Thursday, December 14, 2017

A New Day.......


I had an idea that I wanted to make a special shelf for the train in our downstairs living area.  I started on a boxed-like design and tried to assemble it.  I even bought more wood as I was going to have boxed frame with sets of shelves for more than just one train.  By late afternoon things were going bad with the assembling of it and some shelves were too short for the designated place.  I tried to regroup by shortening the main frame and I was disgusted.  By later afternoon, I took it all apart and tossed all of the wood back into the shop saying that this is not going to happen.


I slept on it after a very bad, awful ,yesterday experience and regrouped today. I should not be doing this at all as Christmas is coming. I am on hold with that though as my wife finishes up a painting today.  It will be shipped tomorrow.  While waiting for her to finish, I did this.  The new design uses some of the old wood but the concept of shelves being held by two supports really lightens up the design. I guess I was thinking that it could look like a  pice of toy train railroad track. The wider board is the bottom of the shelf and the top one will still be big enough for train cars if I find some more to collect.


With the move from the shop to the open floor in the family room, the design evolved.  That is how I work to refined things.  None of these pieces are attached as they lay on the floor. I will not be changing much more now except I need to figure out how to put a back ledge on the small board shelves to keep the small train cars from falling out of the back. I do have a plan but will need to go back to the lumber store.


The center shelf from the first layout did become wider. Because of it being wider, I did have to make a larger set of brackets for it. I will do some cutting on the board to make it fit into the vertical board. I will do that on another day. I guess it will be having slots made for it to slip back a little on the vertical board.

I will do a trial and error thing with the cross bracing of it.  I am thinking that I would like to do a cross X behind the middle of the shelf like the symbol of a railroad crossing. I want to keep in simple so if it clutters it to much I can do different bracing.


The one half of this set of smaller train is placed around the small Christmas tree. I don't really have anywhere else to place these.  So the will wait in the rail yard while I finish up the shelf.  I just got word that I can get the box ready for shipping my wife's painting.  The people loved here work and paid the bill.  It will be shipped to Michigan which means it won't take so long to get there.

Thanks for stopping by today.  I wish you all well wishes and good times.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know your wife's painting will be treasured by the folks in MI.

I like what you are building for the train. A lot of work but will be great!

Far Side of Fifty said...

We want to see your shelf when it is finished! Very interesting design! :) Far Guy says "You can never make it big enough!"