Building the Roundhouse and Shops, Part 2

With the painting finished I next built the interior framing.  I wanted it to have more detail than just a standard barn frame so I designed wood trusses supported by 12" x 12" posts.  Doing this the posts are only need at the walls and not in the center of the room which helps to keep things open for more machinery.

Once I completed the interior framing for the shop I decided to also do the framing for the roundhouse so I designed new trusses for that.  There will still be interior posts because the space is much larger but the trusses add some real visual appeal.  Before I built the roundhouse interior framing I mocked up all the walls and discovered an anomaly.  Because the room is so small I had to move the roundhouse 13" closer to the turntable which then required spreading out the rear wall to accommodate the wider angle between tracks.  Using the rear wall sections from the kit would leave a 1" gap on either end of the rear wall.

This is where things really snowballed.  I decided to make my own rear wall sections using parts of the side walls.  The nice part of this is that the windows would be much larger allowing a better view inside and more light for the crew.  I "cut and pasted" wall castings to properly fit behind the frame posts.  Note that in the original kit it was suggested to place posts at each wall section came together to hide the joints.  I've continued this and it works well with the design.  Using the side wall castings across the back actually made more sense to because then all the windows would be the same size.  I had also noticed that the original rear walls had smaller stones, probably originating from a different kit.  The final look with the larger windows more closely resembles old factory photos I've seen.

For the roundhouse framing I made up a full size drawing (1/4" = 1") that I could build the five identical frames from.  These were more complex than the shop frames because of the skylight housing and the sloping rear roof.  When finished I added NBW (nut, bolt, washer) castings to all the frames.

Building the Roundhouse and Shops, Part 1

After completing the turntable and before getting too far ahead with laying track I decided to take on building the roundhouse.  Ten years ago I had bought a Thomas Yorke roundhouse kit on eBay and never got around to assembling it.  A few months after buying it my wife and I sold our home and belongings and moved onto our boat with the intention of spending the next 15 years sailing around the world.  I did put my train stuff in storage thinking I would want to get back to it in my old age.  As it turned out, medical issues prevented us from chasing that dream and six years later we were back on dry land planning my next layout.  I'm so glad I saved my train stuff.

I've gotta admit that the roundhouse kit intimidated me.  I had enough wall sections for five stalls, nine pieces altogether, plus several other wall sections the supplier had sold me to play with.  The walls are heavy cast plaster and carved to look like stone with large industrial windows in each section.  There are buttresses that extend out from the ends and midpoints and dressed stone framing around each window.  The instructions for painting were included but this was what held me back from starting the model.  I looked around the internet and saw what other folks had done and couldn't find a technique that really satisfied me.  I decided to shelve the project until I found something I really liked because with plaster you really only get one try.  Here's a shot of the original kit.

While researching the smelter I stumbled across a painting technique for plaster cast stone walls that was exactly what I had been looking for (click here).  Now I was finally ready to build the roundhouse.  The first thing I did was clean up the wall castings.  Most of the stone detail on the outside surface was of excellent quality but the inside surface was just flat plaster and not exactly flat either.  I used a course wood file and sanding block to smooth out the inside walls with the plan to have them look like the stone had been plastered over and then painted.  I carved in stone detail along the top edge and where the walls protruded beyond the doors in the front. The mating edges and bottoms of the walls also required squaring up to get a tight fit between wall sections and to get the walls to stand vertically without falling over.  The window openings are sized for Grandt Line parts and I spent time making sure everything would fit snugly.

While laying out where the walls and track would go I decided I needed a car shop and machine shop to complete the roundhouse.  I'm severely restricted on space though so I decided to build a combined car and machine shop with a small boiler room off the back.  This was plan A, later modified.  When I first laid this part out I simply ran a track to it from the turntable but then realized that prototype railroads wouldn't do this.  The track should come in directly from another part of the yard and this required me to re-position the shop.  I turned it 90 degrees and ran the track in from over by the ash pit.  Much better.

With the shop turned sideways to the turntable it just screamed out to be made of stone also, just like the roundhouse, as if they had been built at the same time.  I decided to make molds of some of the roundhouse wall sections and use them for the shop.  I would need four new full size wall castings and one additional one that I could cut up and use sections of.  The original side walls angle down towards the back and the roundhouse has a flat roof.  I wanted a pitched roof on the shop so I'll have to modify my new castings to straighten the top edge.

