MT
Don’t be bashful with adding legs. Have them at least in pairs and be prepared to brace them. One of the advangages with L girder is that you can always add a leg and additional girders when you need them.
I just finished a rather large peninsula using L-girder methods, but with heavy-gauge steel studs for L girders. It isn’t exactly an Abrams, but it should handle a Bradley. Not is it dead easy to screw through the steel (after drilling a pilot hole) but my L-girders don’t have any funny bends in them and were actually a few bucks cheaper than the wood version would have been.
As for adding legs afterward, singles are fine as long as they are braced, and the bracing can be as simple as relatively small triangular gusset plates, one to the L girder and one to a convenient joist. This applies to both wood and steel.
It looks like the “L” girders stretch into the bar area of the “G” pretty well. The girders are pretty strong. It’s more a matter of having enough support underneath for balance, so that it’s not tippy, that kind of thing.
I had a bit of a peninsula on my layout like yours and I extended the “L” girders right to the end of the peninsula. I found the center of the peninsula and actually glued and screwed the (1" X 3") joists to the girders in a 1/2 “wheel” layout.
-Dave
The only problem I see is that each cross beam really needs at least two attaching points on the L girders in order to be effective. From what I see, they look to be maybe butt jointed there? That is not the best way to do it, it will sag once you get the ply and scenery up. Don’t be bashful with the wood, trees grow everywhere! I agree than another leg under that area is required. Otherwise, that is a great plan and well thought out.
As an aside, I built 3 layouts with the L girder system before finaly abandoning it for a much stronger box construction. L girders are better for when you change your mind half way through construction, but I never saw where it gave me any other benefit. That is just my own opinion!
Actually I was referring to this area:
It just looks to me like those supports aren’t very secure and won’t support much weight.
I tried looking at your plans but kept getting a bunch of VERY annoying pop-ups from some “Okey-Dokey” website. My pop-up blocker kept working on the pop-ups and I couldn’t get to your layout plans.
I hope the pop-ups aren’t related to your site. If they are, you need to remove them if you want more members to comment on your plans.
Darrell, quiet…for now