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Subject: 
Re: Possible BOO BOO
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.org.us.lucny
Date: 
Fri, 26 Apr 2002 13:10:58 GMT
Viewed: 
667 times
  
In lugnet.org.us.lucny, Wayne Sardullo writes:
I sat at the dinner table this evening and said DOH!!!!!!!!!!!

[snip]

With that in mind..  I believe someone here at lugnet has done a (HERES the
Standard Table Design) go build it.

[snip]

I figured maybe if we chip in or just each buy a table then we have some kind
of Standard to work from. The other reason is if we go that route its not just
for Lego those tables could have other purposes during non-Lego Times.

Please comment on this.  ALL INPUT IS GOOD

Hi All,

I hope you don't mind me throwing in my experiences here.  We (NELUG) were in
much the same position about 1.5 years ago - do we build some tables as per a
LEGO standard, or buy some.  We ended up building ours, and I'll give some of
my feedback.

For LEGO, they are absolutely amazing.  The standard LTC table size is about
44" on a side (?), so that they fit 4x4 regular sized baseplates exactly.  This
may not sound like a big deal, but it turns out it is.  You don't even have to
paint the tables at all, just make sure you have enough baseplates to cover the
area.  Then you buy some tacks and a cheap skirting material, and you have a
professional looking display.

The relatively small size of the tables works wonders as well.  I've managed to
fit eight or so in my Honda Civic 2-door coupe.  The advantage of this can't be
overstated - that means *anyone* can take a table home, to plan out a part of
the train layout, to host a Brikwars game, or just to use it for whatever.
Additionally, with rather small sizes, you have more flexibility with the
layout.  Long and thin?  One big block?  A donut with open space in the middle?
An open space surrounded by a ring which is two tables wide on one side, one
table wide on the other?  We've done all of these.

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=8895

We've also started to appreciate some other aspects of these designs.  For one
thing, we found ourselves desperately wanting more just before our last train
show.  Tom simply made four more in one afternoon - and we didn't have to worry
about stock turnover, or changing styles, or discontinued designs.  Plus, and
perhaps most importantly from a train layout standpoint, we've gotten to the
part where we can start incorporating different levels, which is very easy to
do with custom tables:

http://www.nelug.org/greenberg0402/P4050012.JPG
http://www.nelug.org/greenberg0402/P4050015.JPG
http://www.nelug.org/greenberg0402/P4050034.JPG

Assembling them turns out not to be that big a deal (and cheap) - Home Depot
will cut the plywood to the size you specify, and the rest of it entails: some
drilling of bolt-holes, some chop-sawing of the legs, and some minor cuts to
make the leg braces.  A few screws, bolts, nuts, and washers, and they're done.

That being said, I'm trying to think of some disadvantages.  By themselves,
they certainly aren't very aesthetic - we've worked around that by covering all
of the wood surfaces for any shows or Brikwars games, though.  And while you
could use them for purposes other than LEGO (is there such a thing?
Blashemous!), we haven't yet, and I don't believe any of us are beating down
the door to, again probably for aesthetic reasons.

Well, there you have it.  We've had lots of good experiences with ours, though
I don't feel that there is any *overwhelming* argument one way or the other.
The primary advantages to the self-made tables seem to be (1) exact baseplate
fit (2) modularity and (3) easily customized for future projects (such as
valleys, gulleys, hills, mountains, etc.).  If those seem important, than you
might want to lean towards homemade LEGO tables.

In any case, have fun.  These are the sort of decisions that you can enjoy
making, since it's for a fun cause.  Better those than "fix the brakes or new
hot water heater"-type choices, eh?  ;)

-s



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Possible BOO BOO
 
Shaun Thanks for your input. I've been thinking about it and it might be cheaper too. then going out and blowing 50 bucks on a table. 4x4 ft modules seems like a nice overall size. I would myself make some module design changes myself but that only (...) (22 years ago, 26-Apr-02, to lugnet.org.us.lucny)
  Re: Possible BOO BOO
 
In lugnet.org.us.lucny, Shaun Sullivan writes: Some quick additional notes on the NELUG tables. (...) Well they are actually 40.25" buy 40.25", which fit a 16 32x32 baseplates in a 4x4 configuration, Or you could have 8 16x32 and 12 32x32 (...) (22 years ago, 28-Apr-02, to lugnet.org.us.lucny)

Message is in Reply To:
  Possible BOO BOO
 
I sat at the dinner table this evening and said DOH!!!...!!! While we briefly discussed a layout there is a major consideration that we kind of overlooked. We've assumed alot about what will be used as tables. Before we can plan a layout we have to (...) (22 years ago, 26-Apr-02, to lugnet.org.us.lucny)

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