Lighting and Fascia

May 01, 2019

LIGHTING

Progress has been slow but good on the GNW. First, added lighting under the deck of the upper to light up the lower. It was always kind of dark and murky under the upper deck, and it really needed something to brighten things up. Four 15' strips of LEDs and a new power supply were added and it made a huge difference!

Lighting was simply hot-glued under the upper deck.

Compression terminal blocks distributed the power. Of note, I needed to add power feeds to BOTH ends of each string. Voltage drop along each string was enough that the LEDs were noticeably dimmer on the far end without.

Here is the new power supply - an Ebay special. I located it mid-point between the two pairs of LED strips.

LED Power Supply

Some before/after shots.

Looking east before lighting

Looking east after lighting.

Looking west before lighting

Looking west after lighting. Quite the difference!

FASCIA

Nothing finishes out a layout better than fascia. While the raw wood is not bad, there is something about adding a clean edge that takes it from an in-construction project to a layout that is getting near completion....even if the layout is still unfinished.

Nothing too elaborate: 1/4" Masonite attached to the front edge. The upper fascia took some thinking. I wanted enough fascia to block the lighting, but not so much as to steal a lot of view from the lower deck. I settled on 3" wide.

The lower deck also required some consideration: I had the vertical supports to contend with. I briefly considered just attaching the fascia and let it 'ripple' over the verticals. That would look tacky. I then thought about countersinking each support. Too much of a pain. I ended up putting in a spacer piece between verticals, and then a finish piece over the spacers. Worked out well.

Started at the corners where fit up was critical. (Yea, I probably should have moved my rolling stock before clamping, drilling and screwing!)

Already looking better!

Inside Masonite pieces will allow the outside piece to lay flat.

Working around the layout - here connecting into the existing.

All the Masonite is up!

Here you can see how the spacers accommodated the vertical supports.

3" upper fascia was enough to give a good edge but not so much as to block the view to the lower deck. (Yes, that's Nancy's work starting scenery on the upper deck!)