April 25, 2024
All those dangling blocks of wood with slide switches mounted are now installed for Gerber Yard. Sheetrock mud was used to help hid the countersunk screws – not entirely but lessen their appearance. Often there was a little bit of screw head still sticking out. I was afraid to countersink too far because the screw head would slip thru.
I’ve painted the places where mud was applied but the brush left a different sheen than the roller. I’m thinking of going back over that area with a roller. I’ve only installed a few white bezels for the photograph and they are easily removed. They were made in a lathe from 3/4″ PVC couplings. Total cost less than $10.
The red/green bidirectional LED above the bezel indicates if the switch is thrown for the main line. This makes it easy for thru trains to see that all the switches are aligned. The yellow below the bezel shows a crossover is thrown.
One problem I ran into was the fascia support were for an 8″ fascia. I decided the fascia needed to be deeper and settled on 11 3/4 “. The wiring for the Tortoises ran thru the supports and ended up putting them right at the level that the slide switches had to be installed. There were many places where I had to solder in an additional piece of wire to get everything below the switch blocks.
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