visit sierrawestscalemodels.com

The Sawmill Project kit #308

2456789

Comments

  • Bryan, I was coming across the high desert today, looking at miles of ocean beach type wind swirled sand dunes and wondering if I should stop and collect a bag full!

    Your work is looking great. Please continue - the more the detail the better for us new folks.

    I'm looking at your other thread.

    Respectfully,
    John
  • Karl you are welcome to come to Virginia Beach and dig up some dirt in my backyard anytime.

    Stuart, I think you should take any idea from here that you think will suit your plans.

    John, get the sand. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

    Speaking of the concrete blocks, the blower block is out of place. I planted it too close to the edge of the floor so the belt is on the wrong side. I debated on re-planting but decided to just wrap the belt around the piping. You will never be able to see that it is not on a pulley on the back side. Also, since my grade was a little deeper than the pilot I ran the pipe under the floor beam instead of over it. I didn't want to put the block on a riser. I also created some pipe supports from stock 8x8 & 2x8

    imageimage
  • The floor planks are all ready now and I started laying them down. I tried for a very subtle color variation in them. This pic is somewhat bleached.

    I'm trying a technique here where one of the boards has curled up at the butt, presumably coming un-nailed. I'm not sure if I will include nail holes over the floor as I think that could look overdone on such a large floor surface. If the raised board grows on me I will use this sparingly over the entire floor.imageimage
  • edited May 2014
    My thoughts. If this is a hard working mill, the safety hazard would cause the mill foreman to have someone fix that ASAP. If old mill then heavily scar/wear/crack the top as if many feet and items had hit it over the years. Just my opinions. Love the colours of the boards.
  • Hi Bryan: Nice progress, coloring is great as mentioned. I don't like the raised boards as Alan described the safety issue.....Joe CCCModOn30
  • Bryan, if you are going to curl the board ends, the colours and grain would have to show the wear that caused the nails to pop. However, the colours I think are already decided. You might consider putting "patched/replaced" boards that are newer to show there was wear but has been repaired. Split boards could add to wear and smooth pathways would show constant use.

    Just some ideas to consider.

    Marty
  • Thanks or the invite Bryan, be careful what you ask for , :)
    Colours are all looking great and the debris under the mill and the detail under there has all come out very nicely indeed.
    I kinda did the same thing on my mill engine governor belt. I forgot to put the wheel on during construction so just wrapped the governor belt around the shaft....... no one will ever know... unless they are reading our posts !!

    The curled boards are a great idea and look good but as mentioned in a working mill they would have been nailed down pretty quickly to avoid trips and falling head first into a 5' high spinning blade. One place you could use the effect would be along the edge of a loading dock or one of the staggered angle edges. this would make sense as those areas would be more prone to the elements and the boards more likely to warp due to a loose nail. as mentioned, weather and split the board end a little more to show increased weathering leading to its failure.

    Build is looking fantastic overall.

    Karl.A
  • All good thoughts on the board. I really like the replaced board idea. I'll find a place for one of those. I have a guy kneeling and hammering but I tried to adjust his arm and he looks like an amputee now. Maybe I need to find a tripping figure. How funny would that be?

    I'm working on the rest of the floor and there is a small discrepancy in fig 3 on template 5 with the photos in the manual. I went with the photos and ran the planking all the way up to the rails for the carriage.

    I'm to the point where I need to construct the dead roll extension. At some point I need to rework my carriage also. I have too much overhang on the hardware to clear the blades.imageimageimage
  • Looking good ! I like your colouring on your boards.
  • Beautiful work Bryan.
  • I got the rest of the floor boards installed and even put the live roll lever back in place. You can see it just above and to the right of the big hole in the floor.

    The instructions and template 5 were outstanding. If you started this at one end and worked to the other, I can just about guarantee the boards will be crooked. Filling in the 12 areas on the template kept it all very straight. Though by about step 9 it started to get a bit complex.

    I'm about to start on the walls and I'm thinking a lot about the lights so I'd be glad to hear any ideas on this. Here's my plan for the time being.

    I will be using ngineering LED's. I will drill a hole in the ceiling supports to install them. That's straight forward enough. I need to hide the wires. I don't think I can find tubing small enough and workable enough for conduit so I plan on carving a groove in the top of the ceiling supports to serve as a channel to hide the wires. I will be wiring them in series vs parallel. This means I will have a set of wires for each light. They don't take up much space but they can become a tangled mess. I chose this method because it means no resistors, I can wire on the bench and install instead of wiring on the model, and if one light goes out it won't knock out 3 others in the group.

    If I went with a conduit I would be looking for something no bigger than scale 4" diameter. I would want to cut a slit down the entire length for easy routing of the wires so I think stainless steel would be out. All of the brass I have seen has too thick walls. I haven't seen anything in plastic smaller than about 7" diameter. If anyone knows of a product I haven't though of please let me know.

    I'll have a while to think about this as I would like to install the walls, ceiling, line shaft and maintenance shed first.imageimage
  • Right there Bryan. great detail so ffar.

    Jerry
  • Bryan the floor has come together well, I really like the overall appearance.

    Looking forward to how you do the lighting.

