What's your favourite repurposed item on your layout?

Great idea Bobby!!  I really like the idea because each box can be pre-made with "scenes" and then taped or glued on the back of the building.  Like you said, positioning of the lights can be changed so as to give various lighting effects as well as hide them.  Thanks for posting such a great drawing above...

Alan

Bobby Ogage,

The diagram illustrations of your model work is impressive.  Thanks for sharing your creative works!

Copter  

These will probably make people laugh.

In these photos from a couple of years ago, you see a small refinery scene.  The "cat cracker" is an architect's rough model I picked up for 20 bucks at a train meet in 2010, the "equipment stand" is a discreetly placed Lionel infrared detector (the "lockers" face toward the cat cracker) and the three oil tanks just past turnout are, < drum roll > three vegetable cans from my parent's kitchen in 1974, rinsed out, wrapped with 1" masking tape, painted gray and turned upside down.  (I built a little oblong "dike" out of stripwood around them when I installed this scene on the layout."

The outside-braced lighthouse in the photo below, which I picked up at a flea market for $3, had a 120 VAC "Christmas bulb" and socket threaded inside and up into the lens area.  Evidently, this was some sort of household decoration that was intended to sit on an end table or something like that.  It's missing the little rubber "caps" on the wire legs, so obviously no one wanted it for that decorative purpose any more. 

I pulled the cord and socket out of it, dusted it off and put it on the layout as a "decommissioned" lighthouse.  (At the diagonal opposite end of the layout is a fully operational Lionel lighthouse installed with a scratch-built rip-rap base, so the "decommissioned" lighthouse" works as a "abandoned structure." It also helps to fill out the "corner" of the layout.   BTW--the name of our layout is Lighthouse Point RR1!)

I created a double track plate bridge with a piece of steel stud I picked up at a commercial building construction site.  The piece is 10" wide with a 1.25 lip on each side.  A little paint and some decorative molding and additional ballast and it will be done.

Was looking through some old photos and stumbled across this one. The Tesla Light and Power Company started out as an MTH Public Works building, but was re-painted and weathered by Jeff Remy. Bob Armstrong decided it needed a transformer facility. The transformers are pill bottles with beads and styrene added. The fence was made from veil material he hijacked from hi wife's sewing box and some coffee stirrers (one of our favorite building materials).

On the interior, Jeff had placed some lamp parts (socket, pull chain handle) and other odd stuff he had lying in a junk box.

In the engine facility, a Lionel tank car body was re-purposed as an elevated fuel tank. Bob Armstrong built this as I recall.

I have not repurposed this item yet but I will use n guage flexitrack for a guardrail on the mountain roads of my Mountain Division.  I will paint the track, with rails, either white or silver.

I revised the sketch, so if you downloaded the earlier version, discard it and take this one. The basic idea for this sketch came from Frank53, and I think it is an excellent to add some interest to structures using light.

Bobby

I really appreciate your putting all this information/ideas in an easy to save and consult form. Please may we have more?

thank you

Scotie

Bobby Ogage,

Thanks for the updated professional quality sketch. 

Copter

Repurposed Lionel locomotive smoke unit, currently used in my switch house.

2 Volts to the unit achieves a subtle chimney smoke effect without melting any plastic.

Micro-Engineering Trestles that are HO scale used as an O scale bridge and on top of the trestles are upside-down Atlas Plate Girder bridges.  I have been aggravated for years that these trestles are only made for HO and N scales.  I said to heck with it.  This may not be "re-purposed"  but I thought close enough!

I can't believe that I forgot my cake pan! I needed a small turntable to turn my very old Lionel snowplow around for its return trip up the mountain.  I installed this much more for appearance than function but this turntable absolutely does work!

I wasn't going to spend hundreds/thousands and no one makes a tiny table like this anyway.  The cake pan cost a dollar.  The track probably a buck.  The electrical components $9.  The Atlas bridge that I butchered was given to me.  The paint a buck or two.  The results: PRICELESS!   

Artic White Bathroom rugs for snow. Don't laugh

That snow looks great. You get an A+ for creativity.

Old guitar strings for cables, wire rope & wire.

Small thread spools for winch drums.

Old bicycle brake lever & cables for remote manual switch throws.

Old aluminum paneling spacers strips laid in gauge for storage tracks.

Dave

John C.,

Using a cake pan as a turn table pit is a wonderful idea. I will be sketching that idea so it's available in the future. 

I am going to use cake pan pits at the ends of a trolley line I am building.

K-Line made a small turntable / speeder shed accessory #42409 "SPEEDER SHED & SPEEDER".  I paid $92.95 + $8.05 shipping for a total cost of $101.00 in 19__?? .... the dealer was GRZYBOSKI. 

The K-Line speeder has people that are more G scale than O but I plan to run any of many of the  SMALL, more scale looking Lionel units that have reverse units as they will fit on this short little "TURNTABLE". The track is compatible with the Lionel traditional tinplate three rail track, which is what I use on my layout.

This #42409 even has the switch controller that looks like a Lionel turnout switch controller! No MUSS, NO FUSS. NO cake pan needed. All done for you and works perfectly every time, to turn your little tank engines 90 degrees so the can drive into the speeder shed and then back out at your command!

Motorized units that might work are: #1845 #59 Minuteman unit, #28650 NYC 0-6-0 Dockside Switcher, K-Line 2630-14 US STEEL PLYMOUTH SWITCHER, #21230 RINGLING BROTHERS PORTER SWITCHER, or any of the RMT BANGS or BEEPS. I have NOT confirmed these WILL FIT yet. But I believe they will and these units have REVERSE UNITS, unlike the bumper GANG cars. Lionel's small speeders, rail joiners, and MOW Command TRACKMOBILES are another possability.

I was VERY surprised that the # 42409 accessory was not HUGELY POPULAR! And that they ended up on "blow-outs". Maybe it was because it was during the end of K-Line and folks thought all their product was dead & undesirable.

Paul Goodness

Paul,

What is the length of the ROTATING track on the #42409 accessory ?

Best,

Dave

I took a silver, aluminum enclosure for an external hard drive, turned it on its side.  It is now the NSA Data Collection Center.

Funny.

Originally Posted by cooperthebeagle:

The foil tape (furnace duct tape) on the underside of a smoke unit circuit board.  Rationale: additional heat isolation from circuit board & reflect heat back to heating element.

Source: http://bit.ly/1cQIZ2w
 

Not necessarily my favorite, but one of them, anyway.

Two 3-prong dollar store electrical grounding adapters, as large dumpsters.

Removed the two electrical prongs, and painted the lids, and not to mention the stone arch bridge in the background that I am still finishing up, which is made entirely of thin foam board.

I re-used an old computer keyboard tray to hold my remotes:

I have used a 3/8 inch metal fuel line,cut to length as pipe on a flat car...plus it adds weight to those light cars.

From thread titled "Acetate Windows"

For windows:

 -Blank transparency sheets (can be printed w/ inkjet printer)

 -Vellum paper (for translucent windows)
 -Microscope coverslips <- can also be used to model broken glass

--

Copter