Thanks Gary - I knew I could count on you guys...
So I originally thought that I would try and fit the town of Franksville on one module. After finding the black and white aerial images (above) and saw just how extensive the sidings were in Franksville, I had to spread it over two modules to do it right. Here is the overall trackplan for the five modules that stretch from Franksville to Caledonia:
North is to the left. All of the track plans are based on the prototype drawings including the sidings and crossover points. The standard track is Atlas Code 55 and mainline turnouts are #10 with industry sidings being #7 turnouts.
Each module is designed to be lightweight and strong. The base pieces are constructed from 1/8 inch birch plywood top and sides with 3/4 inch birch plywood. Here is what the underside of a module looks like (with leg pockets installed in the corners):
The above module has the masonite sides added to it already (which gives the module its bending rigidity).
Here is a closeup of the pocket corner:
and here is a corner of a straight module from the top side:
The base birch module gets masonite end caps (which has a standard land contour which helps match up ends of different people's modules) and masonite sides. We use a pseudo masonite spline road bed to elevate the track 2" above the module "floor". Here is a module with roadbed spline drying (this is the south Franksville module that has the two track mainline and the industry siding which is why it is wider):
Once that dries, a masonite cap is glued to the top of the roadbed. After that cap dries, I took a router and a flush bit and trimmed the edges flush:
this is what the flush bit looks like:
once the flush trimming was done I cut and glued the masonite end caps on:
and here is where I'm currently at with the south franksville module:
The next step will be to cut 2" pink building construction foam to fit the empty spaces on either side of the tracks before I add the masonite sides. I find it easier to shape the foam before I glue it down (based on past trial and error of course).
So here is the original Franksville single module that I previously built:
The above module will now become the north franksville module. I needed to get it up and running for a train show, so I completed the trackwork, wired it up, put the foam in place, added the masonite sides and painted the pink foam a light brown color. The masonite sides that are exposed also get a coat of green paint that matches all the rest of the modules. You can also see where I was doodling the locations of streets and such before I decided to split this into two modules.
So the first thing I did last weekend was cut a land contour into the front face of the masonite with a jig saw. I cut through the masonite with the foam in place on purpose (which I'll show why in a second):
So the foam is exposed now and the masonite face is trimmed. Next I took a Tippy hot wire foam cutter tool:
and made an angle cut just to the outside of the maintenance of way area:
This takes a little bit of patience to let the foam cutting tool melt its way through the foam. If you try and force it along too hard you'll bend the hot wire. The fumes from the melting foam aren't particularly good for your health so do this in a well ventilated place.
After I make the angle cut I then go and use the hot wire tool with a different attachment to cut the side profile of the foam. You can see the original cut through the front masonite fascia left a nice cut through the foam about 2.5 inches in:
Again use patience and let the tool do the work. Also if you avoid a cutting motion back and forth you'll have less sanding and shaping to get things smooth later on. After cutting through the foam following the fascia profile it looked like this:
Then I broke the remaining foam piece off:
and yes, Wisconsin is *not* all flat level farmland - there are gentle rolling hills everywhere. So this is what the final looked like after I sanded a few rough edges smooth with sandpaper:
I'll go over the landforms with lightweight spackle to fill in voids, add some variation and a few other things prior to paint and scenery.
As usually the gallery of photos can be found
HERE
