Shelf Project Update

I finished two more King Mill building flats:

This brings me almost to the end of my King Mill stash, but it gives me a supply of possible flats I can swap out to use as temporary scenery for the shelf while I firm up what I'll eventually do with it. More Unitrack is on order and should arrive later this week as well, but my suppliers lately have gotten passive-aggressive about filling orders and shipping. Sheesh.

As I've posted before, I like culverts, and I try to install as many in my scenery as I can. Searching for one that would fit in a cramped environment like the shelf project, I found this Blair Line product:

I ordered this from an eBay seller. I've found that eBay usually gets stuff to my mailbox within a few days, but this seller was passive-aggressive, too. I messaged him asking what his projected ship date was, and his response was to cancel my order "at purchaser request". So I ordered direct from Blair Line and should get this around the time I get my Unitrack.

Meanwhile I prepped the layout base. I cut a slot 3/4 inch wide partway through the shelf, per the dimensions in the drawing. I clamped a piece of plywood underneath the slot to maintain the strength of the shelf:

Here it is with the clamps off:

I used a sanding cylinder in my Dremel to carve out the sides of the ditch and extend the stream base farther back:

Here's the result after vacuuming all the sawdust and stuff:

I painted the Celotex with some beige-colored craft paint from Michaels:

And here;'s the curve back in position.

The shelf brackets behind this scene will be removed when I reposition the micro layout that had been on them to put it in line with the track going through the shelf. I covered that in this post last August.