After a couple months of investigation, I decided to try my hand at a simple model railroad layout. Due to space (and financial) constraints, I’ve decided to go with an N-scale layout on a small 2′x4′ table in my office. Almost went with 2′x3′, but the track plans I could find look really ‘toy like’ as most are very circular. More about track plans later.
The first thing I need to do is build some benchwork. Most of the research I found show some pretty crude 2x4s with a plywood top. If this was going in a basement or garage, that would be fine, but mine is going in a finished office alongside some pretty decent furniture. A poorly constructed, rough table sitting in the corner is going to look really out of place and could cause enough of a stir in the house to scrap the entire project. I did a little sketching on graph paper and then gave Google SketchUp a shot to polish things up. I had never used it before, but after fooling around for an hour or so I started to get the hang of it. All the images in this post are rendered out from that app.
Aside from a nice looking table, I wanted to be able to take the entire 2×4 top off of the frame easily. So the design allows the table to sit snugly (hopefully) on top of 4 legs and lift on and off as needed. The table is pretty small, so I’m thinking that stability shouldn’t be an issue. I broke with the hobby’s convention of a 36″-48″ height and went with 28″ legs to match the rest of the furniture in my office and to allow me to work at the table using a standard office chair.
I went to my buddy Mike’s tonight and we got some of the wood cut. A couple more pieces to cut and then we move on to assembling the pieces. I’ve got pretty much zero experience with this type of woodworking, but Mike’s built some really nice workbenches so I’m tapping him to give me a hand.
I’ve posted a couple of images from SketchUp. You can completely ignore any colors – they are just for separating the different sized boards visually. When finished, I want to paint the entire piece a satin black to match the rest of the furniture in my office. More updates and some finished benchwork photos hopefully coming soon…
MDF is your friend.