Have finally settled on a plan for the extra room/office that has met with approval from the CFO, Zoning Department, Building Commission, etc (aka SWMBO, aka my wife [;)]). Bought and cut all of the materials over the weekend, though didn’t have time to start building or grab some pics… so here’s a late WPF entry.
Have only had time to put together one of the tables (this one is 36" square). Forgot to take into account the extra 1 - 1.25" thickness of the table frame and plywood surface, so it’ll end up being about 55" high or so when all is said and done (still need foam on top… wasn’t in the budget after getting all the wood). On the upside, this height puts the table top far out of reach of the cat (well, for now anyway… the closed door is the “permanent” solution)
the frame and legs are comprised of 1x3s screwed together to form a L-bracket. I’ve also added some scrap 1x3 to the bottoms of the feet to accept T-nuts and carriage bolts for levelling purposes (have to find a slightly more well-stocked store though – the lowes lackey looked at me like I was insane for asking about a package that contained more than one per… [%-)])
Here’s a “front” view from across the room, sort of from an operator’s POV. This table will house the turntable and roundhouse.
This is the same view, from about where I’d be standing if i was operating (maybe a touch farther away. The table itself will come up to around the upper part of my chest once the foam is on top(comfy enough to work at)
And finally, a “just walked in the room” view. From here, the TT will be right in front of you with the RH slightly to the right. heading do
If the breaker box is in you apartment - get an X10 wall switch and swap it out. Save the existing one to put back when you moveout. You then also need a palm pad and rf transceiver. As a bonus get an 3 pin appliance module to two and plug your layout stuff into it. You will now be able to controlt he light and also turn the layout on and off withotu crawlign ont eh floor and plugging stuff in - from anywhere. This is what I did in my layout room, although not for the room lights, that switch is not blocked by my plan. I have a power strip at my workbench, that is plugged into the 3 pin appliance module (the 3 pin oens have ground - 3 prong conenctors, so the terminal strips plug right in). Under the layout I have another power stip that all my DCC stuff plugs into, it is also on an appliance module, on a different code. One button power up my workbench, the other powers up my layout, without stooping or anything.
With such long legs, you may discover that there’s a tendency to wobble. If so, diagonal braces will help.
To avoid kicking the legs on larger sections, bringing them in a bit from the extreme corners will help. As Linn Westcott said: “Build bridges, not tables.”
Dan, on the foam, I have not tried this with Lowe’s, but a Home Depot if you find a damaged section of foam you can get 75% off. You may have to talk to the department manger, sometimes I do, and other time the people walking the floor will do it for you.
Looks great so far. I constructed my layout in the same fashion. 4 sections with an operating pit in the middle. It is turning out nicely. My table, with foam on top is is 53" I believe, if I remember correctly. perfect viewing height. Also, I am 6’3" tall, so it is a great change of pace from doing dishes at below waste level.
Now, the bracing. When you complete all of the sections and get them pieced together, you will gain some sheer strength. But, you will need some more. What I did was brace it up with 1x4’s, excatly what I used for the bench work. The good news is, that my wife loved the idea! I sold it as shelving. Since my layout is so high up, I have room to store so much under it. The top of the shelf is for train related things, and below, I can put a shop vac, file cabinet, large stock pots, our canning things. Really…a life saver when dealing wioth not only space limitations, but your wife.
An 8ft piece of 1x4 is less then $2.00. the shelfs I built, priceless.
To those of you who’ve suggested the braces – yes, there will be some added. At the moment, the braces have yet to be cut. Cutting the 52" legs left me with 44" pieces that still need cut down to make more of the 36" and 18" parts to make the table frames (all remaining tables will be 36" long x 18" deep), so I’ll cut the bracing from what’s left of that. worst case scenario will be to build a shelf at approximately floor level to keep everything square .edit – NorthCoastRR I totally missed your comment about the shelves before writing this [:D]
Legs need to be at the corners to allow maximum storage area below the layout (condition of SWMBO). Otherwise I would have built everything with the “open” ends of the L towards the exterior, which would have set the legs back 3-4". However for the two sections I’ll be making today/tomorrow, there will be “standard” legs in each corner at the extreme ends, and then a single leg at the other end, kind of like this:
L---------L|-----------L
L-----------|L---------L
Randy, I like the idea of that other switch – will consider that as I’m going along. the plan for electrical distribution is a power bar attached to the backside of one of the L brackets along the front of the layout, or possibly on one of the legs, so no need to crawl under the layout to reach a plug. There are also additional plugs in the room not near the layout (near the desks) so there’s easy access to extra plugs for soldering, etc.
