Large Scale Central

Garden Texture Sawmill Build

Probably 12-15 years back when my dream of building an out layout first started, I bought a set of garden texture sawmill plans and cutting the left over pieces of Ipe from my deck to the proper dimensions, I built one. I made one side wall permanent and the other removable depending on what I planned to do with the inside details.now that I’m finally getting close to the start of my railroad, I’m getting the things I can work on now prepared. I’m still working on antique cars and things are progressing slower than I wanted but I’m still moving ahead on them.
I while back, I purchased a RAM electronics sawmill sounds board and speaker kit so I decided to add a cupola to the mill roof to mount the speaker and give better sound. I made it up from cedar and mounted it flush with the two inside roof rafters. This size gave me just enough width to house the speaker and when I removed the roof planking, I left the purlins in place so the speaker could sit on top of them. I put louvered sides on it with closed ends. On the ends I will paint the sawmills name on it. With the cupola all built, I cut strips of light weight roofing felt into 2” strips then stapled the top edge of each strip down. I pieced it in some places like a real roof gets done with rolled asphalt roofing and sealed it down with black silicone. I also did the cupola roof the same way. When it was all roofed, I sprayed it and the speaker box with satin polyurethane to help seal it all from moisture.
Now I’m planning on my inside details. I have what appears to be a model steam engine built by someone years back. Its not a functional engine but it’s appearance is very good so I hope to design an overhead pulley system that will be driven by a hidden electric motor that will drive the pulleys right back to the steam engine. I wanted my log sled to move back and forth and figure to use some HO track and trucks. The drive system was giving me some fits then I saw where one guy used an HO motor block in the sled. Using two, three way mini push button switches, one at each end, I figure I can make the sled travel backand forth, changing direction every time the sled engages the mini switch. Yes, it’s only a theory but I believe I can design it to work. I suppose a magnet with two tiny prox switches switching a relay will also get the job done and will probably be more waterproof. More designing to do of course but I’ll keep posting as I go.

Good start. Sound and animation are interesting additions. I’ll be following this.

Next up in my shop is a sawmill as well, after I finish the engine shed I’m currently building.

Looks nice. Good thing you got it when you did. I don’t think they’re around any more…(not that I would really know…) (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-embarassed.gif)

Ted, her is a article that appeared in GRW magazine in Oct 2000 that might help, I used some of the layout when doing my playmobil building parts one . if you send me an email address i will send it to you, Bill