Masonite Monday: Sorting Waybills & Protecting Structures

Since evolving my operations paperwork to a full(er) waybill system, I not only needed bill boxes, but also some way to sort the bills themselves. I considered everything from just allowing crews to sort their bills on the layout (less desirable as more scenery gets done), providing clipboards (which I do, but they're not great for bill sorting), to some sort of shelf - either flip up or pull out.

Since I had a bunch of leftover masonite from my fascia though, I finally decided to just make up sorting "slots" - one for each town. That meant I needed 11 of them(!). Here's the "plan" I came up with, such as it was (more of a bill of materials...):

I needed:

• For the front of the sorter - 11 strips measuring 1.5" by 13"
• To offset the sorter front from the fascia:
• at the bottom - 11 strips measuring 1/2" by 12"
• at the sides - 22 strips measuring 1/2" by 1.5"

So, I pulled out the table saw (which I hadn't used in months, if not years) and started ripping strips. Here's what I ended up with (in addition to a LOT of dust...):

I glued & clamped the three "offsetting" pieces (sides & bottoms) to the back of the sorter front...

Drilled clearance holes for the mounting screws . . .

And painted everything black . .

I'd considered countersinking the screws and covering them with spackle and paint. But instead, I decided to mount and paint them in place . . .

Since I painted the sorters the same color as the fascia, I didn't really have to mask. But whatever. Here's a view of the sorter in service (though before it was painted):

And here's a pic of a painted (albeit empty) sorter . . .

It was admittedly a bit of work - and would be even more difficult without a table saw - but I've found no off-the-shelf product that will create a slot like this, that can even bend (albeit slightly) around curves (I even tried restaurant ticket holders, eh Tom?). But if you have the right tools and some time, these sorters will work really well.

Structure Protection

Ever since I got the Dickinson's Witch Hazel distillery structure from Bill & John (yikes! I just realized I never did a post on that <facepalm>), given it's proximity to a narrow aisle, it's been protected with a piece of plexiglass - held in place with three spring clamps - for the past I-dunno-how-many years . . .

But fresh off the success of my bill sorters, I thought a similar approach would help me get rid of those clamps. The pics & captions below tell the story . . .

The plexi - which I got from Home Depot - was just the right size: tall AND wide enough. I'd just clamped it at the bottom for years, but using the same process I'd used for making the bill sorters, I used a big piece of masonite and three "offsetting" strips to create a slot for the plexi to fit into.

As you can see, it's glued and screwed to the fascia. But, unlike the bill sorters, I decided to countersink and hide the screws.

Took a few easy coats of spackle and some sanding (including rasping down the edges) . . .

. . . and then a coat of Kilz primer.

But after 3(!) coats of my fascia paint, it looks a LOT better than clamps!

No clamps to get caught and the plexi slides up out of the slot as needed for photography and such.

The packrat's motto is to never throw away anything. While that can certainly be taken to an extreme, I'm glad I saved the scrap masonite. As you can see, I've put it to some great use!