Building New Benchwork | Thunder Mesa Reimagined

[Music] Howdy Folks Dave here at Thunder Mesa Studio where it's time to get started on the next phase of Thunder Mesa reimagined and to that end I'm going to be building some box girder bench work for a whole new large section of layout that's going to be back here in the corner this is the area I'm talking about I need to fill this with about a 4x7 foot section of benchwork because that's where the second half of the main Loop of the Thunder Mesa Mainline is going to be located looking at the layout plan this is the section I'm talking about I call it the canyon section because it houses the second and larger half of Coyote Canyon eventually it'll also be home to the Mexican Village of zoka Plaza and spooky Ravenswood Manor up on the hilltop so at this point the disassembly the demo of the original Thunder Mesa layout is completely finished and I'm happy to have all that behind me and I've already started in building some new sections of benchwork and some new scenery for the layout this is all on the end of the Big Thunder section here this is part of Coyote Canyon and the rest of it as I mentioned is going to be in the new section really uh excited to get started on this new section of layout it's like a completely blank canvas starting from scratch and I get to see if I can make it you know turn out and look the way I imagin it to look unfortunately I have a little bit of a head start because I already have this section of stand here this is the stand that was under this section of the layout before so I thought it'd be a good idea to reuse it over here again unfortunately it's not quite big enough for the entire new Canyon section that's going to be over here so I need to build a secondary stand to go right about here now this existing stand is about 44 in tall which is the same height as the stand underneath the Big Thunder section the new stand I want to build over here is going to be about oh 30 Ines tall and that's to allow for the depth of the canyon over on this side which I want to have aligned visually with what I've already established right here so that means my box girder frame is going to have to be sort of a split level deal higher on one side and lower on the other that's a little bit more complicated at than just a basic you know tabletop so before I start cutting up Lumber I should probably draw a plan I've got some blue line grid paper here with the 1/8 inch square so I'm going to draw my plan at uh 1/8 of an inch equals 1 in and to further complicate things here this box gter frame is 3 feet wide on one side and 4 feet wide on the the other side and 7t long overall with a little indent here in the middle um where the aisle comes in so here's what I came up with got a box girder frame it's made uh from 1x4s and the Shaded pieces represent the lower level so that's going to be all of this will be about 13 inches lower than this and that way once the risers are in and the plywood subro bed everything should match up perfectly with the existing L out as long as my math is correct this also gives me a good approximate idea of how much 1x4 Lumber I'm going to need to buy and that's probably one two three four five six 8ot lengths just to be on the safe side I decided to build the stand first cutting the 2 by two legs to the proper length so that the entire thing would stand 31 in in tall when fully assembled with casters on the bottom then I cut the four 1X two cross pieces that would tie the legs together again taking careful measurements so that the stand would be the required 24 in wide when fully assembled to assemble the stand I used 1 and a/4 in interior wood screws and yellow Carpenters glue at the joints making sure that everything was Square I began by attaching the 1X two cross pieces to the 2x two legs to prevent splitting all the holes were pre-drilled before driving in the wood screws then I added some 1 by two sway braces on each side of the leg assembly to keep everything strong and square a 1x3 foot piece was added to the bottom of each leg assembly to have a place for the swiveling casters to be mounted I built two identical leg assemblies this way but I'm only showing one here for clarity then it was time to build the 36in long lters I made two of these and they will form the shelf that the layout box frame rests on I used 1x3s securely gluing and screwing one on top of the other I also counter sunk the screws so the box frame won't get hung up on them working on one side at a time I assembled the stand first attaching an El to the top and then a 1x3 brace to the [Music] bottom a 1x two diagonal sway brace was also added turning the whole thing over the entire process was repeated on the other side then it was time to add the 2-in swiveling casters note that 2-in casters actually measure 2 and 1/2 in tall the stand was turned upside down and one set was securely screwed at each of the four [Music] corners success now we have a stand for the canyon section that measures 36 in Long 24 in wide and 31 in tall I took a good look at my drawing again again to see if there were any changes I wanted to make there weren't many then I began cutting the 1x4 framing to length in my experience a lot of model railroad bench work is a little overbuilt and I know that an open box grid made from 1x4s will be plenty strong enough to hold the road bed track scenery and everything else