I sat down and made full size scale drawings (1/4" = 1') showing side, front and bird's eye views.  The interior footprint (7 3/4' x 10 1/4' or 31' x 41')) was chosen mostly because of available space on the layout but is still big enough for a respectable machine shop.  Originally I was going to have the car shop take up half the space but then decided to add a raised deck down the outer side and use that for an outdoor car shop.  Now I have some serious space to work with.  The shop will eventually have an overhead belt drive system run by a single cylinder steam engine and dedicated boiler.

Once I settled on a design I saw that things would look better if the roundhouse had the same skylights which would require modifying one wall section to match the shop's end wall.  This was the beginning of the snowball.  Things quickly got out of hand but I did learn a lot about working with plaster.  More on that later.

OK, so I got 8 molds made and I built some really excellent support frames for each one.  I felt confident that my castings would come out really well.  I hadn't poured plaster castings in something like 30 years but I didn't remember it being a major challenge.  Of course I was doing rock castings and retaining walls in HO scale and now I'm doing O scale, 1/4" = 1', so the castings are much larger.  For the shops side walls I used one section of wall from the roundhouse that had two windows.  The shop walls have three windows so I had to make a total of five castings and "cut and paste" to get what I wanted.  The plaster cuts like wood so I used a small handsaw for dissection and yellow wood glue to reassemble my parts.  In the picture below you can see the two new wall sections and one original as well as the Latex mold and support frame.

With the side walls completed I made another mold to pour the end walls and spent three days hand carving stone.  I painted the walls using watered down acrylics in five different earth tone colors.  Here's my technique:  First seal both sides of the plaster casting with flat or satin clear spray paint.  I use DecoArt acrylic paint in Grey, Mississippi Mud, Burnt Umber, and Burnt Sienna working from lightest to darkest.  Use a quarter size blob of paint with two siphon loads of water for each color.  Starting with Grey and a damp natural sponge lightly dab the color to the casting for a blotchy effect.  All the steps here use a damp sponge, never dry, and clean the sponge between each color.  Then add Mississippi Mud to whatever's left of the Grey and lightly dab on.  Mix in Burnt Umber and brush onto random stones before lightly dabbing on with sponge to blend.  Mix in Raw Sienna to the Grey/Mud/Umber mix and use a heavily loaded brush to run along the grout lines, then wipe the surface of the casting with a clean sponge.  Separately mix Raw Sienna (don't mix with other colors) with two siphons of water and dab on lightly and sparingly with a clean sponge.  Clean the mixing tray and add a quarter size puddle of India Ink and at least two siphons of water (make sure the ink is pure black.  I use "JapanBargain Japanese Caligraphy Ink - Black" from Amazon.  Some India Inks have purple mixed in and it will show).  Use one clean sponge to wipe ink across the casting surface and into the grout lines.  Then use a second clean sponge to wipe across the surface of the stones.  Work in 3" x  3" areas at a time.  Allow the casting to dry overnight.  Then fill the grout lines with wallboard mud, smeared on with a sponge, and clean off with a second clean sponge to expose the stones.  The mud works like a polishing paste and brings out the different colors to look like Pennsylvania field stone.  Cool!  Allow to dry.  I use a short-bristle wet brush to scrub excess wallboard mud from corners and other areas that are too heavily loaded with the white mud.  This can be done when the mud is wet or dry.  Once completely dry seal with a coat clear flat spray paint.

Making Plaster Casting Molds

I hadn't made plaster molds in over 30 years so it was like learning new tricks all over again.  I bought some liquid latex called "Mold Builder" (32 oz, $22) from Castin' Craft and a box of 24 1" chip brushes through Amazon and borrowed some gauze pads from our 1st aid box.  I used one of the extra walls I had gotten ten years ago to practice on in case I screwed something up.  My first attempt was usable but with only five coats of latex it came out too flimsy.  I did confirm that I could spread the latex directly on the bare plaster without creating problems.

