Laser surgery

It's finally time to start the main level.

First up is to to get the benchwork up. In order to do that, I need to get the same measurement around the room. The big benchwork sections will go in a 20'x30" sections. I need to account for the risers and sub-roadbed which will account for about 3" . With a main level benchwork height of 42", I need to set the height for the steel at 39". 

Now for the challenge of projecting the correct height around the room so I can be consistent. This isn't as critical for the benchwork, but I want to ensure it's as accurate as possible. I plan to weld the 20' sections together making the benchwork as contiguous as possible. 

In order to set an even line around the room, I went with laser leveling. I fellow layout owner loaned me his equipment. It consists of a self leveling beam laser and a manual leveling rotary laser. 

While this works pretty well, it took me forever to get the rotary level. And, that ended up being 'close' or good on 3 walls, but off 1/4" on the fourth. That was after about a hour of working on it. While I appreciate the loan of the equipment, I needed to find something faster. 

The next decision was should I rent one at Home Depot or buy my own. Renting meant I 'potentially' spent less money. Trying to mark up all the walls as quickly as possible. But, there were a couple of drawbacks: 1) If it's a rental, how accurate is it? I know how people handle rental cars and I'm sure rental tools don't get good treatment either. 2) How many times will I need to rent it? There will inevitably be those occasions I need to revalidate or worse, need to get something I missed. I would likely need to do that at least 2 more times for the peninsulas. 

So, I settled on buying my own rotary laser. The self leveling model. And, I found a green laser at Home Depot online for a significant discount. So, I rolled the dice. I also have 'justified' it for other projects beyond the railroad. :)

The green laser is move visible in non-dark lighting. It came with an AC adapter in addition to the batteries. So I ran on AC power rather than batteries giving me unlimited use. And the best part is the remote control. That seemed novel until the first time I didn't have to walk around the peninsula to turn it on.