I built my benchwork in 2x4’ sections, although I doubt I will ever take it apart in that small of pieces - I moved one 2x8 section with no problem, easily fit through doors and around corners. They’re 2x4 because I was buying the precut wood at Lowes since I don;t have a vehicle that can handle 8’ boards and initially I was cutting everything by hand - same miter box you have actually. Finally I got tired of sawign by hand and bought a small (10") power miter saw at Sears, pretty cheap, and while my place is two floors, meaning the downstairs neighbor has a whole other floor between my train room and them, it’s barely audible even right below where I have it running. I wouldn;t cut wood at 2 int eh morning, but it’s not so obscenely loud to annoy people during normal daytime hours.
Anyway, the first piece I built has legs at all 4 corners. After that, I’ve only put legs on the ‘open’ end as I expanded out in both directions. The next section I build will have 2 legs, then I will line it up witht he free end of the previous section, which also has legs, clamp it in place, and drill holes for bolts to connect the pieces together.
Before you brace, get some shims. When I did my around the garage layout after getting all the shelving up I broke out the level, shimed a few spots, added the bracing and checked the level again and then still had to shim a few spots here and there. It is no fun having the rolling stock go racing down hill on its own.
know what you mean Eric [:)], I’m going to check Home Depot tomorrow to get T-nuts for the legs. I’m going to use carriage bolts as feet (whole lot cheaper than “levelling bolts” [8D]).
Randy – I considered going that route with the legs around the whole thing, but I wanted the 18" deep section to be free standing, and didn’t like the prospect of spanning 6’ with no legs in the centre. This is a precautionary measure in case SWMBO decides that the 3x3 section is too big for the room. Also just realized that the image I drew above is wrong… should look like this instead:
L---------L|---------L
L---------L|---------L
where the ‘L’ represents where a leg will be, and the pipe ‘|’ is the seam between the two table surfaces.
The benchwork along other two walls will be built though with shelf brackets rather than legs so as to clear my desk & (future) workbench. However, this is being built in stages so I’m likely not going to start the next wall until after the holidays…
aaaaand more pictures of today’s progress [:D] to start, here are the two other table surfaces ready to have legs installed. The legs are right next to them, but I learned the hard way that just because two boxes of screws are on the 8x1 (qty 100) hangar at the store, they don’t necessarily have 100 screws in them (the second box turned out to be 75 [:(][tdn]).
Next we have an overall shot, with a mock-up of where a train would be after adding the 2" foam to teh surface. Not sure if I’ll go with 2" or 1.5" – seems 1.5 would be enough to allow me the luxury of only needing a square access hole for the bottom of the walthers TT rather than trying to cut a 12.75" circular hole in the plywood itself. completely depends on what is available, and how
If you are nearly certain it will have to be taken apart, at each section joint cut the main bust and add some Anderson Power Pole connectors. We use these on the modualr layout for quick and easy setup and teardown. They come as singles that you can gang together as many as you need - some modules have 2x4 connectors, others have 2x6, some are 2x8, depending on how many wires need to go between modules. I didn’t do this on my layout, I don;t anticipate takign it down any time soon, and if I do I can cut the wires and later connect them together.
Insteadof T nuts and bots, I found these 4 packs of felt bottom leg levelers at Home Depot. Lowes probably has somethign similar. They come 4 in a pack, there’s a threaded plastic bushing you drill a 5/8" hole int he bottom of the leg, insert the bushing, the screw in the other part, which has a threaded steel bit with an end cap that is felt bottomed. Where I used to life the layout was in a room with hardwood floor and I didn;t want to scratch it, since I already had them I kept on using them even though the new train room has carpet. It spreads the weight out a bit and hopefully will leave less of an impression in the carpet than a carriage bolt head.
… not so concerned about leaving a mark in the carpet . I have enough scrap bits of wood that I can set the bolt head in/on if I feel the weight is too concentrated.
First of all, let me say that you have the most awesome layout room I have ever seen. How much do you want for that Manchester United flag? [:D]
Also, 8" triangles of 3/8" plywood between the legs and the surface will provide a lot of stiffening, will take up very little room, and shouldn’t interfere with the modularity of your layout. You don’t even need them on every corner, just brace opposite corners in opposite directions. As long as you’re not planning to climb on your benchwork, that should be more than sufficient.
haha, thanks CT. I think it was £15 (I bought it when I was in London last year)… but I’ll cut you a deal and it’ll only cost you $32.50 , plus $17.50 S&H[8D]. Half expected Jon to pipe up about it, seeing as he supports Sunderland FC.
