Layout Skirting

[beiland]

Harbor Freight Tarps

I've been fooling around with some ideas on skirting my new layout in the shed. My initial ideas were to use some light weight shower curtain materials or black-out fabrics laid on their sides which would provide something like 34-37" heights. Then add grommets to those edges to slide along some sort of rod mounted under the edge of the deck.

I became concerned with the unraveling edges of any 'cut' fabrics, especially the landscape material and some others. And of course a number of folks have described efforts to curtail this unraveling with various flammable methods.

My latest thoughts are what about those harbor freight tarps? ...they can be pretty cheap..
1) I believe they have several difference fabric weights, and we would only need the very lightest?
2) Their fabric appears to have a reinforcing element in it that keeps it from unraveling when cut,...or slit??
3) I think their fabric could be stapled successfully? (I was intrigued with the simple idea of just stapling this dropcloth under the front of the deck, rather than more elaborate methods)

Has anyone tried using this material??

 

[beiland]

Harbor Freight Tarps

weights..... https://www.harborfreight.com/tarps


So the blue tarps are the lightest.

If I took this $4.99 size of 7'4" wide by 9'6" long and cut in half I could end up with 2 pieces about 44" wide (certainly enough for most of out height needs) by 9' 6" long,...and with grommets along one edge on each piece. Those grommets might be supplemented by additional ones, and/or just plain old slits in the material to fit over some sort of rod hanger.
Then of course it could just be stapled up the underside of the plywood deck.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

On my previous layout I just used a roll of ground cover plastic. Just stapled it to the layout benchwork and cut it so it hung to just an inch above the floor.

 

[OleSmokey]

I am using Burlap green with 31/2" cove molding to hold it up and not let it unravel. Lightweight and easy to hold up while pulling out or putting in plastic crates under the layout

 

[beiland]

Burlap green

what material?

cove molding

interesting idea

 

[beiland]

On my previous layout I just used a roll of ground cover plastic. Just stapled it to the layout benchwork and cut it so it hung to just an inch above the floor.

doesn't that material tend to unravel along the cut edge?

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/landscape-fabric-layout-skirting-12429853?

Unraveling
This is some black material I had that I used to hide the underside of my outdoor work bench. You can see some of that unraveling bottom edge I was speaking of wanting to avoid.

 

[JeffH]

I've seen people use landscaping fabric with good results.

 

[Smudge617]

You could just fold a 1" strip at the bottom, held in place with hot glue, some plastic type materials you can just run an iron over (using a cloth between the plastic and the iron) basicaly melting them together to form a hem line above the floor and no unravelling to worry about.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

No, I'm referring to the black plastic ground cover. Plastic.

 

[dave1905]

Landscape fabric, comes in 50-100 ft rolls, 3-4 ft wide, and is available at any big box home improvement store. Hot glue clothes pins to the underside of the layout and use them to hold the landscape fabric.

 

[beiland]

Landscaping fabric....you mean the stuff they put down to prevent weeds, etc growing up in a flower garden?

 

[JeffH]

Yes. It's black, very light weight, and doesn't unravel if you cut it to trim for height.

 

[logandsawman]

On my old layout, I used regular cotton fabric from Wal-mart. The width was perfect and I put the "finished" side down, no cutting, did not unfurl at all either over 3 year period of time, picked a nondescript color:

No skirting for the new layout, painted the legs and fascia black and kept it clean and crisp under there:




I like the no skirt look better, I decided. However, if I had lots of stuff stored under there, like I did under the first layout, maybe think different.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

the bench work does provide a lot of storage area.

 

[OleSmokey]

I am doing the same thing to mine. Hot glue to hold it to foam and then some nails in the wood to hold in place with hot glue in the nails. Burlap will cut easy and can do a fold along the bottom. I have the whole area under neigh the area to place crates and step ladder stuff like that. That job will be coming up this next month. I want to get the mountain area into finish so it won't be as messy as it is right now. I have about got the mountain and log camp area done with painting. Once that it finished i can close off the underside With the material. Its green but you could use any color.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Instead of skirting on my empire, I used drywall from the floor up a couple feet then facia on the upper portion that the operator might be bumping against while operating trains. The upper facia is mounted a little further out from the drywall. The tendency of the operators is to be belly against the facia while their toes aren't striking the drywall.
If I need access to the wiring, I can remove the facia in that area.

 

[PowrCab]

I think a sounder idea than drywall would be to panel it all with any sort of wood choice, stained, urethaned, painted, with hinged doors like kitchen cupboards with latches, here and there, to open and crawl thru..Dry wall has got to be a dusty chalky threat to the rails, or at least a tad too demanding compared to wood and other materials..Also, water damage from mopping/flooding would be a deeply regretful travesty with drywall...
In the end, I think the fabrics, polyester, canvas and other draping used throughout the decades is really the safest, simplest, most tried and true way to add skirting to MRR benchwork...
You could of course add ogee/molding along bottom just like in a bedroom..But then you gotz to deal wit dat and mitering it at corners and such, plus it's travel-ability as well, when swinging open...

 

[ctclibby]

Wife is on this. Wants to put up curtains. Well, ok. You know you will need approx 140ft of material ... right? And that is just for the around the walls portion. That slowed her down! Have to do something as there is a ton of storage under the thing and I don't want to look at it unless it is needed. So something that is easy to provide access and move stuff in and out. She is thinking .... and that could be a good or bad thing.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Doors, wood panels, etc. Naaaa, don't think so. The drywall has served well over the past 7 years or so. I do have shelves under benchwork over by the classification yard where I have about 10 bins of sorted freight and passenger cars. Makes it convenient for building new trains for an op session or just running them myself. The bins are easy access, one to each shelf built into the benchwork below the track and facia board.

 

[dave1905]

Curtains allow easy access to the under layout area for storage. Screwed in solid panels of any material would be much less accessible. If I want to get a kit, tool or material out for a project, it takes 10 sec to lift up the curtain and grab the container with the part. If it's in the next bay over, no problem.