Support ideas for a 8" wide shelf?

[OldEastRR]

Other than wall brackets. Say it's a free-standing section 6' long, with a tabletop surface for a yard, connecting to a layout with L-girder construction. On such a narrow width would a single L-girder beam be enough stability? I could use 1x2s crosswise to carry the plywood, like the centerbeam and cross-members on a boxcar floor carry the floor. I'd like to have two support legs at the end for stability but how to attach them? Maybe an A-frame type leg assembly?

[Steveruger45]

For narrow shelves I’ve always used a box construction rather than an L-girder.  I see no reason why you’re center beam L-girder idea would not work though. 
Only issue I can think of is that as the cross supports would now only attach to one L-girder that these attachment points would need to be strong.   I think I would yellow-glue and screw those.

Supporting it as a free standing peninsula is what I’m imagining from your post.  Hmmmmm.   Your idea of an “A”. shaped support leg arrangement seems ok but I think you might be forever tripping over the legs of the A at the bottom.
I think I would tend to make regular vertical legs In an upside down U shape and screw the bottom of the U to the floor.
Alternatively just use one support leg like an Upper case “I” shape made out of 2 x 4 or similar and firmly attach it to the floor at the bottom and the layout shelf above.
You could also use steel 3/4” or 1”  plumbing pipe as leg or legs and those flanged threaded plumbing fixtures, threaded on at top and bottom of the pipe and screw the flanges to both the layout shelf and floor.

[wm3798]

I'd go to the local used furniture store and find some cheap book cases that are close to the height you want.  You can add a bit to the top to get your yard at the elevation you want, you can secure them together or to the wall, and you'll never regret having some extra storage under the layout.
Even crappy melamine shelves can be reinforced with a little 1x to make them more stable and durable.  You can even trim them out with nice woodwork to make them look tidy in the train room.

But storage would be the thing.  I'm working out what I'm going to use on the Retro 2.0, and this seems the most likely path to take.

Lee

[mmagliaro]

I assume that since you said "free standing", it is out in the middle of the room where it cannot be anchored to a wall.
The single L girder isn't the problem.  It's that with such a narrow island, it will be hard to stabilize it against careless leaning, or just flat out running into it while walking around.  A "thump" against the side of a normal piece of benchwork usually doesn't harm anything.  But if you take a misstep and walk smack into something only 8" wide, it will break.

I have a narrow piece of island, although not nearly that narrow. I used "X" legs (like on a picnic table) instead of "A" frames, glued and screwed to the benchwork and screwed directly into the floor.  It works well and can withstand being run into by clumsy bodies.  But my island isn't so narrow, so I tucked the "X"'s in about 5" at the bottom so that clumsy feet don't trip over them. 

I like the galvanized pipe with flanges idea from steveruger45.  But I would go bigger than 1" pipe.  You might think it's overkill, but I'd go with 2" pipe.  Once the flange is lag bolted to the floor and the pipe is screwed into it, it just flat-out will not move or deflect even if you run into it.  4 pipes along the 6 foot length of your island should make it darn sturdy.

Remember, with a free-standing thing only 8" wide, sooner or later you or somebody else is going to make an errant turn and bang into that thing.  It has to be super strong.

[wm3798]

Make it at least 12" wide and use 42" tall wall cabinets... again, easy to find at the local architectural salvage.  Anchor them suitably to the floor... if concrete drill out for lead shields and lag them in, if wood some big T-25 screws will do the trick.  Again, storage, even if in a free standing island.

Lee

[Steveruger45]

Like Lee, and the more I think about this  I think that adding storage shelving or cupboards under the 8” shelf-peninsula is a good idea too.  You can always leave cupboards a little shorter by 6 to 8 inches so you still have access to the underneath of the layout. Or construct your own shelving unit out of 8” wide panels (actual will be 7-1/2”) and ad some 1x2” to frame it which is more or less what I did when I made my fireplace from scratch as shown in photo.
It’s an electric fireplace insert by the way.
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[OldEastRR]

Well it will be against a wall and behind the bulk of the layout -- but I rent and can't put screws into the wall otherwise it would be brackets. Tho I like Lee's idea of an old bookcase. However I'd still like only 8" depth because of aisle width considerations. And having a booksleve for storage is excellent -- I just have boxes piled up on top of each other in the space now.
I also have a all-steel cabinet I got from a remodel job, 30" high by 3' long I use now for storage. It would be a perfect support for the extension but how do I raise it? The extension would be anchored securely to the layout at one end and sit on the steel cabinet at the other. And the box construction idea is good, I forgot I used to build layouts like that! Since this is just one big yard/staging, box construction with tabletop plywood is perfect.
As for shake-proof .... I learned my lesson on my last layout, freestanding but earthquake-prone. Even bumping into one leg of the U-shape made cars & stuff fall over on the other leg too. So this one has a solid tabletop on top of L-girder as a "base", then raised plywood/homasote cookie cutter ROWs on that. Then I built L-shaped legs out of plywood, widened out the bottoms into "feet", and cross-braced them both ways with boards going from floor to layout framework. I can whack the frame hard anywhere even along the facia against the tabletop wood and I don't even jiggle cars sitting on the track right next to where I hit. Talk about rock solid.

