Pieces

Do these go across the corners? If so, why only two Kreg holes?

Risers

Alan,

I am doing 1/2" plywood + homasote for my roadbed.  these are the risers to lift it up above the frame 2".  (The raodbed will be 3" above the top of the benchwork.  I will use two layers of 1 1/2" pink foam to bring the non-track areas up to grade.  I did this to help keep the weight manageable and allow for up to 3" in depth for rivers and cuts without cutting into the benchwork.

The pocket screws are to go up into the plywood subroadbed and I will use wood screws to attach to the benchwork.

In retrospect, I should have probably made them a little taller, but I can always change them out if they aren't working out.

Ryan

Who makes the 90 degree clamps?

Those dominoes look great! 

I've never seen that type of clamp before.  For purposes of keeping our layout set ups in alignment in the modular club, it is essential that all corners of modules be perfect 90 degree corners and sides and ends be absolutely straight.  Any warp or any deviation form 90 degrees will send the layout off on a tangent, and the larger the layout that we are setting up the farther out of alignment it will go.  The procedure in the past has been to use a carpenter's square to check the corners for 90 degrees, but having clamps to keep it at 90 while assembling looks like a great idea.

Hmmmm

Well, that brings up another question then. Won't the screws be facing downward forcing you to use a mighty short stub screwdriver? How will you go about riser height adjustment if needed once roadbed is installed? Just trying to fully understand your method and logic.

Clamps

Thanks, I use Harbor Freight a lot!

I've never seen them there, but I wasn't looking for something like that.  I'll look next time I go.

Framing clamps

You can get these clamps from just about any tool provider. Mine are Craftsman from the local Sears store. Take note of the quality and fit/finish of the threads on the bolt mechanism before purchasing. Lots of wobble in the screw makes the tool challenging to use.

Thanks Alan.

I should mention that I look the tool I buy at Harbor Freight carefully.  I don't generally buy anything that will be subject to heavy duty use from them unless the quality looks to be there.  I also inspect to see how tight the tolerances are for any precision use.

Are you using prefabricated benchwork?

Or did you cut and drill these benchwork components to your own design? If the latter, please tell us more about this design! I'd like to emulate!

I've done woodwork, but nothing that qualifies as furniture.

I was just at Home Depot, but I was in a hurry getting some new SawZall blades so that I could finish another project.  I will check it out next time I'm there with extra time.

I've built the benchwork for

I've built the benchwork for my layout out of plywood and I think it's really the way to go! I've had 0 warp issues. Everything is solid as the day I built it. 

The clamps are great as well. I have 6 of them for projects like this. 

90 Degree Clamps

I just came from Home Depot as well and made a point to look at the clamps.  They do have them there.  I got mine at Menards.  At either store, they are around $10 each.

The benchwork is not pre-fabricated.  I'll happily write up my design considerations as well as step by step what I did.  The actual construction of the benchwork is pretty straight forward, but there was a good deal of pre-work that made it easier.  I'll see if the editors are looking for this sort of thing, otherwise I'll do my best to add it to my BLOG.

Very nice work

You do very nice work!!  This will be a well-constructed layout, for sure.

I especially like to see when people bring in other techniques normally found only in a different hobby or skill, in this case the pocket-screws.  It brings the benefit of cross-pollination of our creativity.

Thanks!

Kevin

Additional Information

Choosing the Wood

There has been much discussion about what the best wood to use for benchwork is.  Most people use 1" x 4" pine boards.  I have found that they tend to warp easily and it is difficult to find enough good boards to construct your benchwork.  Others will go the select pine route.  This gives you a much higher quality of wood at a higher price.  I opted for a different method.  I bought a sheet of 3/4" plywood and had it ripped into boards by my local lumber yard.  I did this for several reasons.  First is cost.  While I didn't go with birch plywood, I used imported Radiata Pine for $35 a sheet including the cutting fee.  A 4' x 8' sheet yields 13 8' long boards.  Thirteen select pine boards would have run me $51.75.  Second, plywood, even ripped into boards is less likely to bow or twist.  Finally, plywood is more dimensionally stable than straight pine boards when temperature and humidity change.

A word of Caution

Don't ever buy birch plywood from big box stores (Menards, Home Depot, Lowe's).  Here's what I got for $35:

Here's what I got from my local lumber yard for $35 (including the cutting fee):

Benchwork Thickness

Since I was ripping down a sheet of plywood, I decided to thin down the stock a little.  Instead of the typical board width of 3 1/2", I went with 3".  I did this to help keep the module weight as light as possible and because I wanted the height of the module from the bottom of the benchwork to the top of the roadbed to be 6" in height.  I did not however want to have to cut into the benchwork if I was putting in a river or road under the tracks.  It also worked out well to be able to use two pieces of 1 1/2" foam as a base for my scenery.

Here is a link to the article on my BLOG.

Clamps+

I have a set of corner clamps that can adjust. Very useful for doing everything from 0-90. Two good sources for some tools that the big box stores may not have:

Rockler: http://www.rockler.com/

Woodcraft:  http://www.woodcraft.com/

Great pictures of the materials

Great pictures of the materials. I'd second your suggestions on how to choose the wood, although I've never had a problem with materials from the big box stores (I've just had to spend a lot more time sorting through their stock to find good material).

One piece of advice to folks who may have few choices other than Homey Depot, or it's like, is choose plywood or lumber from the middle of the stack if you can. Often the top and bottoms are damaged through handling, strapping, and weather.

Great looking domino, by the way!

Plywood

I have to agree to a point, however if you look closely at the material images you will see a key difference.  It's not that one was from Menards and one from a cabinet store.