Here's my technique.  I laid a sheet of parchment paper on my workbench.  My wife uses this for baking and it prevents food from sticking to cookie sheets.  Waxed paper works well too.  I use inexpensive "chip" brushes because the latex builds up in them and they only last for two or three coats.  I trim the bristles with scissors so I'll get a nice even coat on the mold.  To start I spread a thin layer of latex on the plaster wall section.  This first layer is critical and will define the quality of your castings.  Make sure the latex is spread evenly in a thin layer and then go back with your brush and gently work it into all the joints, cracks and crevices.  I use the brush this second time to make sure the coat is spread evenly over the entire surface and to remove any bubbles that may have formed.  If the first coat is applied too heavily it might hide bubbles so it's more important to ensure full and even coverage.  The first three or four coats should be kept thin and bubble free.   With each layer I also build up a 1/2" wide flange around the outside edge.  I lay on four coats before adding a thicker layer with the gauze.  The gauze pads I use come folded over in three sections and when I unfold that it's still three layers thick so I use it like that without separating it any more.  I lay the gauze on the casting and am careful not to overlap it to prevent unnecessary lumps in the mold.  In the picture below you can see where I overlapped the gauze and then had to cut recesses in the support frame to account for the unwanted lump.  The gauze gets held down with a heavy layer of latex that's been worked into the fabric with the brush.   I then add three more layers of latex over that for a total of eight.  In between each coat I let it dry until all the latex has turned a light yellow color and no longer shows any white which would indicate it hasn't fully cured yet.

When I was cleaning up the original wall castings I realized that the walls were not exactly straight and tended to bow out in the middle a bit.  I suspect the molds weren't properly supported when the plaster was poured.  This caused me to think long and hard about a better way to go about this.  Back when I did this 30 years ago I was creating molds of rocks to be used on mountain sides and it didn't really matter if they were cast to lay flat.  Making walls is a different story.  They have to be straight and flat or they don't look realistic.  I decided to make a wood frame to hold everything flat and square during a pour.  I built the frames on a backing panel of 1/2" plywood.  Each wall section has windows or doors and cap stones running along the top edge.  They also have stone buttresses and heavy stone frames around the windows.This made making the support frame complicated because all these details are at different levels.  I glued wood shims of various thicknesses in places where they were needed and the end result provides a good flat support for the mold (see picture above).  With that done I decided to go ahead and make molds for six other wall sections just so I'd have them if I ever needed them.  It's a pretty quick process to make the molds so why not?

OK, here's a good reason why not.  Of the six extra molds I made only three came out perfect on the first try.  I suspect I was rushing things.  Because of all the detail in the rock walls the molds were very difficult to release from the original castings and parts of the first layer separated and smeared, ruining the details of the stone wall.  Bummer.  For my second effort I really took my time and allowed plenty of drying time between coats.  To get eight coats of latex takes at least two days of work so it's worth while not to rush the process.

Once I had a good mold cured and released from it's original casting it had quite a bit of flashing that needed to be trimmed off.  For the outside flanges I trimmed them with scissors.  For any flashing inside the mold I carefully trimmed it off using wire cutters that have a good sharp cutting edge.  I stretch out the flashing while cutting to help prevent cutting too deeply into the mold.

For a really excellent explanation of mixing and pouring plaster check out New England Brownstone's web site (click here).  They also have some great painting techniques for plaster cast stone walls (click here).

Another problem I ran into showed me the necessity for applying thin, even first coats.  When I started pouring plaster it took several tries before I found a good consistency.  My first pour was too thin and the casting came out pock marked with bubbles and grainy looking.  My second try used a thicker mix, like a thin milkshake, and the casting came out perfect.  For these first two tries I used a smaller wall section but now I felt ready to take on the larger roundhouse side walls.  I used the same thicker mix but when I removed the casting from the mold I found it was full of air pockets again.  ???  A closer look at the mold revealed small air bubbles had formed in the first layers of latex and I suspect this created air pockets during the pour.  I realized these two molds had been the first ones I made and I wasn't careful enough to get thin, bubble free coats.  I had to throw out my two largest molds and re-do them, this time with thinner first coats.

Another problem that was revealed after pouring the larger wall sections was an uneven wall surface.  I thought I had created enough support for the molds but the areas around the windows looked wavy.  I needed to add about an extra 1/8" of support in this area.  On some of my molds the outside edge is built up too much in some areas and the mold won't sit squarely in the frame.  The inside edges of the frame need to be rounded off to allow the mold to sit down flat on the bottom.  The best way to verify the fit of the mold in the frame is to press your finger around the inside edge and see where the mold doesn't sit flat.  Re-work the frame to allow the mold to sit firmly flat on the bottom of the frame.  This will ensure a good square and flat casting.

