Well the move to the new house is complete, the new train room is painted and on last Wednesday the bench work kit came from Tim Foley and Mianne Custom Benchwork. There have been a couple of ongoing posts regarding Tim's product including my opinion of it but since the frame work is the starting point of any layout other than a carpet style, I will post some pictures of the entire progress of the layout as I go. My idea here is to document what can be done by almost anybody who wants to do it. I can make that claim based upon the fact that I spend most of my time in a wheelchair. This was a major factor in my decision to go with the Mianne Benchwork system.
A word of advice regarding Tim's benchwork system. The Mianne system is designed to be both expandable and re-arrangeable. For that reason his measurements are based on center to center dimensions. This means if you order a 4'x8' bench kit, that 4"x8' measurements are from the center of one cross member to the center of the opposite side. This allows for you to add another 4'x8' module by just adding the cross members and 2 additional legs. The 2nd sheet of plywood will butt right up against the side of the first on and be supported by the overhang from the first cross members. My recommendation is to do what I did. Send Tim a drawing of your layout plans, discuss the room dimensional requirements/restrictions. He is more than happy to help you come up with the frame work you need. He will send you a cad drawing of the assembled bench work for your review. Study it, go back and measure again and discuss with Tim some more. In my case he even printed the assembly with the plywood top shown so that I could verify the actual table surface dimensions for fit into the room. If you are doing a wall to wall layout be sure to leave yourself some space so that you will have access to the hardware facing the wall. Use him as an adviser so that each party is on the same page.
So how about some pictures of the system going together? Thing to remember is that this was don by myself with no assistance and completed in less than 8 hours. My requirements were that I could not exceed 9'6" in width and each leg of the "U" shaped frame was to be 6'6" not including his overhang requirements. The center to center measurement mentioned above..
So this first picture shows 1 leg with the locating pins in place as well as 1 locking pin. This pin will lock the leg in place by way of the cam in the cross member.
The dowel pins (2) simply press into the leg and the locking pin screws in by means of a Phillips head screwdriver.
This next picture shows the locking cam pressed into the frame member with the frame member in position to be attached to the leg. Once pressed into position by hand a 1/4 turn of the locking cam secures the leg and frame member together.
The next step is to attach the second leg which completes the leg set. In my case I was able to set the first leg on the floor with the cross member pointing upwards, Just place the leg over the pins and locking pin as before, give it a 1/4 turn and the leg set is complete. I apologize for the fuzzy picture.
Repeat this process until all the leg sets are complete. Once all the leg sets are complete, the next thing is to start connecting the frame members which will form the outside of the frame work. This picture shows what I called section 1.
The following pictures just show the additional frame members being added in order to complete frame work sections.
Notice in the last picture that the middle cross members have been added. This is where I had to deviate from the instructions due to being in a wheelchair. It was not possible for me to get inside the completed frame sections to add the dowels and locking pins for the midsection cross members. I had to remove the front frame rail, add the hardware to the back rail, add the cross member and then put the front rail back into position and secure cross member hardware and secure. The cross members all secure the same way as the frame rails did, with the 2 locating dowel pins and the single locking pin. The cams are installed on the cross members themselves.
So that completes the assembly of my Mianne Custom Benchwork. As I said in my earlier post on a different posting, the ease of assembly and the quality of both the materials and the engineering design of this product more than justifies the cost. My kit was around $500.00 without the shipping. Can you comprehend the time and frustration levels that I would have to deal with if doing this the "old fashioned" way. Try to do all that while sitting on a chair!
But wait it gets better! The following pictures show the plywood setting on top of the frame work AND the track laid out. Plus Sir Toppum Hat even sent Thomas to Oregon to do the initial testing. After all I had to be able to run trains for my Granddaughter on Christmas! What would Christmas be like without any trains. So within 24 hours worth of time we went from and empty room to this:
I still need to get 2 sections of plywood cut to fit the 2 triangular sections that you see. Tim and I added these since the track work came so close to the inside corners. So now you are all caught up with me! After Christmas the fun stuff will begin so check back often. Now I gotta go buy one of them tall Lionel Stools so that I can reach far enough to do the scenery.
Before I go any further I must thank Dave (DoubleDAZ) here on the forum for creating the track plan for me. And again I cannot thank Tim Foley at Mianne enough for his product. Good quality work and engineering still does exist here in the USA!
Here is the track plan as created by Dave. I did have to modify the one leg to make it the same as the other one.
The attached file is the actual final documentation I recieved from Tim Foley at Mianne. Notice that he even created cut dimensions for me.
