If you are merely creating a flat city or industrial scene, you can use a simple piece of 3/4 inch thick plywood and your choice of legs. If you are building a layout with scenery that extends both above and below the tracks, however it’s wise to build a latticework of braces in what modelers call an “open grid” pattern. The open grid provides the bare minimum of support for the track with as few cross members as possible. The open grid reduces the weight of the benchwork because the finished benchwork provides solid surfaces only beneath the buildings, the flat water surfaces and the trackwork.

The Professional Approach

There is only enough space in this series to provide a rough outline of benchwork construction. If you need more information, most hobby shops sell books devoted to benchwork and layout construction. If you lack experience working with wood, you can show this book to a carpenter and he or she can certainly build the basic benchwork for you to match the photographs.

Building the Open-Grid Benchwork

We would suggest you build the benchwork for this 4 x 6 foot layout in two halves, each 2 x 6 feet. The two-piece construction allows you to store individual halves of the layout on 73-inch long book shelves, and it is much easier to move or pack 2 x 6 feet sections if you must relocate to a new home.

Build the basic open grid benchwork from 6-inch high pieces of 1/2 inch plywood. Cut the plywood to form two boxes, each with a 24 x 72 inch INSIDE dimension (so the overall size of each box is 25 x 73 inches). Use 1 x 3 lumber placed on edge for cross braces as shown in the photographs. Recess the 1 x 3s 1/2 inch below the top edges of the 6 inch plywood boxes. Use simple butt joints assembled with number 8 x 1-1/2 inch wood screws. Buy a pilot bit for your electric drill and pre-drill the holes for the wood screws. The pilot bit will help prevent splitting the wood.

Add some foot-long 1 x 2 braces, recessed 1/2 inch, along the inside of the plywood. Cut a piece of 1/2 inch plywood 24 x 72 inches to fit inside the 1/2 x 6 inch plywood edges.

(This layout was actually assembled from a laminate of 3/4 inch plywood because it was designed to be shipped around the country for display at trade shows. Also, Lunde Designs, the builders, used their cabinet shop techniques to miter each of the corner joints. Don’t, then, expect your finished benchwork to look as heavy or as neat as that in the photographs.)

The Two-Piece Shelf-Layout Option

Join the two 25 x 73 inch boxes using 1/4 inch dowels and 1-1/2 inch carriage bolts, fiat washers and nuts. The dowels will help align the two halves while the carriage bolts provide the clamping force when the halves are assembled. Late; when you lay the trackwork, shift the entire finished trackwork an inch or so to be certain no actual track joints fall across the seam between the two halves of the layout. After the track is glued and nailed firmly to the benchwork, use a razor saw to cut through the rails and ballast along the seams between the two halves of the layout.

When you cut through the track with a razor saw you will, of course, break the electrical continuity through the rails. To be able to conveniently restore electrical continuity, install 12-inch long 18 to 22-gauge insulated electrical wires to each of the cut rails. Solder the wires directly to the rails, then install a two-pin electrical plug and socket for each pair of wires from an electronics hobby store like Radio Shack. There are a variety of light-duty connectors available for this purpose. Cut the wires and insert the electrical plugs and sockets. Be sure to mark or color code the sockets so you do not accidentally connect the wires from opposite rails. These connectors must be plugged and unplugged whenever you assemble and disassemble the two-section 4 x 6 foot layout.

The Supporting Legs

Add foot-long 1 x 4 diagonal corner braces butted against the bottom of the 1 x 3's as shown in the photograph. We selected common 4 inch PVC pipe for the legs. Home supply dealers carry the pipe as well as interior caps (that can be used for mounting brackets) and end caps. Have the dealer cut the legs to the exact length you need and thread both top and bottom. When the layout is completed, paint the legs flat black.

Profiles for Hills and Valleys

We knew we wanted hills along the 73 inch center of the layout so we used a saber saw to cut some rough profiles of hills from leftover 1/2-inch plywood and cemented them to the edges of the benchwork. We also removed some of the plywood edges in places where we knew there streams or rivers. You must do some very careful preplanning and have previous layout experience, however, to make such bold early in the process. It would be best table edges alone until you have final track plan and the scenery shapes.

A Bookcase for the Shelf Layouts

If you are going to disassemble the 1ayout store it as two 2 x 6 foot pieces, you can construct simple wooden storage bookcase. Use to build the “bookcase,” with four verticle and two 73 inch long shelves, one about from the floor and a second about 4 1/2, the floor. Use 2 x 4s for the shelves an two-foot horizontal cross braces. It would to attach a plywood back above the bottom act as a diagonal brace. The two halve layout can be rested on these shelves with legs removed for storage.

Continued

second: Glue 1 x 2's inside the frame of the box to support the plywood base flush with the top of the frame.

Fourth: Use 8 x 1 wood screws to mount screw on cap to table, as mounting brackets.

Have a lumber yard cut and thread the legs. Cover the bottoms of the legs with caps.

Sixth: The open grid is now ready for the 1/2" plywood top. The mountain shaped profiles , if used, will support the mountain framework described later.