I now use a spray-on mold release and this makes the whole casting operation much easier with less chance of damaging the mold when it's removed.  I also found that when I pour the wet plaster into the mold I should only fill it about 1/3 of the way.  Then I take a ball peen hammer and tap the wood frame from underneath and on the sides to drive out air bubbles.  When this is done I'll pour in the rest of the plaster and repeat the tapping.  This will cure most of the problems with air bubbles.

I also found out that you can buy high quality latex for making molds.  Make a water tight 5 sided box (no lid) and place your wall section in the bottom.  There should be about a 1/2" gap on all sides to form a thick side wall on the mold.  Then pour in the Latex to fill the box to the top.  I think tapping the box with a hammer or using a mechanical shaker will drive out any air bubbles from the mold.  I haven't tried this yet but it's the way all professional Latex molds are made.  More expensive but better molds.

Building a Doodlebug

On the layout my main goal was point-to-point operation but I added a return loop on the lower level between the stamp mill and the roundhouse.  The purpose of this was to run a railbus on autopilot to create interference for yard and switching operations.  I found a "Doodlebug" kit on eBay  that fit the era, 1920's, but would need some modifications to suit my eye.  The running gear for this kit was supposed to be an HO scale Bachmann trolley car but I felt it looked kinda wimpy and the overall profile was too high above the tracks.

The first thing I did was to carve out the frame and floor to allow use of an HO SD40 diesel switcher. The power trucks from this switcher looked much better than the puny wheels of the trolley and the drive motor from the switcher was already set up for DCC.  The wheelbase measurement was spot on too.  I used a Dremel to carve out the base of the Doodlebug and did it in stages so I wouldn't go too far too fast.  My first attempt looked good but the body sat too high.  I lowered it an additional 12 scale inches and then added running boards to visually lower it even more.

The cow catchers that came with the model was small and clunky so I made my own.  I used scale 1" square and L plastic shapes and formed them up using tape to hold the rounded shape while I glued it together.  I added grab irons next to the doors made from brass rod.  I used thin clear plastic sheets made for my printer and fogged with flat clear spray paint for the windows.  I plan to use most of the interior for electronics so fogged window panes allowed light to pass but didn't provide a clear view of the interior.

I couldn't find suitable headlights so I made my own using plastic straws and 0.010" styrene shapes.  I placed LEDs inside the new housings and wired them up to the diesel switchers control board.  I also added a brass bell above the windows at one end of the Doodlebug.

I painted the body Pennsylvania RR maroon with black trim to give it a sharp, early 1900's look.  The prototype for this model was an awkward looking homemade affair with a center control cab and a small steam engine for propulsion.  My modified version has the cab at one end sharing space with the baggage compartment and using gas/electric propulsion.  I installed a bulkhead at midpoint to separate the driver from the passenger compartment and to add some needed bracing to the car body.

This came out pretty sweet.  The SD40 mechanism runs quiet and smooth and can do creepy-crawly very well.  I'm pleased with the final paint colors and I think it gives it the right look for the 1920's.  The cowcatchers also give it the right look, at least to my eye.  I'm sure someone out there will point out that this combination isn't correct but I don't even care.  It gives me what I wanted for my layout and it runs great.  I still need to convert it over to deadrail operation and add sound but for now it's complete.  Fun project.

Turntable Pt 4 - Installation and Final Adjustments

With all the bugs worked out of the program and the model completed it was time to get the thing off the bench and onto the layout.  This should be a simple matter of dropping the module into place and plugging in the power.  It turned out to be sooooo much more.

The physical positioning was the first thing.  I had recently added the final top layer of Homasote for the yard section of the layout.  When I went to drop in the turntable module I found two problems.  The biggest was that the framework for the layout was in the way and had to be modified.  The second was that I wanted to rotate the module to fit the gear hanging under it for the easiest access for maintenance.  When I rotated the module it wouldn't fit in the hole.  I ended up running the base through the table saw again to square it up.  I also had to clean up the edges of the hole where the Homasote didn't match well.

