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Portable Layout Designing
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I very strongly agree with egmurphy about using a hollow core door for a portable layout table. I move fairly frequently and my layouts move with me. After building a couple of 3x8 and 4x8 layout tables, which always flexed, cracked, and were heavy and unattractive to boot, I tried the door idea based on a MR article. <br /> <br />I first built an along the wall bookcase for my apartment, 80" long by 36" high, out of 1x12 lumber. Didn't look fantastic but was presentable and servicable <br />The bookcase is a good place to store buildings, train stuff, etc. I did glue some of the buildings to the layout with construction cement - use a lot and they'll never come off. <br /> <br />I then mounted the door to the bookcase with a couple of standard interior door hinges (you can pull the hinge pins to separate the two for moving, etc) on the top leading edge of the bookcase. Now the door folds down to a flat 36" high table. On the back/bottom edge of the door,over the hinges, I mounted a 1x12x80 as a backdrop. I completely covered the layout "table" with a 2" thick piece of building insulation, which allows me to carve rivers, causeways, etc up to 2" deep. I used the same foam for hills, etc up to 10" tall. The entire layout weighs about 30 lb. For storage I fold the door up against the wall - it is painted "wall color" and has a nice, plastic framed mountain poster centered and mounted to it with mirror mounts. There are a couple of heay duty galvanizd hardwareware handles mounted on the leading edge of the door for carrying. etc. <br /> <br />If you built a moveable layout like this (instead of framed plywood) it would be lighter, better looking, cheaper, have no flex, and be easier to set up on a couple of sawhorses. If you want a bigger layout you can use two doors back to back along the long axis (for the back side of each door clamp two pieces of 80" x whatever height masonite together, then cut them simultaneously with a jig saw - screw one to the back edge of each door and you'll have a matching "ridgeline" allowing mountains that together, etc.) Or position the doors a couple of feet apart apart and connect them with a 1x2, 2x4, whatever size bridge piece at each end. You can build one door now and add another later, etc. All of this sets up easily on sawhorses and can easily be connected, both track and electrical, as per Ntak modules. In all this there MAY be some very tiny cracks where the units come together, but these will be much less noticable than the cracks a plywood layout gets when it flexes - which it invariably does every time it's moved. <br /> <br />You gan get all the above described materials at any Lowes or Home Depot. <br /> <br />I emphatically suggest you DO NOT built the plywood table - I think after you've moved it a couple of times you'll become discouraged by the hassle, cracks all over, etc and toss it. Good luck! [:D]
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