to be filled with scenery, and a new lightweight lid.

Most people might argue that for a small layout, this seems like a whole lotta' work for nothing. And I'd be inclined to agree with you. Once more having to work off a concrete garage floor in the heat of an Australian summer, and having everything go wrong, has resulted in my adding just an extra 100 mm of length to my layout. Hardly worth the effort involved you might say. What it has rid the layout of however, is the bulky and clumsy lid and staging shelf set-up that was an aftermath of my failed attempt to originally build this as a double-layered layout back in late 2016. The old staging shelf was a waste of space. I now have an extra 800 mm long section of 300 mm wide blank layout space to work with to complete a new scene. From "Somewhere in New South Wales, at a railway station far, far, away....." to "By The Beach", my small layout will soon have two very different destinations.

The new beach extension bolts flush to the layout and shares the middle leg panel.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I could have built this layout a whole lot simpler. Even an oversight with my measurements for the mouse-hole exits between the two sections called for some last minute cutting, filing and gnashing of the teeth. But perhaps the biggest disappointment I faced was not being able to match the original timber stain to any of the staging shelves, leg panels and finally this new extension. That in itself almost led me to walk away from this project and start over with a new layout.

While the gloss Indian Red spray paint is by no means a perfect match, with the extension bolted in place to the layout, I'm prepared to call it good enough and get on with working on the layout. The next step is to get the 3 mm clear acrylic perspex panels measured and cut to fit the new extension to the right in the below picture.

Let the IKEA fit-out below begin! Starting with the 700 mm x 800 mm EKET storage display.

Perhaps the greatest benefit from adding the new beach extension is that I built it to accommodate plans to replace my desk and hide the growing corner of model train clutter that just seems to accumulate. I needed the gap between the two above leg panels to be wide enough to accommodate the 700 mm wide x 800 mm high EKET storage display unit I'd had my eyes on at IKEA. Another of these will soon stand at the other end of the layout with a new, narrower desk to stand between the two, while the tall white stool that is visible in one of the above photos is my new operators seat and will accompany me to the next few model train exhibitions.

Not only has the first EKET halved the amount of clutter from the floor, but the few accessories I also picked up from IKEA help keep the area looking neat and tidy. After all, my small layout does occupy prime living room space in our small apartment. And you've gotta' love the sound of all those Swedish names they give their products. My model railway and train magazines are now all safely tucked away in the TJENA magazine holders. My modelling bits and bobs are hidden from view in the grey FJALLA storage box. The photo of my wife Denise and I enjoying the sunset at Margaret River in Western Australia on our recent 25th Wedding Anniversary is mounted in the RIBBA frame, while a scented candle and small artificial plant Denise helped me pick out are resting in white metal VACKERT baskets. And there's even room for my signed Marcos Ambrose model NASCAR (not from IKEA, obviously).

Next up, I'm going to dismantle the desk, sort through even more clutter then head back to IKEA to complete the make-over below the layout. By the time I'm finished, it won't just be a new desk, it will be a new creative work space environment, whatever that is called. But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

See also; When paint doesn't match and Almost ready to re-fit

Almost ready to re-fit

The new layout extension is finished, and almost ready to re-fit to the leg panels. The top has been fully replaced with much lighter 3 mm MDF board decorated in vinyl steel checker-plate wrap, and reinforced with gold painted picture frame edging to stop it from warping. Getting it to sit flush atop the removable backdrop and front perspex panel however, required me to trim 5 mm from the height of the painted sky backdrop and clear acrylic perspex. Something which was much harder than it sounds. An afternoon of cutting, sanding, checking and sanding again, finally achieved the above neat fit.

After trying to remove the vintage aluminium station destination names from the now scrapped staging shelf, and discovering they either bent out of shape or gouged holes in the timber, I had to make a decision on what to do next. Going nil from four was hardly the vote of confidence I was looking for before trying to remove the 4 station names on my main layout ahead of re-painting the timber fascia. So I thought I would hold the freshly painted Indian Red extension roughly in place alongside the original layout to see how closely the paint matched. As you can see in the two shots below, I decided it just wasn't worth the risk of stripping back the layout to re-paint it.

