Mianne bench 8 weeks

Yes, he is very busy and it is hand made. A little patience will pay off with a great product.

Dave

great product and a top notch guy

worth the wait

jerry

What the others above said. Plus there was a York meet in that time frame too. The Mianne product is extremely nice, well made and quite popular too, also made to order as stated above. You will be pleased when it arrives and it also goes together very quickly.

jackson102 posted:

Is that normal for a 5x9 table I been waiting 8 weeks

 

You will quickly forget the waiting time after you start assembly.  Great product with flexibility to add to it.  I took the openings and fabricate shadowboxes with train shelves for storage and display.

I will try to remember to get some pics when I get home.

Great product, and worth the wait.

FAN-tastic benchwork!

My Mianne benchwork took three months (ordered at York) to arrive in California.

Well worth the wait.  

I have built two layouts with Mianne benchwork. Be patient. It's worth the wait.

MELGAR

On its way

My wife and I help Tim and his wife Lynn out in the booth at the shows they attend, York and the Big E. I also at times go to Tim's shop to give him a hand. As of now, he is 8 weeks backed up with order with more orders coming in almost daily. Some orders are for stock kit but most are for custom designed benchwork. All of his product (except hardware) is hand formed. Tim use to get his poplar wood  rough sawn and he would plane it all down to size. Recently, to speed up production he now gets the leg stock (poplar) cut to size but in random lengths. He is also getting the MDF filler cut to width. The balance of his poplar, for the beams, now comes planned to size. He also recently move to a new shop and all of the machinery is dedicated to do a specific job in making the product. Him and his son Neal work  some 50 hours a week making benchwork. Take for instance the beams. After the random width poplar stock is cut to width, it then goes thru a saw blade seven more times before it becomes an end block of a beam. It will also be drilled to accept a cam and drilled again to accept the pins used to hold the structure together. MDF has to be cut to length and hole punched. The spines of the beams have to be cut to width, length and the have a dado cut in them to accept the MDF which is then glued in.  The end blocks are then glued and stapled to the assembly to make a finished beam. Leg stock has to be cut to length and drilled to accept the  T nut for the leg levers. The tops have to go thru a shaper to make the octagonal tops and then be drilled with 24 (sometimes more) holes to accept the pins. All the hardware has to be counted out and separately bagged. Tim tries to ship a few orders everyday but rarely does he have enough inventory of product on his shelf to fill even a small stock order. Literally every component part of any benchwork order is built within the week the order is shipped. Tim is also personally answering all phone calls and replying to emails himself. He is drawing plans for layouts on his computer as well as making all the paper work needed to accompany the benchwork to the end user. Product has to be boxed and shipped. I was amazed to see how many times a component part of each assembly has to be handled by human hands to become a completed piece. Tim's product is very popular and of high grade as can be attested to all the positive responses on the forum. 

Would be interested to hear back from you once you get your order and have put it together.

You have to be a master woodworker to make home-built benchwork of comparable quality to what Mianne sells. It is strong and light. And, as you point out, the wood is also top quality. Then, the ease of assembly (and disassembly when necessary) is unmatched due to very intelligent design. I have two layouts made from this product. The first is twenty years old and the one shown below is five. I could never make anything like this myself... I am a satisfied customer.

MELGAR

Cape Cod Northern,

That was a very interesting description of the processes required to build the Mianne benchwork. I agree with Melgar on the master woodworking/cabinetmaking skills needed to build benchwork of this quality, consistency and ease of use for the end user. I used to do woodworking myself, for many years. I am no master woodworker, but I did manage to build a few fairly nice projects over the years so I know the time, tools, skills, set ups, jigs, etc. one needs to build a good product like this. That's why I ordered Mianne for my own layout. Really is a great product. 

IMO, many people may not realize what all goes into making something like this and the time and skills needed to do very good, consistent quality work. Also the set ups needed for the consistency of this fine product, like holes always in the same location every time, everything the same sizes, lengths, etc. so when you order additional pieces for an addition it all fits perfectly with the stuff you got several years ago when you began your layout. That is also very impressive to me!

Thanks for posting this for us, I really enjoyed reading about it. 

ditto

Definitely worth the wait!

I have used Mianne benchwork for many years now, and in homes in Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia, and Ohio. I used the same components, with additions purchased when needed, that were assembled, disassembled, and assembled again multiple times and in different layout configurations. Pretty doggone versatile stuff and really a pleasure to assemble.

At the most recent York Meet, Tim actually sold the nice benchwork he had set up for display. The customer liked it so much that he wanted to take it home with him. You don't see that happen very often!

I will be using some of my Mianne benchwork now (a small portion of it) for a small all-tinplate layout I want to somehow fit into my basement train room which already houses a large amount of O gauge benchwork custom-built by my renovations contractor.

How much is a 4x8 kit ?

Looks like crawling under that....for wiring ...could be a challenge.

Or do you remove a board ?

Nessmuck posted:

How much is a 4x8 kit ?

That info is available on their website.

Steve

For wiring, yes, you have to get under any layout for it to be done. To make things a little easier, Tim advises that once the bench work is built and before you put on the table top, pull all you main buss wiring around the benchwork. That can be done standing up while it is still fully accessible. That then pretty much leaves the hooking up of you track and accessories power feeds to the proper buss wires already installed.

Also, if you notice on Melgar's bench work, He installed casters so that the entire table was moveable. To make that size table move as one without flexing, addition supports to tie the legs together were added. On a fixed layout, there would not be that many lower supports so access would be easier.

When the parts are shipped, does Tim send tracking numbers so I’ll know what day they’re supposed to arrive? We travel a lot and chances are we won’t be home to take delivery, so I’d have to ask a neighbor to do it and I wouldn’t want them to have to sit home for days waiting.

Nessmuck posted:

Looks like crawling under that....for wiring ...could be a challenge.

I ordered mine with 42" legs.  I can sit under the table and do my wiring.  Not so much crawling.  Crawling starts after you load all of your empty boxes under the layout, and have to move them as you add on things that require wiring.  You would have that in whatever you do.

Interesting that no one pointed out that you will avoid a very big mess when you try to cut and saw raw material.  My 12 x 14 was ready for tabletop in about 4-6 hours.  What is the cost of your labor.  As I mentioned before, I think you will be thrilled.