Custom Lego Table Build

[Sledneck27]

Hello all, newb to the forum and need some assistance. I plan on building a Lego table for my 5 year old boy after the holiday. I will be using Ikea Trofast cabinets as a base, and will be using a 4' x 8' x 3/4" sheet of oak plywood cut down to allow a 4x7 32 stud baseplate layout. I have all of my dimensions figured out(including correct stud spacing!) and how I will be assembling it. What I'm really curious about though is a layout pattern for the baseplates. I want a water area, a small beach, and obviously green area, and streets. I will be using steet baseplates, and this being my first table build, I'm curious if there is any theory to street layout that people generally accept as the best way to layout a table? I was thinking having streets border every space that a building could be constructed on would be a good idea. I drew out a bunch of different patterns, and this so far is my favorite.



I plan on permanently affixing the baseplates to the plywood top, and I do realize that Lego stopped producing 32 stud blue baseplates. So for the water area I plan on painting the water area blue, and filling the area with clear acrylic to around 1/8" depth.

So, that's my plan, any ideas? Am I missing anything?

EDIT: I'm still not 100% sure on the acrylic for the water area. The more I read about it, the more I might as well just pony up and pay for some new old stock blue plates.

[Ben]

A couple of thoughts:

• Do you really need to use oak plywood if the entire top of the table is going to be covered in baseplates? If money is no object, then go ahead, but if the top of the table is always going to be covered in baseplates I'd choose a less expensive material for the top.
• I have had good luck with removable double sided carpet tape for holding down baseplates. It holds well (it will definitely prevent things from inadvertently sliding), but with a little bit of work, the baseplates can be removed and repositioned. That way you aren't committed to always having the same layout. I haven't had problems with the tape damaging the plates, but that might vary with the brand of the tape and the type of adhesive on it. Note that temporary is a key word here -- I don't think that the tapes labelled permanent would come off nearly as easily.

Good luck with the project!

Ben

[dr_spock]

You could bricklink 4 blue base plates. Don't wait too long, they are slowly going up in price.

[Sledneck27]

A couple of thoughts:

• Do you really need to use oak plywood if the entire top of the table is going to be covered in baseplates? If money is no object, then go ahead, but if the top of the table is always going to be covered in baseplates I'd choose a less expensive material for the top.
• I have had good luck with removable double sided carpet tape for holding down baseplates. It holds well (it will definitely prevent things from inadvertently sliding), but with a little bit of work, the baseplates can be removed and repositioned. That way you aren't committed to always having the same layout. I haven't had problems with the tape damaging the plates, but that might vary with the brand of the tape and the type of adhesive on it. Note that temporary is a key word here -- I don't think that the tapes labelled permanent would come off nearly as easily.

Good luck with the project!

Ben

Yeah, I want a really solid tabletop. The Oak panel($50) is actually going to be pretty inexpensive compared to the cost of everything else. The Trofast cabinets will be $160 at $40 each, and that's not including containers. The baseplates are going to be ridiculously expensive, so, thank you for the carpet tape idea. That's fantastic. I was hesitant to mount them permanently, but I didn't want to use velcro or anything like that. Carpet tape will allow for an extremely solid mount with very little flex.

[Sledneck27]

You could bricklink 4 blue base plates. Don't wait too long, they are slowly going up in price.

I found some 620's on ebay for $17 a piece, I haven't checked bricklink.

[StClair]

Looks great! I've been wanting to make one for sometime now. I just don't have room for one at the moment. I like Ben's idea with the double sided carpet tape (although I haven't tried it) I like that it can be changed.

[Sledneck27]

Just bought 4 new blue baseplates on bricklink. I found and American store selling them for $13.50.

[vynsane]

Too late to the blue baseplate party, but I was going to suggest using 16x16 blue plates instead - and even throw in some with islands!