    Thanks for being a pioneer with this build.
  • edited May 2014
    Very Cool Bryan,

    As for the LEDs, I would suggest using the current limiting device from Ningeering. It makes figuring out much easier. They also have steel tubing that will fit your size requirements. I would avoid the splitting and grooving is possible, conduits are more real.

    marty
  • Bryan,

    Excellent work and photographs. Please continue with the detail.

    Look carefully at Ngineering's tubing catalogue. I bought .018" which at my HO scales up to 1 1/2", a perfect real life size I think. They have tubing available in many wider sizes so any scaling is possible.

    Respectfully,
    John
  • Thanks guys for the comments and suggestions. I like the ngineering tubing very much I just haven't worked out in my head yet how to thread multiple wires through them and get wires to the right spot. I can use small sections and tape as a connector. I still think that cutting the pipe length wise would make access easier and the stainless tubes from ngineering make that extra difficult. Keep the ideas coming I still have a lot of time to decide.

    I'm working on probably the hardest part of the kit for me. It seems that I am unable to make 2 sticks the same length and I have a love-hate relationship with the true sander making my squares not exactly square.

    I assembled the 3 main walls using template 7 and test fitted them. The instructions call for assembly of the walls on the floor. Given my limits as mentioned above I decided to let gravity work with me instead of against me and build the ceiling beams on the work bench. Look away Brett, you don't want to see the 2nd photo.

    Note: if you use this assembly method your walls are on the reverse side of template 6 and your ceiling beams with the marks are backwards. I wonder how I figured that out? Just keep the walls oriented in the same direction and swap sides and don't forget to turn the beams with the marks around.imageimage
  • Bryan, you could skip the conduit idea and make it look like Nomex. Twist the wires together and use black epoxy and coat the wires with it or paint blackish and coat with CA. Experiment with the wire types and glues before doing it for real.

    Marty
  • Looks great Bryan - I love this stage of construction.
  • I haven't posted an update for a while but I have been busy. All of the belts are installed and the sawdust bin also. I love those beveled gears.

    I'm in the process of putting on the siding to the maintenance shed.

    It's amazing what you can see in the photos that can't been seen in person. Things like the bevel gears need to mesh better and a couple of sagging belts. None of the pulleys or gears have been epoxied to the shafts as I have been toying around with getting them right.

    I'm looking forward to starting on some castings to take a break from the wood. This kit uses about a tree's worth of wood.imageimageimageimage
  • looking fantastic... love the shot with the trestle in the background... sawdust bin looks great... and yeah, lots of wood!
  • Looking fantastic Bryan. all those belts, braces and legs just look superb. any photo from any angle at this point makes it look so incredible, especially your low shots where everything is visible.
    Sawdust bin looks great, more aged than the interior due to exposure but sound and functional. These small nuances make a great difference in the overall picture.

    As Brett says the shot with the trestle in the background looks great and gives us an idea of what is to come. Looking forward to more.

    Karl.A
  • Looks terrific Bryan....Joe CCCModOn30
  • Bryan, your work is inspiring. Please continue to show us what you are doing.

    John
  • This is great, thanks for showing me the Mill work in progress. Just received my stripwood order in the mail for my Sawmill Hardware. I am assuming the wood framing I need to build for the Sawmill Hardware will fit and adapt into the new Sawmill build?

    Looking at what you have done helps my in my planning on space for the Sawmill, a little demolition work is forthcoming. Thanks.
  • Bryan, really nice...I also love the background of your layout. What a great kit and your treatment here is doing it justice for sure....
  • Bryan I really like the angle you got for the first shot.

    You've been very busy the last few days and it has made a huge difference to the look of the mill.

    The sawdust bin looks great.

    Looking forward to your next update.
  • Thanks guys. Once the maintenance shed and storage room walls are up I think I will take it outside and get a few shots in better light.

    Wayne, there are just a few modifications necessary from the machinery build to the sawmill. You will end up re-doing the supports on the live rolls and losing the bottom row of boards on the edger. Don't assemble the log deck, turner or haul. Other than that you are good to go. Use the same colors you plan to use on the sawmill.
  • I was toying around with the castings over the weekend and have been experimenting with a couple of techniques I picked up by lurking on an armor forum.

    I started by priming the resin castings in the normal way and giving a base coat of Vallejo acrylics on the metal drums and chalk dust on the wood barrel. I scratched them up just a little. I did a wash on the big metal drum of "smoke" mixed with airbrush thinner. On the smaller one I used an enamel "Kursk Summer Earth" from AK Interactive.

    After this dried I drybrushed the wood barrel with "barnwood" craft paint. The metal barrels got a few rust streaks and a dusting of light brown pigments which was fixed with alcohol. The wood barrel got a coat of IA.

    I mixed some rust pigments with alcohol and colored the bands on the wood barrel and put the ground rust on the metal drum.imageimageimageimageimage
  • edited June 2014
    Bryan, don't you love those castings? What did you use for the base coat on the wooden crates, etc?

    Marty
  • Yes I do love the castings. Nothing else like them. I use Krylon camouflage paint for a primer. Tan for wood and dark brown for metal. I also have black on hand for other uses.
Sign In or Register to comment.