Crosby Coal by Laser-Art

Working on the Crosby Coal base...
On Sunday while Don Janes was visiting we discussed the Crosby coal Laser-Art kit by Branchline. We both have one to build and I am just beginning to work on my kit to replace a Maine two footer scene I have on my layout...the Maine structures are stand in's till I had something more suitable. The scene currently uses my covered water tower and section house that was once part of  my HOn30 diorama. I finally have decided to add a Rutland Railroad scene to this location and the Crosby Coal fits perfectly.

The Crosby Coal dealer will be replacing this Maine two foot scene that has been a stand in feature at "Summit" since the layout was built. The buildings were used on past layouts and have worked well to date on the White River Division.

Well the base that is included with the kit has an end to end curve that will make it hard to mount the structure on when completed. Don mentioned his base is in worse shape then mine and he had returned the base for a replacement. The replacement was a little better but not up to snuff. We came to the conclusion that it would be best to glue and screw the base to at least 1/4 or 1/2 inch of plywood. The thicker the better is our approach.

The base is glued and screwed to a 1/2 inch base to get out the curves.

I decided to use a 1/2 inch  plywood base. First I pulled the two sided tape off the bottom and sanding it smooth. When I started to flex the base straight it snapped in two but not a problem...I figured on 2 screws per half to hold them to the plywood base with contact cement added. Once I had the screws in and the end to end curve was straight, I realized there was also a small cupping in the width. Each of the corners got screws. When I finally got it all straight I had used 6 screws in one half and 4 in the other. The screws I used were wood self tapping flooring screws added in holes I drilled in advance. All the screws will be covered by the structure or coal piles that I will be adding. To finish off the days work a spray can of gray primer was used to coat everything. As the project moves along I will update the blog....George Dutka

The base is now secure and straight. A coat of auto primer was applied.

The prototype as it looked during a visit to Danby, Vermont in May 2008.