Sawmill Complex On30 Module

admin

Great update Joe, castings look fantastic!

Karl.A

I keep coming back and looking at your second picture.
The detail and colour in the boards for the floor and walls is just superb.

Kinda sad with all of the wonderful work you are doing, but, I still
keep going back to that pic, it just holds my attention.

Karl.A

morganhillrr

Thanks Brett, the castings are just incredible. A little tedious getting them painted and weathered, but well worth the time and effort. Building the 6 mini kits was a lot of fun ( cart, office desk, etc).

Appreciate your comments Karl, it must be the redue of the nail holes-HAH. I'm really glad you pointed them out, the difference is amazing.

-Joe CCCModOn30

James

Fantastic work. I love the wall with the ladder and chains, crowbar, and the nail the "mini-kits. I know what you mean about being overwhelmed. If one agonizes over every casting then things would never get done! Makes me want to dive into the mini kits right now but I need to finish the things I've started. I really like the walls with the shelves and what I presume are piles of shims (is that what they are)?

James

"… and then the mini-kits". I really should review what I've write…

morganhillrr

Hi James: Thanks for your comments, greatly appreciated. Working with the castings has been great fun, well worth agonizing over? The items on the shelves are mainly various size boxes...... Joe CCCModOn30

morganhillrr

Hi: Adding layer after layer of details (castings). I'll let the photos do the talking.....Joe CCCModOn30

Karl.A

Just simply outstanding Joe. The figure placement is really well done and throws a whole new great feeling of life to the mill.
I'd be interested to know how you glued down the sawdust without discolouring your excellent floor. It blends really well with the scenes.

Superb work all around, everything looks so good.

Karl.A

morganhillrr

Appreciated your comments Karl. I use diluted white glue and put a very small amount where I want it with a brush. I then shake on very fine sawdust from a shaker bottle with small holes and let sit for awhile. Then brush off or blow off excess....Joe CCCModOn30

admin

Beautiful work Joe! Great scenes just bring the sawmill alive...

Karl.A

Thanks for the info Joe, I need to revisit that method, I have been using it on another build with success but, not on a wood floor. I guess I'll mock something up to test on.

Once again, great work.

Karl.A

brownbr

Overall fine work. I like the extra touches like the crossed off items on the work orders and the extra dimension on the wall calendar indicating extra pages. The sawdust is accumulating in the right places and I think you could add some more without it looking overdone.

morganhillrr

Thanks Brett, Karl and Bryan. The comment on the amount of sawdust sounds good, I was waiting until I had the cut wood placement done to revisit....Joe CCCModOn30

morganhillrr

This weeks progress was a little thin. We had a train show at Big Trees/Roaring Camp in Felton, CA which is one of our favorite venues. Then the tax man was on the agenda, and the normal family things to do. So not to much to report; adding employees to the sawmill shop floor and working on the mill engine and boiler. I thought you might like to see what a CCCModOn30 module layout looks like. This was one of our largest; filled a 40' X 60' area and took us 6 hours to build. The 5 modules with trees are mine. The sawmill modules (2) are currently being worked on, waiting for the sawmill structure to be completed. Enough with the talk, photos to follow. I'll follow up with a story about Shay #1, which was right outside our layout.....Joe CCCModOn30

brownbr

A very impressive setup

morganhillrr

Thanks Bryan, we have a good time. Now about the Shay. They run the Shay up the mountain with 3-4 passengers cars through a redwood forest. The trip takes about 1 1/2 hours. The engineer is a great fan of our layout and came over Sunday and recruited 2 of us to take a ride on the 11:00 am train. Imagine our surprise when he took us ( me and a buddy) into the cab for our ride! It was hot, dirty, wet, noisy and absolutely wonderful! He even let us blow the whistle when we returned. A memory I'll never forget.....Joe CCCModOn30

sdrees

Joe,

Your modeling is great and I also love your modular railroad. I have enjoyed following your sawmill project and you have given me many ideas for my scratch built sawmill I am working on.

