Lowering the Bench
I got all of the brackets and ledger boards installed and then decided to listen to some advice from Alan in my Shelf Bracket Benchwork 1 Post. I tested the benchwork with my 3 year old son Patrick and it was too tall. I need the benchwork to be tall enough to fit the kids step ladder underneath the fascia. This will allow it to be stored beneath the fascia and also will allow my kids to scoot the top handle beneath the fascia to acheive their maximum reach across the layout. Of course everything looked great with the brackets and ledger board installed and I even put up the old drawer cabinet I made for the old “Halland Yard” layout.
I took everything down today and reinstalled two inches lower. The new layout height will be 53 3/4″ or 54 1/2″ tall instead of 55 3/4″ or 56 1/2″ tall. I have a 3/4″ range because I haven’t decided weather to lay a 3/4″ cleat board below the deck. This board will be a better attachment point for the fascia around the drawer openings and also allow me to secure the deck from beneath the layout (which should be helpful when I want to rip this layout up.
I also took the drawer cabinet to the garage to paint it “Stealth Jet” before reinstalling.
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