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| Building a Bridge |  |
The top track of the layout is nearing completion, however there are a few more pieces that needed to be done in order to finally have a complete loop. One of those things is a bridge between two of the rocks in the front left corner of our room. Sue and I wanted to build a bridge together for the train. In this case we went with a design of a covered bridge from PA that I was able to obtain the plans for. I Roughly scaled the dimensions of the drawing to work for the G-gauge setup we are creating and then we being the task of building (I also took some minor liberties with the design to make it a bit easier to build). Not what you see below is over the course of about 2 months. While the project looks like you could do it really quick, in reality you have to wait for glue to set and stain to dry before moving onto the next step. Not to mention the pile of saw dust you make when you cut up all of the itty bitty 4x4's and the like.
First small batch of little lumber for the bridge
Assembly of the base was done by cutting a notch two maple pieces. They are the main supports for the 3 foot span we are doing to do. I wanted something solid and sturdy for this part.
Now we start building the walls for supporting the slats
Lets take a break to stain everything at this point, makes it a ton easier as you go. Too many small nooks and crannies to get if you wait till the end. We probably did this 6 or so times in between stages.
We installed a few more cross braces inside and stained them and now we are onto installing slats on the side. We ripped our boards off center to do this, so we could get a distinct ripple look on the outside of the bridge. I like the way it turned out ;)
Once the walls were done, then it was on to the flooring. Here is a shot of the staining work before putting the floor down.
Fooring installed!
Time to start building the roof, we built small trusses and installed really wide planks along the top of them.
We cut up wood and then snapped them in half to create the shingles. While they are not to scale, I like this look much better than any other look we tried. Once it's painted it looks good.
Once the roof was done, we covered up the ends and added the cross brace details to the bottom.
Here is a shot at the ends with the roof on.
This is a test fit shot with the rocks. Fits well. Now onto landscaping the rocks and doing a final install and track install. That will be in the next update.