Day 20. Casing the joint.

It had to happen sometime. The display case had to be started. As the layout progresses, the time when all my hard work needs to be properly protected becomes more important. Case in point being yesterday’s incident with the tipping dock. Not that a protective case would have helped in that instant. I just don’t want to go through any more repairs to things. So the case had to be built.

As you know my woodworking skills are severely lacking so a monumental task like this has to be done when I am in the right frame of mind. Perhaps yesterdays occurrence helped in that regard. But as I started marking up the 1/4” ply. I felt pretty good. Then I started checking and double (event triple and quadruple) checking measurements. I measured a distance in inches and then the same distance in millimeters. 

I may have mentioned before that I have dyscalculia, so any dealings with numbers are fraught with issues. It was tough. Dyscalculia is not number dyslexia. It’s difficulty in dealing with the processing of numbers. Basic addition is OK. Anything beyond that and I struggle. Anything smaller than an eighth of an inch, and forget it. If course I should be working in metric, (Dammit so should America). But when everything is measured in imperial, converting is hard work and mentally exhausting.

But after a two and a half hours, I had cut 5 pieces of plywood to the correct (or near enough correct) shapes and sizes, and much to my amazement everything seemed to fit together. 

Front left view

Front right

From the rear.

After a few hours sitting and staring at the photographs and thinking things over. I have come to the following conclusions:

1. I don’t know how on earth I managed to get this all to fit together.

2. The rear uprights are only 2” deep, they should probably have some bracing against them in order to keep the structure rigid.

3. The split ground level is problematic. The window depth is about right when looking at the higher ground level. But very deep at the lower level. 

4. I wonder if an extra brace at the front would be needed. A thin piece of barely noticeable tube giving extra support. (The front right photo seems to show something like that, with the way the shelving unit behind it lined up).

5. Lighting inside the frame/box. Some four foot lengths of 2” x 1” or smaller, running the length of the layout with LED light strips like these affixed to them to light the layout. Would they also help hold the cabinet square?

5. I rested the layout on our grill to take the photographs. The track level is 58”.  I like the height.

6. Still undecided about what to to about the backscene. As I prefer to be “hands on” with the operation of the loader, tipper and couplers an open back is preferable.

7. Seriously, how on earth did I manage this?

Now, the next task is to work out how to fit a sector plate/fiddlestick to the side. Though I might wait a couple more days before doing any more woodworking.