[wm3798]

Take it from someone who rented most of his adult life... Holes in drywall can be patched with toothpaste.

Also with about 39 cents worth of putty.  I mean, you're going to be putting plaster on your hillsides, right?  Save a tablespoon or two to patch the walls when it's time to move!  Landlord's going to paint the place when you move out, he just doesn't want to have to patch a couple of screw holes.

Just take your time and locate a couple of studs, even with a book case underneath, you'll want to secure it with at least one or two screws.  A little steel L bracket will do the trick.

Lee

[mmagliaro]

Yeah, I was wondering about that (the "no holes" rule).  I've rented before too, and they always say that, and nobody listens to them.  They drill holes and then patch them when they move out.  Is there any way the landlord could come in and see that you have screws in the wall?   Even after you patch the holes, you could even get a pint of paint that's reasonably close in color and touch up the paint.   It will all come down to how nit picky they are about returning your security deposit.  If he's going to keep the money because of a few patched screw holes, he's probably going to keep it no matter what you do - he'll find an excuse.  Since this is against the wall, that really makes the whole stability thing trivial if you screw it to the wall.

[wm3798]

I actually punched two tunnels through the wall for this layout.

At the beginning, the Conrail coal train comes out of the main line tunnel, which came in from the family room.  The part of the layout you see in the video was in the laundry room.  At the time, my ex did licensed daycare, so it was good to have the workbench and all the little stuff tucked away behind a door.
On the other side of the wall was some long main line running and a sparse branch line.  Up high on a shelf, and out of reach of little urchlings.

At about 4:50 the B&O train goes under the downtown and through the wall into the family room on the yard lead, which descended to the main and joined on a crossover.  A few moments later it emerges from the lower tunnel.

I was renting the house from a friend of mine, and he was a little antsy about it at first, but he was also a model railroader, and he knew I could patch it back up, which I did when we moved out.  I left a copy of the track plan, a photo of the layout, and probably at least one derailed hopper car in the wall!

The archaeologists will have a ball with that one.

Lee

[OldEastRR]

Still use box construction with wall brackets? More stable shelf I guess?

[Steveruger45]

Yep. Far simpler and sturdy too.  As it would be up against the wall and only 8” wide you could get even do away with the box construction and just use some 3/4” thick board with about four shelf brackets.

[randgust]

I did Ikea book shelves for my wife a while back and I was absolutely stunned by the method they used to hold them up.   Pure connector in tension, no visible means of support.....
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90282180/

Look through their stuff, it's widely available, and no where near as 'ugly' to put in a living space as a plywood shelf with steel brackets underneath.  I'm always just so impressed with their engineering and materials selection when you compare it to the typical chipboard furniture out of a big-box store.

[Steveruger45]

I did Ikea book shelves for my wife a while back and I was absolutely stunned by the method they used to hold them up.   Pure connector in tension, no visible means of support.....
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90282180/

Look through their stuff, it's widely available, and no where near as 'ugly' to put in a living space as a plywood shelf with steel brackets underneath.  I'm always just so impressed with their engineering and materials selection when you compare it to the typical chipboard furniture out of a big-box store.

That totally hidden shelf support is a great idea.  Brilliant.

[randgust]

Going back to the OP....   I've got a series of fairly narrow, but high, semi-portable modules that make up my ATSF layout.  They are all free-standing, varying in width from 10" to 27" and nothing over 48" long.    They top out at 52" off of the floor.  The 27" rule was based on what could fit upright through most doors, and the 48" length max was about as big as could be maneuvered.

All the roadbed 'boxes' were basically done on 1x1 frames, with cookie-cutter plywood roadbed put on them, and held together with lap joints and carriage bolts.   It's moved three times so the design concept proved out.   Having to destroy my first layout when I had to move is what led to this approach.

But the best idea I came up with that applies to this problem is that all my bookshelves and storage shelves are built as bolted-in, detachable platforms on the legs, with diagonal X bracing on each 'section' back and ends.  With full bookshelves on the bottom levels, the only thing that could be heavier to steady it is a bunch of car batteries.    Since there's a duckunder, I was really concerned about knocking the entire thing over so I wanted to make sure that 'you'd take damage before the layout did' and that's proven to be very true.   A head-bang might derail a car or two, but that's been the worst.

So when you have something tall and narrow, 8-10" wide and at least 48" off the floor, make it into your railroad bookshelf; aka boat anchor.  Tying it to the main layout will certainly help too.