A close-enough match. My original timber-stained layout on the left, and the freshly painted layout extension on the right.

The new section doesn't really have a front timber fascia, as the scenery will fall down to the waterline.

From the front of the layout, the new extension only has a short strip of timber along the front where the scenery will drop down from rail height to the waterline. The visible timber fascia is a whole lot less noticeable than the mismatch of colour I had on the old staging shelf, and I think that the Dulux Gloss Indian Red spray paint is a great match for the darker areas that timber stain seems to take to in different ways, depending on the grain of the timber.

And even though the rear is rarely going to be on display, it looks like a uniform match.

The three leg panels that are going to hold this layout up are now painted in the same Gloss Indian Red as the layout extension in the left of the above picture, and waiting downstairs in my garage to come back up into our apartment and be reassembled. All that remains is for the gold trim at the base of the layout to be removed on the side where the two sections will join flush and share the same leg panel. I can then get to work laying track and having this running in time for May's Brisbane Model Train Show.

A flashback to when I first drew up plans for an extension to replace the staging shelf. I re-used the leg panels, salvaged the signs and dumped the rest straight in the rubbish bin. The main layout scored a new top, but remains untouched.

Best of all, as I no longer have to strip, sand and spray paint the timber fascia and frame of my layout, I can now just concentrate on replacing the desk that stands beneath the layout. Starting tomorrow with a trip to IKEA to buy the first piece that will stand beneath the new extension and finally get all my train crap up off the floor that can be seen in the right of picture. I can then reassemble the layout above it, and look at replacing my current desk with something more practical.

Of course, the advantage to building a small layout, is that an even smaller extension is not going to take me that long to complete. For the few model train shows that I will take Philden to in 2018, I'll be reversing the backdrop and displaying my layout from the other side, with the new extension operating as hidden staging. Come 2019, and I'm sure that Philden and the Phills Harbour extension will be 100% complete, by which time I'll already be stuck into building that new desktop N scale layout I've been hinting at. But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

See also; When paint doesn't match...

When paint doesn't match...

I hate trying to match paint colours. I don't think it is at all possible. Not if you want to get a 100% match anyway. I tried it a year ago when building my staging shelf for Philden, and the colour matching service offered by a leading hardware store was a poor match at best. Ignoring the fact that the rich railway red timber look I was going for didn't at all match my desk (above), the store matched Australian Jarrah all-in-one stain-and-varnish (below right) had left me pretty disappointed since day one. It looked nothing like the original, (below left). The end result looked more like watered-down paint than a timber stain-and-varnish.

The original and now no-longer produced Cabot's stain-and-varnish Gloss Australian Jarrah on the left, and the hardware store's poor attempt to match it on the right.

Believe it or not, the above example actually took 3 attempts to get it not even close. So 18 months after the above debacle, I sought out some advice on how to get the new section of layout to match with the original layout section I had stained-and-varnished back in 2015 before Cabot's decided to discontinue making a Gloss Australian Jarrah. The team member suggested using another brand who were now producing a Rich Jarrah, that strictly judging by the colour sample patches in store looked a very, very close match to my original layout section.

Taking the hardware team member's advice to use the Feast Watson's Gloss Rich Jarrah stain-and-varnish instead? Well, it's brown mate, and looks nothing like the display board sample.

I think you can tell by the above first coat that it looked nothing like it. It looked as brown as a dog poo on a hot day. Going back to the store with the above photo, I was explained that to undo the staining of the timber would require sanding the timber back to its bare state. But there was still no guarantee that anything was ever going to match the original and now discontinued Australian Jarrah stain. This was the fourth time I had tried and failed. It was time to think outside of the box. What if I just painted it instead?

The Dulux duramax spray paint range requires no priming on wood or metal (it does on plastic), and is touch dry and able to be re-coated in just 20 minutes. I used just 1 can of the Gloss Indian Red to apply 4 coats on my extension.

Ignoring the sales team leader, (or whatever they call themselves), whose answer after my purchasing a $40 can of stain-and-varnish had just failed, was to lightly sand the surface before applying a $63 can of enamel primer, followed by a $47 can of tinted gloss enamel, (we're up to $150 here, or half the price of a new model locomotive), I took a Dulux duramax spray effects brochure home to run by my wife while deciding just what to do over a cup of coffee. Amongst their colour choices was a Gloss Indian Red, in a spray can that required no priming on wood or metal, and could be re-coated after just 20 minutes drying time. Best of all, it cost just $12 per can.