[Sledneck27]

That is a good idea, I could always change the layout later now that I'm going to use carpet tape to hold the plates down instead of adhesive. I like the Lego Pirate stuff, and want to get a couple of those play sets to stick out in the water.

I just purchased 11 green baseplates and 2 sand baseplates at Lego.com. I think I'll keep this thread going and chronicle the table build.

[Sledneck27]

First batch of baseplates arrived today!

[Sledneck27]

Blue plates arrived!

[Sledneck27]

Just ordered eight 7280 Straight & Crossroad, and two 7281 T-junction & Curve baseplate sets. Ouch. Total cost for just the baseplates, over $330. So, I suppose that works out to around $11 per baseplate that I will be using. I'm going to have a bunch of Crossroads left over though, I suppose I'll sell try and sell them on bricklink.

[Sledneck27]

Road plates arrived, now a trip to Ikea is in order. That will be happening on the 21st of January.

[Sledneck27]

So this was the weekend for buying the rest of the Lego table stuff. First up, Ikea. I went with the wood version of the Trofast tables instead of the vinyl wrapped particle board. This was an expensive project, and there was no reason to cheap out on its foundation. Plus, the wood was on sale for $48 each(regular pricing was $60). The tables felt...ok...for sturdiness. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, maybe just a few more fasteners in a couple of key spots, I figured though that after bolting them all together, they would be rock solid. Please excuse this unfinished area of my basement!

[Sledneck27]

Now that I had the tables layed out, I started working on the table top. Instead of Oak, I went with a Maple plywood. The oak veneer was very thin, and seemed very prone to splintering. The Maple cost more, but was way more solid with a thick veneer. I laid out the piece of ply in the garage, I had the store rough cut it for me. Marked out the dimensions I needed for the plate area, plus 1" corner trim surround, and I cut it with a circular saw to exact dimensions. Before placing the tabletop on the base cabinets, I used 1/8" fiberboard as a spacer between the cabinets and tabletop. I did this because the side edges of the cabinets are approximately 3/16" higher than the top of the cabinet I planned to bolt the top too. This will prevent the plywood top from warping/twisting.

[Sledneck27]

Alright, I now have the top positioned on the cabinets. I decided against my original plan to bolt all the cabinets together. Instead, I would just bolt all of the cabinets to the tabletop. It was a much easier way of fastening the whole thing together, and will make the table much easier to move in the future. To secure the cabinets to the top, I used two 5/8" x 1 1/2" bolts per cabinet, with a washer and lock-washer, through bolted from the underside of the cabinet top. After marking the bolt positions on the tabletop, I used a spade bit to make a countersink for the t-nuts I would be using on the tabletop. I then through drilled the holes and bolted the whole thing together. Its completely rock solid, no movement or wiggle at all.

[Sledneck27]

Next, I installed the corner trim on the edge of the top. I used a simple PVC trim, easy to work with and clean. I attached it with some countersunk screws every foot or so. I then laid out the baseplates again to ensure I had enough space, and, I didnt. I had to pull the trim off again and remove material along the inside edge. I should've given myself an extra 1/4" to play with, this was extremely time consuming filing down the PVC. Next, as suggested earlier, I used carpet tape to hold down the baseplates. This was very time consuming as well, with very little margin of error. Once the tape grabs, it's very hard to make a correction in placement.

[Sledneck27]

So, here it is, all finished and being played with. This was a little bit bigger of a project than I originally thought it would be, it was also more expensive than I thought it would be as well. All told, it's somewhere from $650-$700 total. Its well worth it though, the Lego's now have a home instead of plastic bins or hiding in the carpet. If I could do it again, I would actually make it one row longer, and have eight blue tiles, four is just a little bit too small. So, that's my project! Hope it helps anyone looking to do something similar.

[byroads73]

Table looks good. Thanks for sharing.

[StClair]

Its awesome! You did a great job both in planning and construction. I wish I had room for one. Maybe in the near future. Thank you for sharing the progress. It will definitely help others in planning.