Sandy Shores - New Layout Legs - The Design

Producing a more useful set of legs

And no, before you ask; I'm not on about my own legs!
My original plan for Sandy Shores was to produce a plywood box capable of not only containing the layout and its accessories in its entirety (as well as acting as a rolling suitcase of sorts), but also of acting as the layout legs (by being up-ended). Sadly, in the end, the layout box would've been too large to act as the layout legs as it would've created a layout that was too high for wheelchair users to see.

Obviously with two upcoming exhibitions, and fabric for the layout drape ready to cut out (I've actually just glued the Velcro for it onto the layout fascia), it's about time I found a new option for the legs. I did go through a number of options in my head; including reusing legs from Old AGWI Rd. or extending the existing temporary trestles I've had for 12 or so years! Sat on the floor looking up at Sandy Shores I quickly realised that reusing legs was a no-go. I also knew that trestles would be too wide at the left hand end of the layout, and would cause a trip hazard.

Suddenly, a thought entered my head; recently my dad built a simple plywood and batten base on mini-castors so that I could move my PC around with ease... what about if I did something similar for Sandy Shores? In a flurry of sketching, a few seconds later I had a solid plan. The same castor base (albeit a bit bigger), along with two legs and a notched cross-brace. Keen to make it collapsible I added hinges on the legs, which were naturally restricted to 90 degrees by locating the hinges part way up the legs; causing the lower section to be stopped by hitting the base:

As I mentioned earlier, the left hand end of the layout meets to a point, so any traditional layout legs would be unsuitable. To rectify that (whilst still giving enough stability), I've designed the base of this design as a isosceles trapezium - happily, this also meant that the layout legs interlock perfectly; with the narrow set sitting inside the wider set.

I'm also very mindful that my car is pretty small, so any legs need to fold down to occupy as small a space as possible! This set of legs is far smaller than the current trestles; and the fact this set-up has wheels (even if they are small) means making final adjustments when setting up the layout in a hall will be a breeze. I once had to move Calshot across the other side of a hall after an exhibition manager put me in the wrong place (and when I had already finished setting up the layout!). I wish I had this set-up then...

So all in all, it's still (I personally think) a relatively simple set of legs; and the fact I can store boxes and such underneath the layout with ease is the icing on the cake. One last thing to point out is that to stop the layout moving once set-up, it would be no hassle to fit those castor cups under the wheels; they can be bought incredibly cheaply nowadays.