Subject:
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Re: Building my train table
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 24 Mar 2000 10:30:35 GMT
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Viewed:
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1947 times
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FYI, it's more expensive, but if you use birch plywood for the
top/sides/girders, the table will be much lighter, stiffer, and stronger than
using plain plywood or LDF/MDF. You could go all the way down to 1/4" birch
plywood and still take an amazing amount of weight. Spend even more, and get
marine-grade birch plywood, and it's even stronger/lighter.
I'm going to make my tables with 3/8" or 3/4" birch plywood, and most likely use
either folding legs with adjuster feet or PVC pipe. Each has its' advantages,
but I'm leaning towards folding legs, as I won't have room for extra pipe in the
car.
Heck, as it is, my tables may have to be 15x60 and 30x60, or 3 15x60s, just to
fit them in the car. If I had a place to store a small trailer, I'd buy one and
weld a hitch on my car (how many racecars with a rollcage have a trailer
hitch?), but I don't have any place close to home to store a trailer :-/
I also would LIKE to use plexiglas on the sides, but ultimately it is up to
MikeP. Personally, I value my sets VERY highly (don't EVEN ask what my final
Metroliner will have cost), and would rather keep hands off them. At the BayLUG
meeting, a child knocked a 4547 out of our 15 or so car Metroliner as it was
running, and it pretty much exploded when it hit the floor. Luckily I had
brought a MISB 4547 with me so someone could build it, so we had instructions to
rebuild it. Luckily also, it was NOT one of my cars, or I would have had to
walk out of the room to cuss a bit before going back in to rebuild.
Mike Poindexter wrote:
> I built about 5 of those style tables. They seemed quite more work than
> they should be, but maybe I am just not very proficient at woodworking.
> (Probably the latter).
>
> If you want easy tables, make them with 3/4" plywood and use 2x4s on their
> edge to add stability. Then you can put the banquet table legs on them and
> adjust height with PVC pipe. It worked much easier for me.
>
> Also, for the record, I would shave about 1/8" off the table sizes, as a
> table too large leaves a gap between the layout, whereas a table too small
> just has the gap bridged over with bricks/plates. You can always put a
> washer to add space, but it is hard to remove a small amount. With a small
> layout, it doesn't come up, but when you end up with 8-10 modules next to
> eachother, that little 1/8" ends up being about 2-4 studs. I finished 12 of
> my tables when I found that out. I have 9 more to make and will cut them
> down a slight bit to make them fit better, then I will fix the 3 I have part
> way finished and finally convert the ones I already got done.
>
> Mike Poindexter
>
> Bryan Kinkel <helpdesk@loseyourmind.com> wrote in message
> news:Frw7MK.1Kq@lugnet.com...
> > With all the talk of Lego train tables and layouts, I'm pleased to say • that
> > I will be building my first set of tables this weekend. I'm using the • PNLTC
> > standard plywood table plans as found at
> > http://www.pnltc.org/Modular_Table.html and
> > http://www.baylug.org/zonker/tables/building.html.
> >
> > These tables will be for use at home with my "4558-less" train collection
> > and town gear. I will be using one sheet of plywood to build one small and
> > one large table.
> >
> > 1. Beyond what Ben has posted on the baylug.org site, does anyone have any
> > other tips for ease of building? I'm purchasing the materials on Friday
> > evening, doing the cuts with a friend that night, then continuing on
> > Saturday.
> >
> > 2. What is the best wood for the table surface? I will be painting the
> > surface using the paint formulas from • http://www.pnltc.org/Tint_Formula.html
> > . (Have not decided on green or gray yet. Leaning towards green...)
> >
> > 3. Can someone point me to some pictures of the "Legomodules" that the big
> > standards discussions have been about?
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> > Bryan Kinkel
> >
> >
--
Tom Stangl
***http://www.vfaq.com/
***DSM Visual FAQ home
***http://ba.dsm.org/
***SF Bay Area DSMs
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Building my train table
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| I built about 5 of those style tables. They seemed quite more work than they should be, but maybe I am just not very proficient at woodworking. (Probably the latter). If you want easy tables, make them with 3/4" plywood and use 2x4s on their edge to (...) (25 years ago, 23-Mar-00, to lugnet.trains)
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