John Caughey said:
It’s an easy mistake, fill the same structure with water and transport logs and you have a sluice, plain water and it’s an aqueduct!
Um wouldn’t the chute that carries water and logs be a flume. A sluice is a chute that carries water and rock made for separating gold or other desirables.
Devon Sinsley said:
John Caughey said:
It’s an easy mistake, fill the same structure with water and transport logs and you have a sluice, plain water and it’s an aqueduct!
Um wouldn’t the chute that carries water and logs be a flume. A sluice is a chute that carries water and rock made for separating gold or other desirables.
Hey! What do we know?
“Sluice definition: A sluice is a passage that carries a current of water and has a barrier , called a sluice…” A door or gate to regulate the flow.
Wellbin that case a sluice could carry a log. I am a water guy but inlnow nothing of chutes, flumes, sluices, aquaducts. I barely know pipes
I hope to spend some time importing a picture of one of the mine ladders that was used at Calico In California. At least two were used in the area. They are a lot more common than many realize.
Doug, I think you might have posted a picture other than the one you intended. The good news is you didn’t accidentally post one of those pictures of…, well, you know, it could have been a little embarrassing!
You mean a nude train?
actually it was supposed to be a picture of the cliff ladder at Calico! It was a JPEG of a picture from a book That wouldn’t work! I will have to tinker with it tomorrow!
More progress, not enough, but more.
Ran into an immediate problem. My deck from the mining office to the bridge was the wrong height, off by a full inch…so much for my measuring skills. The good news is it’s my world and I can carve through “mountains” at will, as you can see in the second picture, and now the height is perfect, see the third picture.
So now for some stairs. There is no way in hell I would be able to cut the risers out of wood, I just don’t have the right equipment or something for it, so I looked around for something that I could cut easily and found cardboard backs of drawing pads…strong and can be cut with good scissors.
Here’s the platform between the two levels of stairs under construction:
And here’s the first set in place:
So now it was time to do it all over again for the second run of stairs, together with a platform to match the mountain height of the hoist mechanism that lifts the ore out of the mine.
Except the platform doesn’t fit. Great. Oh, well, I’ll use it somewhere else. Here’s how it came out,modified:
I moved the stairs I already built for the lower level up to the level of the hoist to get the workers from the hoist to the mine. Now I got to get from the mine to the other mines above everything on the “wall” which will become a rock face shortly.
So I made a ladder based on one of the suggestions from one of the fellas here…you drill holes in the side parts of the ladder, you drill them both at the same time on both sides so they match up perfectly, and then you stick toothpicks or something through the holes; in this case, I used skewers I had left over from the job at CSU I did. I am very happy with the outcome, and I need another one of these to go to the next level and I will do one without using any glue at all. My first attempt rather failed because the wood I was using split from the drilling holes, but I found a piece of oak wood and it held up:
So here’s an overview of where I’m at:
Thanks again for taking a look. I feel good about the progress I’ve made, including doing some repainting of the rock faces, and, all in all, I’m more or less satisfied. And finally I’m getting on to the level that holds the stairways to heaven. Yay.
We got plenty of time left, right?
John,
The stairs and ladder look great. Back when I was in Boy Scouts (some 50 years ago) we camped near Calico and explored some of the mines that had been abandoned. I one of them I remember a ladder that had 2x4’s for the rungs. the interesting thing about the rung was they had been worn almost in half by the miners climbing them so many times with the sand and grit on their shoes or boots.
This is looking great. I like all the different varieties of elevation change mechanisms you are adding. Adds to the visual variety and complexity and keeps my eyes busy 
Thanks for that, Colin…I never would have thought of that, but a little time with my dremel discs should imitate that wear-and-tear nicely. Excellent. I like it!
I haven’t painted any of this stuff yet anyway, so I’ll do this first.
John Passaro said:
Thanks for that, Colin…I never would have thought of that, but a little time with my dremel discs should imitate that wear-and-tear nicely. Excellent. I like it!
I haven’t painted any of this stuff yet anyway, so I’ll do this first.
Remember that pic I posted of ladders with a wicked last step? One ladder section on the left was hung upside down due to worn rungs …
I’m fat and out of shape. Is it to late to request them fancy new fangled moving stairs
John Caughey said:
John Passaro said:
Thanks for that, Colin…I never would have thought of that, but a little time with my dremel discs should imitate that wear-and-tear nicely. Excellent. I like it!
I haven’t painted any of this stuff yet anyway, so I’ll do this first.
Remember that pic I posted of ladders with a wicked last step? One ladder section on the left was hung upside down due to worn rungs …
Ha! I was too frightened by the thought of being on that ladder to notice!
John Passaro said:
John Caughey said:
John Passaro said:
Thanks for that, Colin…I never would have thought of that, but a little time with my dremel discs should imitate that wear-and-tear nicely. Excellent. I like it!
I haven’t painted any of this stuff yet anyway, so I’ll do this first.
Remember that pic I posted of ladders with a wicked last step? One ladder section on the left was hung upside down due to worn rungs …
Ha! I was too frightened by the thought of being on that ladder to notice!
You’re excused! Since chemo I get vertigo looking at tv scenes…
John, you did a great job on the ladders and steps and they just make the whole scene work. I’m with Devon on the fancy moving stairs. They sure would make life easier on us conditioning challenged folk.
Wow John - This looks great! I’ll make you a deal - You come out East and paint some carved foam rock walls for me and I’ll come to Denver and build you heavy timber stuff (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
All those levels certainly stand out with the different stairs and ladders to get where one is going. Will be a real focal point when you’re finished(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
I did some research for the two mining entrances in the rock cliff behind the mine, one abandoned, one active. For the abandoned one I found these pictures of abandoned mines here in Colorado (the first one below is the one I chose to model, and the others have elements like a “name plate” above the entrance, and two different kinds of rails, and a wire gate closing of the entrance at the back of one):
So I got to work last night and here’s where I am so far:
The three boards across the entrance are to keep strays out of the mine, and I’ll make the wire gate in the back which will make a nice visual barrier, I need to add some support logs to the top, but I’m happy with the way I did the sign. I weathered the hand-lettering some, and split the board, which was more difficult to do than it looks for some reason…they split easily when you don’t want them to. Heidi is our Saint Bernard who died in April and Grace is my daughter’s little doggie.
Anyway, I finish up and then it’s on to the next part of the project.
edit: Oh, and by the way, it looks like there is an actual SLUICE in that second resource picture, that CHUTE above the mine entrance!
Love the skewer ladder
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" Rooster " said:
Love the skewer ladder
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I am highly considering stealing this idea.