I remember when they built the Roaring Camp railroad in the 1960's as a tourist railroad. It is in a beautiful location like you say in a redwood forest. I was going to college at the time in the Bay Area. They used to have a wooden trestle that crossed over itself, but later was later destroyed by fire. So now I guess they have several switchbacks to get to the summit since it was to expensive to rebuild the trestle. I also was one of the original shareholders, but sold the stock many years ago. The Dixiana Shay was their original locomotive. I believe that they also have a Heisler they use to pull the train. It is well worth it to take a ride on the train if you are in the area.

Do you know Bob DuPont who lives in San Mateo. He also models O gauge.

Steve

morganhillrr

Hi Steve: Thanks for your kind words and your recollections of Roaring Camp. It is truly an epic place of narrow gauge railroads. The Heisler works, but they don't use it often. They also have a Climax which is in dire need of restoration. I don't know Bob, but maybe he has seen our modular layouts. We do 6-8 shows per year and just celebrated our 10th anniversary as an On30 modular group. Good luck with your sawmill and feel free to chime in with comments and progress photos.....Joe CCCModOn30

morganhillrr

Hi: Update- finished the interior of the sawmill with workers and materials less the staging and shipping area. Next up is the main Boiler and Mill Engine kits. There will be an additional small engine located at the log haul to power that equipment. Then its time to start adding castings and details to the outside areas, this should be fun.... Joe CCCModOn30

Karl.A

Everytime I look at your work Joe I have to come back three or four times
to take it all in, and then come back for more.

Karl.A

Coors2u

Joe, the machinery looks fantastic.

morganhillrr

Thanks Dustin, glad you enjoy the machinery.

Hi Karl: I don't know what to say. When I air brushed the boiler this time around, I had photos of your boiler as a guide. When it looked similar to yours, I stopped! I used Floquil grimy black, rust and grime....Joe CCCModOn30

morganhillrr

Well, I had blast this week adding outside details. In addition, I placed a log haul engine in place, scratch build a work platform for the log haul operator, and made a mini scene for the firewood chopper. I know they need to be dirtied up, that will be the last thing to do for the entire diorama.....Joe CCCModOn30

brownbr

How many times have you knocked off the propped open window on the maintenance shed? I lost count on mine.

morganhillrr

Hey Bryan: That's about the only part I haven't knocked off and had to repair. The closer I get to the finish line, the more pieces get damaged by my carelessness....Joe CCCModOn30

morganhillrr

Progress report: Finished and installed a steam donkey which is a back up for the main boiler, at least that's my story. Made the finished wood stacks and temporarily placed them. But the BIG STORY is I started the roofing structure. This is the LAST major piece for the sawmill and it really feels great to be working on it at last....Joe CCCModOn30

brownbr

That's a big milestone! I like the extra donkey. Hard to have too many.

Three questions:

Will the roof be removable?
Are the lights operational?
Are you adding any more sawdust to the floor?

morganhillrr

Hey Bryan: No, No, and Yes. I would like a section of the roof removable but not sure how to make that happen, any ideas? Once I'm done with the NHRA National model contest, I will work on some form of interior/exterior lighting. I like the way your sawmill look when the lights are on. I am close to the Sturgeons Sawmill which is very similar in design to Brett's structure, namely open siding. The run the sawmill 4 times a year and cut up massive logs and open it to the public. I was surprised at how clean the floor and surrounding areas are when in operation. The wind moves a lot of sawdust outside and they have workers cleaning up the floor; probably a safety/fire issue.

-Joe CCCModOn30

brownbr

Here is what I did for a removable section:

In first pic the smokestack guy wire has to be considered. I used music wire for stiffness and drilled a hole in the roof for it to sit in without glueing.

Second pic shows how much of mill is exposed.

3rd shows the roof section. I basically built it on the rafters as described in the manual but instead of glueing the purlins down I used double sided tape.

4th photo shows roof cap. I used 2x lumber instead of 1x called for in the manual to give extra support and hold it in place.

You are only going to remove the roof once in a great while, but when you need to show it off it's a real attention getter.

morganhillrr

Thanks Bryan, very helpful explanation. Guess what I found in my to do projects, forgot I had it. From Miles Post Model works, similar to yours but all metal frame....Joe CCCModOn30