Wheels on your benchwork?

Hi This is my nscale layout. It is about 16 x 3 with a 4x8 extension. The whole thing is on heavy duty casters And rolls around the room easily for access. I even put a laminate floor and subfloor down after its contruction because I just moved it to one side of the room While working on the other.

rick

If your bench work is strong enough you can move it in one piece. Mine is 36'x22'oval I cut it in half  on each end and moved the whole 36' no problem. I used those furniture sliders. I used three people. Strong ridged bench work and good industrial casters are a must for no damage.

Clem

I used an old 4'x8' dining table and put 3"castors with locks on it. I have now expanded it to 6'x12' and put castors on those legs as well. The transformer table is an old living room table with 2" castors on it.

This works very well and let's this 67 yo. roll the table out 18" from the wall to work on the back side by myself.

I bought all the castors at Harbor Freight for very cheap prices.

This is still in the beginning stage of creating the layout on top so wiring etc is temporary.

Azgary

These are definitely encouraging replies.

A fellow at the hardware store suggested that I just be sure to not use too small of a wheel size, especially on a carpeted surface, because the weight of the layout will naturally make the wheels press down into the carpet and make it all the harder to start sliding the layout away from the wall. A medium or larger wheel size will be less likely to burrow into the carpet from just sitting there all the time. Made sense.

Each of these layouts above look mighty neat -- darn good sizes, and yet you all say they're workable on wheels. I was feeling a little skeptical before (though I was certain that a layout on wheels was the way I had to go for access) but now I think I'm convinced and can proceed with my plans.

Good advice on the size of the wheels. The bigger the wheel, the easier it will roll over any expansion joints or cracks if you are on a concrete floor. They also work better on carpet. If you have a choice, I would opt for softer rather than harder wheels. 

And now on another visit to the hardware store (non-train-related purchases, sadly) the same clerk, who I think may be a train guy himself, volunteers that I should re-think wheels altogether and instead plan on sufficiently sized legs (i.e. thick enough) that I can adhere those slick furniture slide pads onto. Suggests that I'll be happier that way than with wheels.

Decisions, decisions... 

I think your talking about glides.  When my layout was 8x12 me & my wife moved it without any trouble on a concrete floor.  The hard part is the unevenness of the concrete floors.

Ken M

Take a look at commercial grade ball wheels\casters. They won't hang like a standard caster wheel when it needs to pivot or change direction.

The other consideration is framing. You'll definitely need stronger framing and perhaps diagonal supports for the legs.

We are working on an 11 x 17 restoration project for a museum. The director thinks it may need to moved when in it's display location and has asked us to consider wheels. It's all 1" x 4 framing with 2" x 4" legs and is 4 levels high. Ok for static, but not for moving. You can see a shot of us relocating it in the building we have use of for the restoration. We rigged a stretcher of 2 x 4's to hold it and used a tool cart, a dolly and a chair to move it about 150' (yeah, big building)

 We are still wresting with a method to get some wheels under it, but there are too many other tasks.

Here's some photos that one member posted of his caster solution. HomeDepot has these 3 ball wheel casters. Low profile, good weight handling. he placed one on each leg

Update on my Lazy L

I have bought these when on sale from Harbor fright and scavenged the wheels and wood.  Cheaper than buying the castors separately.

http://www.harborfreight.com/movers-dolly-93888.html

I never used wheels, but I did use modules from the club tour. The permanent layout could function as a C shaped dog bone or folded dog bone. But adding the modules closed the loop.  If you need room, I took down the modules but could still run trains.

I bought mine at Lowes. They are the heavy duty type with hard rubber and 4 inch diameter lagged into the sub-frame which allows the entire L-shaped layout as heavy as it is to move easily about the area. In fact I am repainting the walls and have been moving it around all week! LOL