In my last post, I spoke of getting my gumption up to spend time to get some painting accomplished in the area of the basement where I intend to locate the Nooksack TOMA section. Well, over the last week, mainly the last couple of days, I did just that. The upper part is my "sky" color and the lower part is SW "Andiron," my fascia color. I still need to install an L girder along the stud wall to rest the back of the Nooksack section on. My plan is to mount the L girder at 46" so that the benchwork top is at 50" at one point along this stud wall, and then to level the L girder (and rest of the railroad) to that point.
I intend to explore some trial and error with the existing ten-foot benchwork section before permanently mounting it:
- Will I use legs or a cantilever support off of the stud wall, similar to what I saw my friend, Brad White, do on the Brocton Corner of his new railroad?
- Will the existing shelf on the stud wall be accessible enough to use for the command station and related electronics once the benchwork is in place?
- What about backdrop height and valance placement?
- What will my final plan for lighting be?
- Will I consider some kind of drop ceiling over the railroad in this area?
In addition to the Nooksack area, I also painted the south wall of the basement. The first step was to mask off the area behind the steam pipe, covered with rust and foam overspray, and to paint it with a Rustoleum "High Heat" rattle can. Although it could have used a second coat, I called the first coat good enough. It took several days to dry, and despite my opening a basement window and firing up a fan, the spray paint solvents made their way upstairs.
After the spray-painted pipe across the wall dried, I went ahead and painted the entire eastern wall and the upper portion of the Nooksack area with my sky blue color. The spray foam is tricky to paint as it has a dramatically varied texture. Spraying would probably be the best technique, but I am not set up with equipment for that. I found a small (three or five inch) roller to work the best, with an occasional poke with a brush into deeper divots. I tried a standard roller with a deep pile in another part of the basement, but with the irregular surface of the foamed stone foundation, the smaller roller is able to better travel through the bumps and valleys.
The guys are coming this week to try to feed a new power line from the new breaker box in the basement out to the garage and to finish plumbing in the new "laundry area" in my previous workshop. Once they are done, I will need to clean up and organize, before deciding how to approach painting the basement floor. We will see whether the next post continues along these lines or whether I follow the breadcrumbs back to structure building for Nooksack.
