A Train Table for the Dummy Woodworker

train coffee table

We were looking through the pile of candidates for our week of OurPastimes.com dummies, and the image on one of the posts caught the eye of a staffer whose significant other likes to play with trains. The post, a rather lengthy one (for eHow.com, anyway), is titled "How to Make a Train Coffee Table." We recognized writer Jane Smith as one of our former winners, so we took a closer look at what she'd written... Boy, was that a mess...

Smith found an article¹ about how to build a coffee table to display an eensy N-gauge layout but, apparently to her consternation, there were no step-by-step instructions, just a drawing. Well, we looked at the drawing and our staffers proclaimed it fairly easy to follow. The table has a glass top in a hinged frame (piano hinge), and the bottom rests on metal brackets so it can be lifted out. According to the description, the "box" portion of the table is 6-7" tall. From the looks of the diagram, the sides are 1-inch stock and the legs are 2-by-2s notched to take the sides. The builder made his from white pine (that's his image above).

None of that, however, is in Smith's plans. we don't know where they came from, but here are some of the differences:

• Make the sides from two-by-four maple
• Make the legs from two-by-two maple
• Build a frame and attach the legs with a pair of mortise-and-tenon joints and glue

"Butt [corner] blocks into each corner and press firmly to get a solid glue seal." "You should now have a coffee table frame, held together with carpenter's glue. Leave table frame face down, legs in the air... Make a 1/2-inch deep rabbet cut all the way around the inside perimeter of the table frame while table is upside-down." "Use a router to cut a 1/2 inch deep rabbet cut along the inside perimeter of the open table frame, including the corners of each leg. This rabbet cut, along with the four triangular corner supports, will support the glass tabletop sheet." "Build the train layout as desired."

We left out a lot of Jane's crap because, basically, it was crap. What we did include is enough detail to suggest that Jane simply found herself instructions to build a coffee table and "repurposed" them; apparently without much thought (or knowledge of model railroading). Given that the remaining space between the bottom and the glass is just 2½", any enclosed layout would be rather... puny.
Smith clearly has no idea what she's asking people to do: for instance, the reader is supposed to rout a ½-inch rabbet on the bottom of the frame... after the legs are already in place. Likewise, the glass top will expose the corner blocks that are also put in place before the frame is rabbeted for the glass. Then there's the complete lack of instructions for squaring the frame, and brass wood screws that are (apparently) installed with a ¼-inch drill bit.

Yeah, this idiot's a perfect candidate for Dumbass of the Day! Of course, we knew that from the get-go: only a DotD would open with the rather bizarre notion of,

"A built-in shelf unit above the table becomes a bridge to a second layout traveling up a ledge and around the room."

We rest our case.

¹ The article in question no longer on the internet, but you can still find it with the Wayback Machine at archive.org. Just look for   mikemoon.net/choochoo/index.html

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