An Open And Shut Door

Sixty degrees and sunny in mid-November?  In Minnesota?  This is supposed to model railroading season, but weather like this makes it hard to get in the mood.

I've mentioned a few times that I wanted the freight doors on the depot to be movable, so that I could open or close them at will.  I've thought long and hard about how to do that.  After a couple of failed efforts, I found the answer, and it works REALLY well!

Starting with Plastruct "U" channel, item #90582, I cut a piece 24 scale feet in length, long enough to allow the door to be opened all the way with room to spare.  To this "U" channel, I glued a piece of  #90713 strip, also 24 feet in length.  This gave me a nearly enclosed rectangular channel with a small gap along one edge.

Using Plastruct's "Z" channel, item #90592, I made hangers, gluing them to the top edge of the door using CA.  These z-shaped hangers fit right into the gap in the rectangular channel that I built.

The result is a convincing hanging door.  The track is slightly larger than scale, but it works for me, and gives me the sliding door that I wanted.

After painting and weathering, I now have one nice-looking hanging freight door.

After a light dosing of graphite, the door slides freely along the track, allowing me to open or close the door as I see fit.  Exactly what I wanted!

It's What's Inside That Counts

Wrapping up another four-day weekend, minus the work-related interruptions on three of those days.  I had high hopes of getting a lot done on the depot, but didn't get quite as far as I'd hoped.  I did, however, manage to get the interior roughed in, and some lighting wired in place.

Using wallpaper patterns that I downloaded from http://www.cgtextures.com/, I finished the interior walls on the second floor, and most of the downstairs lobby.  There is still a lot of interior detail to add, and a few "leaks" to plug, but this is a good start.

The lights that I'm using are wide-angle white 5mm LED's, running on a 9V battery just to allow me to take these photos.  I may swap them out, as I'm not entirely happy with the blue light that they produce.  I really wanted something "warmer", more yellow.  That'll come later - for now, progress is progress!