Sure, masking the area to be spray painted took some time and care, but spray painting the new layout section was a good test run to see if any paint would bleed or make its way onto the area I didn't want painted if I were to re-spray my existing layout. It took me just one afternoon to mask the extension and apply 4 coats of paint. The finished result looks better than my original section of layout, and used less than 1 can. The photos below of the new extension are now ready to start building some new layout on.

Taking my wife's advice? Perfect. The Dulux duramax Gloss Indian Red spray paint turned up brilliant. The colour looks like it was the leftover paint from a NSWGR 421 Class restoration.

The 80 cm long extension will attach to the end of my current 188 cm long layout, giving me 2.68 metres of HO scale bookshelf layout spread over two distinct scenes with two tracks connecting via the 'mouse-hole'.

And to future-proof any further expansion plans, the corner will include a sneak-off track for the day when I finally extend this to become an L-shaped layout. For now, a perspex strip will sit in place on the corner.

The new lift-off lid design weighs much less and adds another strip of gold painted trim to the layout's appearance. I'm also replacing the lift-off lid on the current layout to match and spray-painting it in the same Gloss Indian Red with gold trim.

The 80 cm extension will effectively replace my current 70 cm staging shelf which is nothing but two tracks on a stub-ended painted black shelf. Ignoring the wrinkles in my track plan above, the current layout's two tracks will continue through the mouse-hole to a second railway station and platform, with two sidings. One siding will end hard in the front right corner, where I have already factored in a provision for one day extending this into a half-room sized L-shape layout. Careful use of this end of backdrop could make this look like the entrance to a port. While the foreground has a split-level to allow me to model a rock wall falling away into the water, with a short bridge, (something I regretted not having on my current layout) crossing the cut-out section.

And finally the name reveal... Phills (coughs) Harbour. Naming my fictional NSW extension loosely after one of my favourite holiday destinations is a big stretch of the imagination, but enables me to model some completely different scenery.

This layout was always intended to stand above my desk and provide some inspiration for my writing. After a five year break from finishing my last novel, writing is something I am again wanting to return to in 2019. Only now my desk has become impractical to share space with my writing and my HO scale modelling. The problems I've experienced with trying to match the original stain I used on Philden with the extension, have also seen me ditch any plans to build a matching desk complete with built-in N scale layout beneath it. Time-wise, the time is no longer there as I try to complete some more railway books in 2018 before that window also closes on me. Next month the desk goes up on Gumtree, and I'll replace it with a mix-and-match desk and storage/work area from IKEA. I need something that I can put a model I'm working on aside, and not get lost in the clutter as I start laying out my next projects.

Blog-wise, there are still a few more HO scale reviews for me to post in the coming weeks as I near completing my roster overhaul. I've found that some models have worked, and others haven't, solely because of the size restrictions I'm forced to work with on a small bookshelf layout. I don't know if everyone really appreciates my reviews or not. I guess I just do it to share my thoughts about what I like and what I don't, in much the same way as readers leave reviews on my books. Anyway, I'm nearly done for now. Auscision's NQTY's have been a very pleasant surprise, as have their 40' foot and 20' foot containers in general. I do need to add a couple of coil steel butter-boxes to complete my small steel train. But a little birdie tells me that SDS Models 81 Class isn't that far away either. If anyone can tell me whether 8125, 8144, 8155 or 8176 were repainted into Pacific National colours between 2002-2005, it would save me the anxiety of buying the wrong livery for my era. Otherwise, I'll play it safe with either 8101 or 8168 in Freight Rail blue with the PN patches to join NR29 on my roster.

Sure there will always be something on the horizon that may tempt me to add just that one more model to my collection in the future, but for now those few above items will have to do. One day I'm sure I'll have that L-shaped room layout complete with the city scene I was wanting to build on an upper level, but for now I'll be happy with what I've got. And just be thankful that I found a way around the problem of what to do when the paint doesn't match...

See also: Painted stained and varnished