Been awhile since I've done one of these but here's a quick and dirty one..

How to build Control panels for your layout..

At the moment, I only have two photos to show you. The first is the panel for the lower loops on my mainline:

The second, is my yard/terminal panel

I will refer to these photos often and when I get around to actually building another panel I will update this page.

There isn't anything I'm going to explain that cannot be done with other materials, it is just that the process is a little different order.

Here we go. The first thing you'll notice about each of these panels is that they are multi color. Second, they are made from Acrylic plastic material, 1/4" thick to be exact. This material can be purchased at hardware stores or if you have a plastic supplier in your area, they may cut and sell you small pieces of it.

A little planning is required here, both for color schemes, as well as placement of the electrics. Block toggles, turnout switches, lights, etc. Many years ago, I decided I was tired of wiring block toggles and cab control. Honestly, if your layout will never see more than 2 or 3 trains, that's a fine way to control them. However, if you want more, DCC is definately worth looking into. Not really the scope of this clinic but I state it to make a point. The rotary switches you see on these panels control the tortise point motors on my turnouts. That's all that is needed in my case. If I weren't using electric motors, I wouldn't even need panels.

Now, the typical way of doing a panel is to use a piece of masonite (some call it tempered hardboard) or similar material and paint it (or not) with a desired color for track lines. Once you've decided on your color scheme, with the front paint method (I'll get to that in a moment) and know where you want all your track lines you would paint each area for that specific color. You would then, take masking tape (don't scrimp here, get the good stuff), usually 1/4" wide, and layout your track diagram. Once you have it masked off, everything cleaned up and crisp looking, you then spray the entire panel usually with black. Any color will work as long as it strongly contrasts the track colors. Once dry, peel off the tape, install and wire the electrics, connect, run your trains.

I got a little ahead of myself here, before doing all that, it's a good idea to do all the cutting and drilling before any of the masking. That is true regardless of the method used. Now I'll explain the Back Paint method (this is cool)..

As described earlier, these panels are made of 1/4" acrylic, a material similar to plexiglass but much more rigid (and somewhat more brittle). Instead of the paint being on Front of the panel howevcer, where it can get scratched and banged up, it is on the Rear. Now you have to kind of think of the mirror image of your track diagram rather than the actual because everything you're doing is backwards. Someday if you want to know, I'll explain how I learned that the hard way.. For now, just take my word for it.

Planning is the same, figuring out where to put all the devices, labels, lights, etc. However, instead of applying any paint, we layout the diagram of the track First. The tape used for this is actually RC car pinstriping tape. It is a vinyl like tape that comes with a backer you peel off as you apply it. The nice property of this stuff is that it can be bent without kinking. Notice the turntable tracks on the yard panel. I've never tried this tape on masonite but it would probably work there too. It comes in a variety of widths as well but for my purpose, the 1/4" was fine.

Once the panel is laid out, drilled, and taped we then spray it with what will be the background color. The light gray in this case. Let it dry. Then remove the masking for whatever track lines you want to paint next. For example, the engine terminal tracks on my yard panel are painted green. So that tape is removed and the the green is sprayed. Overspray doesn't affect anything here unless you intend to backlight the panel (which I do). Once that is dry, remove the tapes for the other tracks you want of a different color and spray that color.

If you want things like labels for cities, towns, industries, block numbers, logos, etc, you don't want to paint those areas at all so again, planning is of great importance here. There are several ways of labeling one of these, the simplest being printing labels on paper that will be taped to the back of the panel. You'll notice that I didn't do much labeling. The one exception is where I have the programming track switch on the yard panel. Those were done simply with a sharpie (writing backwards) and then covering it with red paint. If you want to note power districts showing where gaps are, you would then (after all the paint is dry) simply scribe out the paint down to the bare acrylic and apply paint of a different color. A bit difficult to see but look at the mainline panel and you'll see the two yellow marks (look near the center of the the panel) that indicate where the gaps are cut for the reverse loop district (one of three on the layout).

The DOWNSIDE of this method is this.... If you decide to change your trackplan, specifically add tracks (as I did), changes are virtually impossible to make to one of these panels. While the yard panel tracks are still there, now there are a half dozen others and the engine terminal (planned) has changed significantly. See why I mention Planning?? With the front paint method, changes would be a little more easily made..

A variation of this method is to print out your track diagram, complete with labels, logos, etc on a piece of paper and sandwitch it between two pieces of acrylic. Once you do the cutting and drilling, you're pretty much commited to the panel design but simple changes could be made by simply printing another diagram. Both methods work quite well.

A few words about working with acrylic (also applies to anything else).. When drilling, you want to have a backer board behind it to avoid breaking it as the drill bit punches through. I really recommend having it cut to size rather than doing so yourself but if you insist, a table saw is probably best (I let the hardware store do this for me). A fine kerf blade installed Backwards will give the best results on plastic materials (DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK ADHEARING TO ALL THE SAFTEY PRECAUTIONS OF YOUR TOOLS. I ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ACCIDENTS, LOSS OF LIMB, SIGHT, HEARING, OR LIFE). The drill bits you use should be sharp, slow turning, and wood cutting bits are the best (not the spade type).

The LEDs isntalled on these panels are done in two different ways. The mainline panel, they are installed in the rear. This was accomplished by drilling Partially through the acrylic a hole ever so slightly larger than the LED used. The LEDs are held in mostly by friction but a little dab of white glue at the base of the LED helps to hold them in. The closer to exact you can get the size, the better they'll stay. The LEDs on the yard panel are simply drilled through and held in with LED mounting grommets.

That's about it folks.. When I actually build another panel, I'll update this page..

Keep the rails shiney,

The Rolleiman

April 10, 2008