By Noel Widdifield LSOL.com Managing Editor

Author  Bio Part II - Interior Detail and the Back Walls for the Roundhouse. Adding Lights, Doors and putting on the roof. The walls were up and the lights were on, it was time to cover the place to keep the rain off of the engines and workmen.

Part II

More Interior Detail and the Back Walls:

I decided not to put the authentic pits into the floor, since it would have required too much work for an area that would not be seen by any but the most dedicated "rivet counter". I did leave a short portion of each track without a floor between the rails in the front section of the roundhouse.

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I painted the rest of the beams with the dark gray acrylic and measured and cut out the plywood walls for the back of the roundhouse. I cut out window and door openings and fastened the brick veneer to the wood in the same manner I used on the end walls. I tried them out for fit before gluing in the windows and doors and weathering the brick.

Additional Features:

• I added a roll-up rail service door from Westport Model Works at the end of the third stall.

  
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• I made sure of the fit before gluing the brick veneer to the inside of the walls.

  
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• I glued the brick to the inside walls and glued in the windows and doors

  
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  and finished the weathering of the brick on the inside and outside.

  
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• I painted the inside opening for the roll-up door black.

  
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• I fastened grain-of-wheat white bulbs along the beams near the roof throughout the roundhouse.

• I used hot glue to fasten the wires and the bulbs. I also strung some of the bulbs through light shades from Plastruct (Incandescent with shade LF8).

  
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• I hooked them up to the DC wiring on the layout, and they worked great.

Front Roof and Engine Doors:

Now that the walls were up and the lights were on, it was time to cover the place to keep the rain off of the engines and workmen. I used thin cardboard to cut out a pattern for the front lower roof.

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Using the pattern, I traced the dimensions on a piece of 1/4" plywood and cut out the roof with my table saw.

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Painting the underside of the roof a dark gray

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I then cut out 3M No 2 Aluminum Oxide sandpaper

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and glued it in place on the roof.

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I sprayed the sandpaper with grimy black and weathered it with primer, earth and rust and glued and fastened it in place with more # 6 1/2"steel screws

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 I added gutters using 1/4" brass channel and drainpipes using 1/16" copper tubing.

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Up to this point I had not planned on putting engine doors on the roundhouse because I was concerned about clearance between the tracks and the doors' extension out in front. The more I looked at the project the more I wanted to have the doors. I again went to the local hobby store and purchased some 3/32" basswood. I bought the six-inch wide by 24-inch long variety. From this I cut the doors using my Micro Mart 3 inch table saw.

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I also cut the framing beams from 1/32" thick, 1/4" wide basswood.

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I scribed the doors to make them look like they were made from individual boards and attached the framing beams with Titebond II.

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I made five sets of back-to-back doors and two single doors.

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This allowed me to have the doors in the open position when I attached them to the roundhouse. I painted the doors primer gray and also made hinges from styrene strips, attached those to the doors and painted them silver.

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I attached the doors to the door openings using White Lightning and needed every one of my larger clamps to hold them in place.

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Roundhouse

Noel, Inspiring! For me anyway. I've been looking for a solution to carrying loco's up & down the 15 steps to our small outdoor layoput to minimise the damage done through constant handling. I figure i can adapt your design to weather our sub-tropical storms & sun. Thanks for the concise clear instructions & images. ( Yes, my doors will have to close but that's O.K.)

Jjohn Blakeley - 12/01/2010 - 16:17

Roundhouse

Hey Noel, the roundhouse looks good. Can you send me a set of plans? Better yet, if you will build one for me to set on the layout, I will place a label on the roof giving you credit! lol Good job.

Ron Hill - 12/01/2010 - 18:52

Roundhouse & Turntable

Ron, Wish I had some plans for you but I built it based upon some very primitive drawings that I did at the time and have since destroyed. If I had the time I would build you one. I really enjoyed building it and I get a lot of interest in it when people come to see my railroad. I think you can probably do a pretty good job of building one if you just follow my article. It has some pretty detailed directions it in. Good luck and I can't wait to see the result. Thanks, Noel

Noel Widdifield - 12/03/2010 - 11:59

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