For those of you that have been following along here’s a pic of the planned benchwork for my new layout. Feel free to let me know what you think. It’s traditional L-girder with joists and risers to hold the sub-roadbed. I haven’t detailed the sub-roadbed just yet on the drawing or the cleats and risers. It’s more for working out the legs, L-girders and joists.
You’ll notice in the upper right and lower right corners I tried to provide access to duck under to clean the hidden trackage and clear any possible derailments. There’s also clearance under the serpentine trackage on the upper wall to allow access for cleaning/derailments.
The only thing I would recommend is on the rounded peninsula and rounded end run the joist on a radian. This puts the risers close to 90degrees to the curve of the track and the cut ends make curving the facia so much easier. You may need to head/ box out the ends of the “L” girder to pick up the swing of the joists. This is done at my club on all rounded layout ends.
As you can see, we have a tremendous amount of curved facia
I can’t remember who on the forum posted an excellent pic of thier benchwork done exactly this way. Maybe they will see this and post.
What type of flooring do you have? I noticed you have legs and you have wall supports. If you have carpet, make sure the legs are ajustable. If they are not, you may start with level benchwork, but as the legs settle into the carpet the sections with legs will lower some and the sections attached to the wall will not and you will end up with unlevel benchwork(voice of experience here - luckily it was just a test layout though).
Hi, I also like your plan but for a couple of reservations to do with support for the roadbed, particularly in the corners and at the edges next to the operators. I don’t know what you are going to use for subroadbed, but I wonder if sagging in those corners will be a problem? The front edges of the sub-bed will get leaned on by people trying to reach for something while operating and especially during construction and cleaning. Running the joists out to the edge of the layout for more support as already expressed will help a lot. Also, your fascia will need something to attach to.
You mention ducking into the corners to clean and to clear derails. There is a lot of hidden trackage along the walls. Will you be able to get to all of it? It looks pretty tight behind the turntable, elevationwise, to get your hands in there. (I assume the joists-plus-risers are tall enough for the turntable pit to clear the girder below.) Remember the 3+ inch headroom needed above the track, if that is not a diamond in front of the red box.
The long arm from the ‘blob’ to the doorway looks tippy. That area will be a bumping point for visitors. The joists will teeter unless there is a second girder in there. Is there any chance of flattening the curved fascia by the 2 arrows so you can run a parallel girder? It can attach to existing girders using construction angled-plates. It does not have to be parallel with the short girder by the door, but running about 25-30 degrees upward to the right, from 8" right of the 2nd leg from the wall to near the leg below the jag that’s going to stab the kibitzer in the back. That way you’d have good stable joists to attach the risers to. I won’t make any claims that I could walk on my layout, but I like good solid framing.
I like the swooping front edge of your design. It’ll make the layout quite pleasing to the eye, and a treat to show off.
Hi, I also like your plan but for a couple of reservations to do with support for the roadbed, particularly in the corners and at the edges next to the operators. I don’t know what you are going to use for subroadbed, Sub-road bed is going to be 1/2" plywith 1/2 homasote on top of that. but I wonder if sagging in those corners will be a problem? Well that is something to look out for. The carpet is a berber so that should help a bit with settling. I have two options on the legs…use a pointed tip that goes thru the carpet and contacts directly with the concrete floor underneath or have the legs rest on a base that’s about 6"x6" to spread out the load.I’m not too worried since this room was purpose built for the layout and is in the basement. It’s not “living space” so when I sell the home it’s not like I’ve ‘ruined’ a potential bedroom. The front edges of the sub-bed will get leaned on by people trying to reach for something while operating and especially during construction and cleaning. The only operator is going to be me, the layout isn’t intended for more than myself… Running the joists out to the edge of the layout for more support as already expressed will help a lot. Also, your fascia will need something to attach to. That’s the plan. Right now the fascia represented is notional and not yet fixed. As I build the layout I should have a better idea of where it’s going to end up.
You mention ducking into the corners to clean and to clear derails. There is a lot of hidden trackage along the walls. Will you be able to get to all of it? It looks pretty tight behind the turntabl
In 1996, Dave Frary, had his 64-page “The Pensy Middle Division in HO Scale” published by Kalmbach. The PRR Project Layout was a compilation of a 9-part series from January-September 1993 Model Railroader.
Dave Frary’s layout room dimensions are 11-6 x 16-3 (page 6) and looks close-enough to what you are doing with curved layout ends. The only difference is your layout extends out with more of a peninsula.
The benchwork and roadbed is specifically covered in the February 1993 Model Railroader which is on pages 12-17 in the book.
The L-Girder benchwork diagrams & pictures show how Dave handled his curved layout ends, including the the striking foilage of Westcentral Pennsylvania with scenic blocks and elevation changes. There is a “fanning-out” of benchwork on the curved ends.
I picked up my out-of-print copy on eBay, and; would recommend Dave Frary’s insight from beginning to end for a comprehensive “how-to-do-it” in all phases of layout construction.
Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on what you are planning. I think layout designs are like Christmas trees… every time you turn around, there is a better one… then you realize that the new ‘better’ one is one you bypassed before. :+)
Sooner or later you just go with it, and the end result is beautiful. Good luck, George.
For an around the wall layout I would think you can do it without legs using braces from the wall up to the front. That would make cleanup and working under the layout a lot easier.
I am presuming all the small squares are legs? There are places where I think you can remove the leg and just support an L-girder between two existing L-girders by extending one over or under the other.
Take my inexperienced advice with a grain of salt.
You mentioned above about using a “pointed” leg to contact the concrete thru the carpet. My suggestion would be to make a hybrid of the pointed leg idea and the 6"x6" foot idea. Take a 1/2" pc of plywood about 6" square, pilot drill 1/8" holes in it (3 per side and 3 roughly centered) and use 1 1/2" joist hanger nails running thru these holes. Now place another peice of 1/2" plywood on top of the nail heads and use a Liquid Nails type adhesive to bond the 2 together. You can now locate your leg on these “feet”.
My thinking is that the nails will sink thru the carpet/padding and contact the concrete rather easily, the 1 1/2" nails will allow approx 1" of nail shank past the bottom peice of plywood so you should not have much (if any) large flat spots in the carpet if plans change later. If you used a single pointed object then you may end up with divits in the rug.
I like it! Come to think of it, there are (or used to be) plastic or rubber “feet” made in a manner similar to your concept for use under furniture legs over carpet. If the “spikes” are long enough for the carpet in question, these feet might be an option.
The supports coming out from the wall in the corners are weak points, it won’t take much pressure, just a few pounds to mke that section sag. If you want a pop-up you can frame the pop-up out and still get the support you need.
Also the notion of making the legs pointy to penetrate the carpet might not be such a good idea. The ppoit could easily break with either downward or lateral pressure. The adjustable leg idea is the best I’ve heard. It’s as easy a drilling a hole in the bottom of a leg and inserting a bold and nut.
Ommission on your part does not make an error on my part. Having been a general contractor for 20 years, I know a tad about construction.
You did not say you were using shelf brackets, you on showed stubbed joists on your track plan. And while it does suport the track, you don’t have framing for your pop-out.
As for the leg points, here are your words.
I don’t see the adjustable steel included in your words.
Look you asked for comment and when I pointed out possible problems, you got huffy.
You’ve still got sort of a problem with that system that I see. While the legs are adjustable, wall brakets are not. So if your framing settle at all, you will be adjusting to the stationary wall brakets. More of a pain in the butt than a problem.
It is a problem though if your two corners aren’t level with each other.
But it’s your design and you can do it any way you like.
