Of ceilings, soffit, valances and lighting.

[Keith Hayes]

When I was finishing my layout room--and I tried to listen to the folks who recommend you finish your layout room first, as they know that of which they speak--I decided to finish the room with a hard ceiling. That is to say I chose painted wallboard instead of an acoustical ceiling with 2x4 tiles. I am not here to bash 2x4 ceilings: this could be a perfectly fine option.

Along one end of the room, a couple pipes extend to the kitchen sink above. I determined to hide these with a hanging wall and decided to hold it two feet off the wall so I could install some acrylic light lenses in a grid to light the Smelter on the upper shelf. This had generally worked great, until the week after the Narrow Gauge Convention when either gravity or a cat caused one of the lenses fail and fall on to the layout. Generally the damage was repaired,  but it exposed the weakness of the system.



Making matters complicated,  a couple sewer pipes descend from the sink above. Both are disguised with a mine, but the acrylic lenses don't cut well. They turn out to be very brittle. A friend suggested using a Dremel, and I tried to reinforce the lens with some giant strip styrene hot glued to the lens. That worked,  sort of, but failure appeared certain.

So I pondered options. On is a "cube" lens. These are a styrene grill dipped in chrome paint. They are expensive at $20 each, but I decided to try it. Like the acrylic lenses, these cube lenses are cheap in their own way. I thought I would have to cut them on a table saw, but found that my styrene cutters worked fine.

Because these lenses are grids. it was easy to cut around the pipes,  and the cubes are a bit more sturdy,  but they are also more stiff and don't fit in a tight space easily. So I had to cut them down in the 24" dimension to fit in the space.

Now the issue is that my lights are mounted on alternate wall surfaces. This worked great with the acrylic lenses,  which diffused the light nicely. But the cubes cause strange shadows. So one problem solved and another one created.

The remainder of the layout has a Masonite valance about a foot deep.It is painted grey to both provide contrast and frame the scene. The valance is mounted to the ceiling with blocks and I now have a system where I mount twin T4 (1/2") lights. 6-8 years ago these were efficient,  and reasonably inexpensive. But I now have one four-foot section that will not turn on. So now I am pondering installing LEDs, because they are the new thing. I hate to take a step backwards,  but now is the time.

Thoughts?

[Jeff Young]

Layout's looking great!

I recently put up sticky-back LED light strips in my basement, which I'm pretty happy with.

You can get cheap ones from China, but I chickened out and spent a lot more on a “name” brand:

https://docs.rs-online.com/9e3d/0900766b81628170.pdf

[nickgully]

My room is dual use, Entertainment center and layout room, so I went for track lights, all aimed at a diagonal to give an afternoon shadow. There are quite a few architectural salvage places in Denver (Buds, Habitat for Humanity), that these pop up pretty regularly.  Or you can get them from the big box stores.  Into these go PAR30 LED's with a CRI ~92 to give good color rendering.

[Jim Courtney]

Hey Keith,

An interesting how-to video on this subject:

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/led-layout-lighting-how-i-do-it-video-12337732


Uses both "warm" and "cool" LED strips, both connected to a dimmer, to allow blending of both outputs for just the right temperature color. Also includes a blue LED strip for "moonlight".

Interesting . . .

[Don Peterson]

You could also seek out color "tuneable"tape that gives you the ability to use a single strip and adjust the "white" spectrum to your liking.Might be more cost effective.

Don Peterson