SDD Layout Construction

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Benchwork

The layout benchwork is L girder style construction. Click here for L girder construction article. Cookie cutter plywood construction is used to support the layout scenes and track.

Installing Castors for Movable Benchwork

The most unique feature of the benchwork is that it is movable. The key element to making the layout movable is the large casters. Our craft room has deep pile carpet, which makes moving things more difficult. However, we had a lot of success with our IKEA printer stand. Thus, the printer stand was the basis for the castor selection. IKEA used large diameter rubber wheels on their printer stand and a trip to Lowes found SoftTouch 3" Swivel Casters (Item #: 235589, Model: 4036399N), which are a near match of the IKEA ones.

The castors have a screw plate mount which is about 3 x 3 1/2 inches. Typically I use 2x2s for train table legs, but the large screw plate of the castors precluded using 2x2s. Instead I used a 2x4. I cut the end off the 2x4. Then I screw the end piece to the leg. This gave a mounting surface about 4x4 for the castors. I made the end piece about 5 inches long, because I was using 1 3/4 drywall screws to mount the castors, the addition 3 inches was the area for the drywall screws used to bind the end piece to the leg.

To ensure that the layout would move easily and not jostle the trains, I needed to ensure that the legs were rigid and would all move together. As anyone who owns a module knows, an un-braced leg is not very rigid, so I needed additional bracing. I followed directions in XXX, which consists of installing diagonal braces (X bracing) between two nearby legs and then installing diagonal braces between each leg and the L girder it is supporting. I used 1x2s that were ripped from larger pieces of wood for the diagonal braces. Also, I used two drywall screws on the X bracing between legs. I used 3 drywall screws on the gussets for the L girder braces.  The result is three sets of legs that uniformly and directly transfer the motion to the castors.

Sub-roadbed

Foam is used for the sub-roadbed and mountain construction.

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