Yup Mark! It's been a while and we're not getting any younger. I've used that particular shingle on three projects since then, although not on a big pitched roof. And now with the LED lighting, there's little or no UV so any fading should slow down a bit.
Today I began building the Rick House in earnest.
I applied scale 2 X 10s to the foundation ribs to serve as sole plates for the rick bays to follow. I made sure that they were flush with the upper edge of the floor joist rabbet. I didn't care if they overhung the other side.
While this was drying, I finished using the mini-chop saw to cut 1/4" off the rest of the Northeastern pre-cut RR ties for a total of 226 pieces. The saw and my depth stop made a tedious job with a razor saw and miter box into a much faster deal.
I then assembled the first half of a rick bay using the spacing jig I 3D printed. The columns fit a little bit too tight so getting the finished part out risked damaging it. Also, as you'll see, the foundation spacing, even though I used the same jig to space them, are spaced a little bit to narrowly. I may make some minor changes to the jig and reprint it. If I open the slots a few thousandths and narrow their spacing by about 1/32", it would be perfect.
The 1st rick here is sitting on the sole plates. I have enough RR Ties left over at their 9' scale length to use as the floor joists. All is as I have foreseen it.
As I've said many, many times over when I screw up it's because a) I'm rushing, and b) because of "a" I'm not letting glue (of paint) fully cure. With that in mind, you'll understand some of the troubles I had today. I was very anxious to see how the first two ricks (one bay) so I was handling the parts and constantly knocking glue joints apart because they weren't fully cured. While Aleen's seems to grip quickly, it's still a PVA glue and takes several hours to cure.
My original spacing jig didn't work as I wanted it too. I tried to modify it a bit, but decided to scrap it and make one out to a piece of scrap MDF. The rick spacing is .83" from column to column. I made on spacer for the bottom and a short on for the top so it would also plumb them as I installed them. It all depends on getting the first couple of ricks in proper location. Here's the two spacers in use on the first test.
I used the Chopper with my other home-grown depth stop to cut the barrel support rails. I still haven't come up with the best way to mass produce the diagonal bracing. I will need 72 of them. I was ready to install the first rick and decided to pin it with 1/32 phos-bronze wire so it would stay put. The first one on each row is a critical part.
I tried to fit the few barrels I have in my railroad parts drawer. The barrels are a tad oversized, and I will sand them down a bit so they fit. I only will need three of them to show how the warehouse works. This one part I haven't detailed for this would be the elevator shaft that is used to move barrels from the upper floors. Not sure how to approach that since I have no drawings of it.
I actually broke two carbide drills making 12 holes. That's not so hot. The balsa foundation ribs, rather than drill nicely, it just wound down deeply like a screw and broke the drills too easily. I may use a steel drill and the Dremel instead of a pin vise.
I squared the first one up and used CA to lock it in place. I first used a small machinist square to plumb rick #1. This worked okay for the rick facing inwards, because I could get a true surface across the three barrel rails.
But this didn't work on the other side of the bay since it was contacting the diagonal braces. So I glued a spacer to an angle block to get it above the diagonals and had good contact with the center column. I was getting a good plumb measure.
But look closely at the second rick frame… Can you see that it's rails are at a different level that rick #1? I had installed the pins on the wrong end of the columns and installed it upside down. When I removed it, the rail de-glued and practically wrecked the whole assembly. I reglued it and ran out of time. I was so concerned about squareness and plumb that I forgot to look at what size I was drilling for the pins. I'll be more careful next time.
So we're underway. I'll probably cut some sticks, glue some frames, fasten some frames and then cut some more sticks just to make it less monotonous.
Stay tuned and have a nice weekend.
Next week will be a short modeling week. We're taking our first road trip back East since New Year's 2020. Finally visiting our son and family in State College, PA and going further to Philly to visit the rest of the gang.
