It has taken several hours of experimentation to be able to produce usable strip wood. One of the first things I bought was the 24 tooth carbide blade and the feather board/high fence attachment. The big drawback of the carbide blade is that the kerf is wide compared to the size of the strips I am cutting and much of the material ends up as sawdust on the floor. The high fence very nicely allows a feather board to be clamped on in order to keep the strips flat on the table saw bed.

Another accessory that I bought was the zero clearance blade plate. I managed to break both of them trying to bring the blade through. Once with the 24 tooth carbide and once with the stock 80 tooth blade. I now have another set on order with a 168 tooth blade that I think will work well for cutting scale 1 – 2″ stock.

Originally, I was cutting the stock down using my 10″ table saw. Making the 1/4″ cuts on a full-size table saw is certainly doable but I feel much safer on the Micro-Lux. For material I am using 5″ cedar fence pickets from Home Depot. It is not the best material in the world but by carefully selecting the most knot-free pickets possible, it is usable. I also put it through my surface planer first to get nice smooth and square sides. I am using cedar because I like the color. I have experimented with Norway Spruce and it is much easier to work with compared to the cedar. Boone Morrison uses Redwood and I think it looks great. The only Redwood I have been able to find here is 2 X 6″ stock but I plan on picking some up shortly to experiment with.

This weekend I cut about 2 dozen each scale 10″ X 10″ beams and 4″ X 10″ pieces that I plan on using for my Engine House. I also cut some scale 1 X 12″ material to use as siding on my Machine Shop. I spent a couple of hours trying it out on the foam core mock up I built previously.

I am not sure I like the color that resulted from an India Ink wash. It does photographs darker and better than it looks in person though.

As I mentioned previously, I love the West Side Lumber company and have several of the plan sets from Russ Simpson for many of the Tuolumne buildings. Since I lost the battle of the basement space, I had to significantly scale the buildings down but I hope that my renditions still maintain the spirit of the West Side. The picture above is the Mill and New Engine House/Machine Shop Complex.

Some of the foam core mock ups will actually be used as the foundation for the strip wood construction that will follow. The Sawmill and Machine Shop will be built as strip wood over foam core. The Engine House will not though as I plan on having the doors open where the interior structure will be visible.

Having these mock ups have helped tremendously to visualize how the town area will layout and help to finalize the track plan in this area. I also played with several orientations of the Sawmill. It wasn’t until I completed the Engine House structure that I knew I liked this orientation the best.

The most time consuming part of the construction is marking and cutting out the windows. I had some Grandt Line windows on hand that I was able to use to make sure the openings were correct and the windows looked good.

Here are some of the tools that I used for construction:

1. Self Healing Cutting Pad works great to save the knife blades and the bench top. I wish I had a larger one though.
2. Blue Masking Tape to hold the structure together while the Goo sets.
3. Walther’s Goo is fantastic stuff. Dries quick and has a nice contact cement action if you pull it apart and let it set for a minute or two.
4. Steel 45 degree triangle to make sure everything is square.
5. #2 X-Acto Knife is a little bit bigger than normal modeling #11 and it works well for the foam core.
6. Model Railroad Steel Rule with markings for various scales. Perfect for cutting as well as transferring dimensions from various scales.