With that completed I got the module in place and the turntable bridge reassembled.  I now had to deal with several inaccuracies I had ignored during construction.  One end of the bridge was 1/16" higher than the other.  I thought this might be caused by the dolly truck installation where I had added some shims to get the rail up to the right height.  I ran the wood buck that the bridge is built around through the table saw and squared that up as accurately as I could.  The I used my digital calipers to measure the thickness of the bridge ends and found a 0.030" difference there.  It turned out that the dolly trucks had a large variation in the thickness of the castings.  Rather than trying to correct this I used a hand file on my shims to make up for the difference.  The bridge now sits flat and is square with the world.

My next problem was that the pit wall isn't perfectly round in one spot and one end of the bridge is too close when driving past this area.  I want to have 1/16" clearance all around.  I took another look at the bridge and found that the wood framework extends just a hair further on one end.  I filed and sanded that and now have those problems taken care of.

My next issue was getting the bridge to go through a full rotation smoothly.  I wanted to have as little weight as possible on the dolly trucks to prevent unnecessary loads on the stepper motor due to small variations in the ring track height.  I added a second bearing at the base of the turntable shaft and this solved the problem by removing any side-to-side movement.

Now the turntable operates smoothly and the module can be taken out and replaced easily.  My next problem was with repeat-ability when going from one track to another.  I found there was an error of about 0.030" in alignment when reversing direction of rotation.  The drive belt had too much slop in it but if I tightened the idler too much it would load down the stepper motor.  I found that I could add two more idler pulleys between the stepper motor and the turntable shaft pulley.  These can be adjusted to add just enough tension to remove any slop in the belt.

To finish off the turntable I painted the pit walls a concrete color and used Bragdon weathering powders to add streaks and stains to the concrete.  In the floor of the pit I added a layer of dirt and then a layer of cinders that will also be used on the rest of the yard area.  The dirt I got from my sister's back yard in Pennsylvania.  I couldn't use local dirt around my home because I live in Florida and what they call dirt is mostly sand.  The cinders I got from the Arizona Rock and Mineral Company (click here).  These guys have a great selection of scenery material.  I used HO and O scale cinders because I wanted both fines and granular.  To finish it off I added small clumps of weeds here and there.

With these these things taken care of the operation of the turntable is reliable, repeatable and really enjoyable.

Laying Track By Hand

I've built several layouts in the past using kits for structures and flex track and pre-made turnouts to run the trains on.  For this layout I'm planning to build things from scratch as much as possible.  I have a good start with structures for the engine service terminal and the turntable already completed.  It's time now to start laying some track.

For rail I'm using Micro-Engineering O scale code 70 rail and white pine On30 ties from Mt Albert.  The dead rail layout uses 17 #5 turnouts (10 left and 7 right), 14 #6 30-21 curved turnouts (6 left and 8 right) and 1 #5 wye.  The 30-21 refers to the curve radius for the two legs of the curved turnouts.  The test track/switching puzzle in the shop uses 5 #5 straight and 3 #5 wye turnouts.  I'm using assembly fixtures to build the turnouts.  When I went to order them from Fast Tracks (click here) my original track plan called for a variety of turnouts, six different styles, and had a minimum curve radius of 18".  The assembly fixtures (jigs) are not inexpensive and this caused me to re-think my layout plan.  The 18" radius is pretty tight for some of the larger engines so I re-drew it using a minimum radius of 21".  I also re-drew the turnouts to reduce the variety as much as possible.  With a total of 44 turnouts to build using just three styles (#5 straight, #5 wye and #6 curved)  I'm saving several hundred dollars by building my own rather than buying them ready-made.  Building your own straight and curved track is more expensive than using flex track (about $3 versus $2.50 per foot) but it looks sooooo much better.  I think the total cost for track, including turnouts, is less expensive if you lay your own.  My layout uses about 210' of track with 36 turnouts.  The puzzle track uses 8 turnouts and about 35' of track.  Using ready-made track would have cost me about $1680, plus shipping.  I've spent $985 in materials, tools and jigs from Fast Tracks.  Yikes!  That alone makes it worthwhile to lay your own track but the finished product is way better too, in both looks and operation.

So I went ahead and built all the turnouts for the existing benchwork.  That includes both the layout and the test track/puzzle track in the office.  Altogether I have 16 #5, 4 wye, and 4 #6 curves.  I'm getting ready now to lay all the track in between the turnouts to tie everything together.  To do this I had to weather and stain the wood ties prior to gluing them down.  I have a bag of 1000 precut cross ties made of white pine from Mt Albert.  I also have a bag of their turnout ties but these need to be cut to length.  This is a bear of a job.