The difference is in the quality of the core and the veneer.  Cheap birch ply uses thin veneers over traditional plywood.  So you get the look without the costs.  The higher the quality wood the thicker the outside veneer.  You can even find fibercore ply with birch veneer.  You don't want this either.

Sometimes you can find the higher grade stuff at menards but most of what they carry has thin veneers.  However some cabinet places buy the same stuff. 

I typically by Birth Ply, that has all plys made of Birch vs the thin veneer.  Most cabinet makers use this as a base product, and simply call it cabinet ply.

The last option is Baltic Birch.  Which comes in a variety of sizes and is even stocked at Menards.  This is a higher grade Birth ply.  All plys are relativly thin and it has lots of them.  Typical 3/4" cabinet ply has around 7 plys, baltic birth has around 10.

Whats more important than where you buy your ply is knowing what your buying.

Subsitute "Menards" for any big box store...

About the clamps

I meant to chime in while this post was fresh - I have a clamp that looks quite like the one in the pictures. It is a "Jorgensen Pony No. 9166-K Corner Clamp". There are two holes - one on each "ear" - to allow for work bench mounting. The holes look like they would accept 1/4" bolts, allowing them to be temporarily fastened to the work bench with thumb nuts on the 1/4" bolts. I used mine to hold my domino frames together while assembling - one frame corner at a time (mostly valuable during pilot hole drilling for the screws).

They are cast aluminum - to maintain the squareness, I would avoid over-stressing. The clamps can be had in many places where Jorgensen brand is stocked, including Amazon and EBay.

Quality plywood

My experience with wood - Similar to Ryan's.  I find it quite difficult to get good quality solid wood.  Cabinet/furniture grade is available and is good and is rather expensive for just benchwork.  I tried ply from a big=box home improvement store.  Won's say which one, but their motto is "you can do it - we can watch".... or something like that.  I bought their Birch plywood. Nearly useless.  The birch had a great finish to it - nice and smooth.  But, the sheet was a bit curved when I bought it, and curved more when it was cut into strips for benchwork framing.  I had to put stress on the parts to get the frames square, which results in torquing the frame.  Not good.

The Birch veneer was paper thin.  Maybe thinner than paper.  I wanted the hardwood surface so it would provide impact protection to my modules as they travelled to shows many times.  The veneer was so thin it just broke and caved in since the core layers underneath are soft woods.

I had a backdrop board made from 1/4-birch from the same store.  The sheet was flat when I bought it.  Stayed flat at home.  When I cut the panels out of it for my backdrops, it curved, and never flattened out.  Had to replace them.  I chose Baltic Birch from Rockler.  It was flat, and has stayed flat to this day.  Oh, and the Rockler wood was an actual 1/4 inch thick.  The Home Depot "1/4-inch" was actually more like 3/16", even though the label on the shelf and the sticker on the wood said one quarter inch.

It's too late to replace the module frame with better material.  I just putty it and repaint it every once in a while.

So, my suggestion is we all consider carefully the various performance requirements of the parts of our train layouts, and choose materials accordingly.  Some places are fine with anything.  Many places need a certain minimum quality level.  Ryan's work is a good example of using the right material in each service.

Hole Size and Spacing on Cross Members

Interested in knowing what diameter the two hole sizes are and their respective spacing on the cross members.  Why are the outside holes a smaller diameter on the cross members?  Is there a design logic behind this aspect of the benchwork regarding a particular wiring requirement?  How will you be attaching the separate dominos together?  I have a full complement of the Kreg pocket screw tools myself and have used them for my own woodworking projects.  I often thought they would be useful for such a benchwork configuration.  Nice work!

Legs for dominos

Are you also making your legs from plywood? If so, please discuss the design and installation.

Cross Member Information

Mark,

The holes in the cross members are either for bolts or wiring.  Here is a schematic:

The 1/2" diameter holes were supposed to be 3/8" to fit my carriage bolts, but I grabbed the wrong bit, next time they will be 3/8".  There is enough room to put a 3" wide piece of lumber in for legs and still get a bolt in.  For me, it is not a problem because I plan on setting the bench work on a L-girder frame.  If you were planning on using legs, I might do the holes at 6" and 8", but that is up to the individual.  The four larger holes are planned for track and accessory busses.  Because I am planning on occupancy detection, I will drill small holes in the supports for the 12 or 14ga wire.

Hopefully this explaination was helpful to you.

Ryan

Tonight's Progress

Tonight I glued the 1/2" Homasote to my 1/2" plywood.  I followed the method described here by Rob.  Here is what it looks like:

Next I printed out the track diagram for this module at 1:1 scale.  I laid it over the Homasote then used a fabric tracing wheel to transfer the centerlines on to the homasote.

 I then used a pencil to trace the lines and make them visible.

The next step will be to put down the Homabed roadbed and then I can start to lay track.  I'm not sure how I'm going to attach the Homabed to the Homasote.  I am guessing that I'll use latex caulk.  I currently have only the mainline thickness, I have the siding thickness and ramps on order.  I also need to order #5 Fast Tracks equipment before I can construct those turnouts.

Temporary Legs

Art,

I did construct temporary legs.  They are Plywood 1" x 4"s (I used the poor bog box birch that I pictured earlier).  I put three pocket screws into each leg, but if I were constructing permanent legs, I would probably use 5 or 6 and glue the joints.  I also screwed on a small stop to the leg that the bench work rests on.  I pre-drilled these holes and used a wood screw to fasten it to the leg.

Here are some pictures:

The permanent solution is going to have the domino bench work resting on L-girders.  One will be screwed to the wall and the other will be 18" from the wall with angled supports going back to the wall at a 60 degree angle.  I have to finish the drywall and paint the room before I construct that.