Benchwork By Mail!

The benchwork arrived yesterday! As I mentioned in my last post, I've decided to avoid something I'm neither good at (carpentry) or enjoy and bite the bullet and spend what would be the equivalent of several locos or a very expensive starter set and order some professionally cut, measured and prepared benchwork.

So I braved the cold weather in the garage and started to go through the box.  The box was smaller than I would have expected for all the materials and space this layout would ultimately take up, but it was quite heavy nonetheless - and it took a beating in transit as well, with one of the two outside corner curve sections having gotten cracked (I've contacted the supplier about this today to see if it can be replaced).

The rest of the materials I'm glad to see are in great shape. There are three 42"x48" and one 42"x12" modules.  This gives me a total dimension of 42" x 13" - with the additional 18" curve sections, I'll have nearly 14' of running space.

The material is a cabinet grade plywood which, for a variety of reasons explained at ModelRailroadBenchwork's website, are much better than anything that I could (or want!) to put together on my own! These are solid 3/4" wide sections of plywood with all the screw holes, access holes, and bolt holes already pre-drilled.

Assembly is easy - and actually quite quick! Instructions (and screws and bolts) were provided, so it only took me a few minutes to go from this....

To my first completely assembled module!

Since I was in the spirit of it, I kept going and put the other three modules together...and viola! Here is the foundation for the next Quinntopia!

I will still have to make some runs to the hardware store for the boards to connect the modules to my legs (re-using the 'yellow legs' of my previous layout, but now in a more neutral grey color!) as well as for the surface of the layout, but that's a lot less work than creating the cuts and measurements needed for this part. I'm super pleased with how this turned out and can't wait to get started on the next stage.

So far, I would have to say that if you can afford it (my total cost for all of the above, including shipping, was $460, plus $96 to have it shipped from Florida to Washington State) and want a sturdy benchwork and cannot do it yourself at any decent level of skill, this seems like a decent option!