I started out with about 300 cross ties just to get me going.  In On30 scale there are 28 ties per foot.  That gives me about 10' of track to lay.  I also cut the ties for the 24 turnouts and placed them in bags by turnout style.  I'm scribing fine wood grain on the upper surface only using an old Xacto saw blade and then going back and scribing deeper grain with a hack saw blade.  Then I sand it lightly with 220 grit paper to take off the sharp edges and fluff left over from scribing.

I made up a batch of stain using a formula I got from Rusty Stumps (click here).  Basically I double his recipe to get enough stain for large quantities of wood:

40 oz water
4 tsp raw umber acrylic artists paint
2 tsp burnt umber acrylic
1 tsp black acrylic
2 tsp water soluble black drawing ink

The last time I did this (two years ago) was to get ready to build the coaling tower.  I had enough stain left over to build the water tank, sand house and turntable and still had plenty more.  I decided to make up a new batch for this project because the old batch was getting kinda ripe.

I pour enough stain into each bag to cover all the wood and let it sit for 24 hours, pinching and turning the wood through the bag occasionally to make sure everything gets stained.  For my other projects 24 hours was enough time.  For the ties I decided to go an extra 24 hours thinking they would come out darker.  I don't think it made any difference.  After soaking in stain for 48 hours I drained the stain back into my stain jug and laid out the individual ties on newspaper to dry.  It's really important to completely separate each tie or they'll stick together permanently when they dry.  For every step of this project the word "tedious" comes to mind.  This is highly repetitive work but it's also the kind of brainless work that can be done while doing other things.  I'm recording digital copies of a gigantic CD collection for my music server and writing this blog while doing my ties.  When everything dries it has a very realistic silvery grey aged wood look with slight variations of color from tie to tie.  In the end it's all worth the effort.  The picture below is what I'm striving for, maybe a little less aged.  This was done by Bob R., a cohort on the Free Rails Forum (click here).

After staining and gluing down over 500 ties I decided I didn’t need the level of detail shown in the picture above.  For me, that might be the way to go for any track that is right under your nose but most of mine is set back and wouldn’t merit the time needed to achieve that look.

My modeling shop is in the next room down the hall from the layout.  I have a desk and workbench in one corner of the room and decided to build a test track on a shelf above the workbench.  I wanted a simple piece of track that I could test locos and rolling stock before taking it to the layout.    I decided it would be a good idea to add 18” and 21” curves in the corner to mimic the curves on the layout.  Then I decided to add a few turnouts.  Uhm, can you say snowball?  In the end I added a version of John Allen’s Timesaver switching game at the left end and a UK switching game called Inglenook at the other.  I’m using the new test track to develop track laying techniques instead of experimenting on the layout.

New Digs For The Shop

The railroad had some additional real estate donated to it.  After my sister-in-law moved out my wife relocated her art studio upstairs to the room over the garage.  The space she left behind was right across the hall from the train room so I negotiated for it.  This is another small bedroom, 12' x 12', with a large walk-in closet.  I moved in my desk and added a nice workbench beside it.  Also installed some shelving in the closet for all my railroad stuff.  Very organized.

Originally I was going to have just two parallel tracks on a shelf-style layout above the workbench and use that as a test and programming track.  When I sat down to design it using AnyRail I decided it would make more sense to design it as a switching puzzle.  I set up one end as a Timesaver, designed by John Allen probably 50 or 60 years ago.  The other end is a European design called an Inglenook.  The track will be hand-laid code 70 On30, the same as the layout in the other room.  This will be a DCC layout with power on the tracks.  The control is a DCS51 from Digitraxx and it can run DC or DCC.  The layout is "L" shaped with a switching puzzle at each end and the two tracks running through the curve in between will be 18" and 21" radius curves.  This will give me enough options to put engines and cars through their paces and when I'm not testing or working on the layout I can play with the trains on the puzzles.

The idea behind the puzzles is that each leg services an industry and can hold anywhere from one to three cars.  A program on the laptop generates random car shuffling orders for eight cars and it's up to the operator to perform this task in as few moves as possible.  Time can also be factored in.

Lighting in this room is pretty poor so I installed some LED rope light beneath the shelf layout.  I probably should add some track lighting on the ceiling too.  This will be a great space for building models.  I also set up my stereo system in there for a little music while I'm slaving away.