Office Shelf Layout Update

Progress has been relatively slow on this project, but with the way my schedule is right now I can only work on it late at night on the weekends, so I get maybe 4-6 hours a weekend to work on modeling projects. I'm not as far as I would like to be, but that's ok as long as I'm always moving at least a little bit forward.

Since my last update, I've gone ahead and glued the cork layer to the baseboard, finished painting the rear track, and almost completed the layout of the paved areas. What I've been doing for this is cutting layers of cardboard, from old cereal boxes, and stacking them up to be level with the top of the rails. There are six layers of cardboard and one layer of poster board, which is red because I happened to have that laying around in the basement. All it needs is a couple of coats of acrylic paint then it will look just like concrete.  

Layout of cardboard and poster board for the paved areas of the layout.

This layering technique for doing paved areas is not the most efficient, but it works for me and that's all that matters. To keep the layers together, I am just using an Elmer's glue stick. I haven't decided how to glue them to the cork just yet, maybe white glue will work. That won't happen for a while though so I can make sure I have the layout of the paved areas just right. I still need to add a location between the tracks on the left side for a loading dock and then another section crossing the tracks for forklift access to the dock.

A closeup look at the layered cardboard method I'm using for my paved areas.

I'm at the point now where I need to order a few things so I can keep going. I need the loading dock for between the tracks at a minimum and I'd like to get some other detail parts to combine shipping and have a few more options to play with for this layout. Below is a picture showing a couple of cars parked on the two tracks in front of the commissary building. The hammer is in there to help keep the corner of the cork down while the glue dried.

A quick mockup of two cars parked on the two tracks.

I'm hoping to get some more time in on the layout this weekend and maybe get the rest of the cardboard cut and glued together for the paved areas under the loading dock. Other than that I really need to think about gluing the track down so things don't move on me. The contour cut of the cardboard follows the track so I don't want that getting messed up.