I’m going to have to move the flag, since it’s too low to clear the table tops…
I’ve got a lot of extra 1x3s that are about 4’ long – orignal plan called for 3-4 more 36" brackets (so 6-8 more pieces of lumber). Turns out that the 1x3 L brackets are more than strong enough to deal with 36" spans (I’m not climbing on this after all). I might add a “T” brace in the centre of the square table, though I’ve piled a lot of stuff up on it and there’s no deflection of the plywood, so I’m probably good there. have also been on top of the 3x3 plywood to screw it to the table frame with little/no deflection.
Current plan is to build a shelf at the bottom of the 3x3 table out of these spares, and some MDF shelves (a la Randy’s design for his DCC shelf). One of the 36x18 tables will also get a shelf, and the last one may get angle braces (it’s in the corner, and will eventually have another table running along the back wall of the room.
yep – it’s time for another update! Last night I added the shelving to the 36x36table, and completed one of the two 18x36 tables, also complete with a shelf. When I picked up the shelving, I also grabbed a sheet of the “for projects” masonite (it’s 2x4 feet). I probably paid more for that than if I had just bought a 4x8 sheet, but I don’t have any way to transport sheets that big [:(][tdn].
Up first is a picture of the shelves:
The shelves are actually a touch smaller than the underside of the tables (they only had 36x34, and 36x12 shelves) figure that’s fine though – the shelves are 3/4" thick and screwed to the braces around the perimeter to keep them in place. I may add a short “leg” in the middle for support if they need it, but for now they seem like they’ll hold up to the job.
While the tables were pretty sturdy on their own, I added the extra insurance of some carriage bolts to keep everything tightly together:
Next, here’s a shot looking down the length of the table:
And a “straight on” view:
This shot also shows where I marked for the NCE interface panel. It’s about halfway down on that table, which allows me to walk to the far (door) end of the 36x36 table without much trouble (mostly the trouble is the cable still having a few folds in it from being packaged. ) if I find I need a longer cable, I’ve got a few hundred feet of network cab
Looks like you are making good progress and the bench work is solid.
Many of us use the space underneath for storage. In my case I have 2 drawer metal filing cabinets that I can move around as necessary.
IMO you may have a problem with shelving particualary this early in the game. There is a lot of work that goes on underneath the bench and the shelving is going to give you a fit when you start wiring. Even after your wiring is done there comes times when you need to work on it.
Maybe I have missed something or you have a way around it.
Looks liek it’s right down on the floor - which means other than stuff being placed on it being in the way, it’s not really going to interfere with working underneath. At least not on narrow benchwork like that.
wiring wont be too much of a mess – I’m going to form cables off layout (on the plywood forming board, a picture of it is in the thread here somewhere). Here’s the wiring method I’ll be following.
Each table will be wired independently, with terminal blocks at the ends.
Main power bus will have minimum of four(4) and up to twelve (12) wires - all will be 12AWG solid wire. The bus will run slightly off centre (about 8-10" from the front of the 18" sections).
12AWG solid taps will be branched from this cable at approximate 12" intervals to provide power to feeder distribution blocks*.
Once all wires are run into the cable, it will be laced** on the forming board before being attached to the underside of the layout with plastic wire hangars.
Insulation colours will be as follows:
- Green (or blue) & White for DCC Power → NCE Powercab
- possibly 2 sets Black & Red for DC Power (~12v) → MRC Tech 4 or wall warts
- all ends of the wires will be labelled for identification. wiring diagrams will be drawn on a per-table basis.
- the additional three pairs will be either for expansion at a later date (hey, i want working signals now!) or as spares in the event of failure of one or more conductors.
Feeders will be of up to 12" in length, 24AWG solid wire. They will be run from the terminal blocks to the rails as necessary.
Colours will match the wiring scheme above, with the caveat the “red” bus wire will correspond to “orange” feeders & “black” bus wires will correspond to “brown” feeders, due to “red” not being one of the colours used in network cable (uses orange, blue, green, and brown with the second wire in each pair having a white stripe. I have like 1,000 ft sitting in a box… perfect feeders after stripping off the PVC insulation)