that will come after so long as that framing is as straight and square as I can make it once again I use wood glue and screws to secure all of the joints laying everything out on a level surface and using a framing square to line up the corners since this box frame is really in two parts an upper and a lower deck I started with the upper assembly first I pre-drilled pilot holes and secured each joint with two wood [Music] screws lumber for the lower frame deck was placed into position with the completed upper frame but not attached this made it easier to line both frames properly during [Music] construction following my drawing a notch was cut into the front brace of the lower section to match up with the river level from the previously built Coyote Canyon section interior cross braces were added to the box frame as needed to improve strength and stability finally some 16 and 1/2 in Long 2x two risers were added at important joints to join the lower and upper deck together when they're installed at the studio I used a square to make sure the risers were attached at a 90° [Music] angle then it was time to load all the pieces into the van and drive them up the hill to Jerome well I got everything up here safe and sound and the first thing I need to do to get it installed is going to be to move the Big Thunder section out a little bit to give myself a little bit of room to maneuver back here that's probably good enough and that my friends is why everything in here is on Wheels now the new stand needs to go right about here and then I can set the lower deck of the canyon section on top of that then the upper deck section should fit right here awesome that's about perfect now I'll attach the upper deck to the tall frame with a couple of wood screws now I just need to get these uprights clamped in the proper position and we can get everything put together I've given myself some little pencil marks up here on top of the uh box frame to help me out I've rolled the Big Thunder section back over here and I'm uh clamping these two together temporarily because these need to line up right here and I want to do this before I attach the stand and this is all for the same reason that I uh I didn't put the whole thing together back in my garage I waited till I got up here and the reason is this is a 100y old building and uh the floor is not level in fact nothing in this building is is plum or level so you always have to deal with that um you always have to make adjustments lots of shimming and things like that to get things to sit you know properly no matter how carefully you measure I'll show you what I'm talking about here um you can see this Gap back here between the stand and the box frame and it gets larger towards the back um the thing is the box frame is actually sitting fairly level so what that tells me is there's a dip in the floor back there so I'm going to need to sh put some sort of sham or something underneath those rear wheels for this to sit properly just part of the fun of being in Jerome in a 100y old building well I had to use some pretty good size shims down there to compensate for the floor but we got it done let me show you something else that's weird you can see this little Gap right here and I'd forgotten about this I I discovered this when I first installed the layout here at the studio this back wall doesn't come out from at a 90 Dee angle from the sidewall it actually kind of slowly creeps to the north so I have to compensate for that as well well it's great to see things starting to take shape so this will be the larger part of Coyote Canyon and if you look at the plan it actually goes straight back into the backdrop here but I changed my mind about that I'm going to have it come and kind of circle around and make a left turn into the next section of layout down that way so we'll get a longer more dramatic Canyon than if it just kind of went back and disappeared into the backdrop then up here this is where zoka La Plaza will be located and there'll be a hill right up here where Ravenswood Manor is going to be installed can't wait to get to that build now coming off right here I'm going to have a two foot by 5 foot section of layout and this is where the town of Thunder Mesa is going to be located now across the aisle from the Big Thunder section I think it's going to look great over here uh it's going to be much better access for me and uh much better visibility for people who come to visit the studio I think I might do some changes to the backdrop back here though before I start building the [Music] town and just like that things are really starting to take shape here on Thunder Mesa reimagine in fact I would love to be able to keep going but unfortunately I am out of time for this week so I hope you will tune in to the next episode when I'll be adding some plywood subro bed some cork Road bed and maybe even laying some track over here on the news section you know if it's your first time here I hope you will subscribe and hit that notification Bell so YouTube will let you know when new videos are coming from Thunder Mesa Studio you can also follow us over on Instagram at thunder. Mesa and see what's happening on the Thunder Mesa Studio website at Thunder mesa. Studio as always a huge shout out and thank you to our patrion on members who helped to make these videos possible until next time keep moving forward my friends adios for now [Music]