Measure…
It sits a bit higher then the front windows, in which case I just trim the siding to fit. I just lucked out on the bottom of the side door and front door.
But sometimes I don’t, but the stuff is easy to grind down to fit with a Dremel tool.
The courses are staggered and there’s no “half stones”. On the corners they have to be cut flush with the perpendicular wall.
It’s looking awesome Ken!
Wow Ken Looking Great
Dennis
Elaine Haggenbottom said:
Hi Mike,
Aren’t you on the East Coast of FL? Where were you in Montgomery County, that’s only a stone’s throw out of Roxboro (Phillie). Yes, rocks are at a premium here in FL, but we do have “stone yards” (not the big box stores) and they are much more reasonable… Hey, we have LOTS of sand tho!!.. I’ll bet the real rock tile from the Home Depot isn’t cheap either, is it Ken?
I used to buy a bucket of polished river rock pebbles from the above for about $5.00. It is still going strong after purchasing maybe 15 years ago… The hard part was finding the right mortar and mastic to keep them on the sides of the buildings… (Did a PA Dutch-looking barn from scratch with the stone base, because I couldn’t afford the kits or couldn’t find the right shape. ) Otherwise we have only built a couple of scratch built buildings (a "Manayunk Freight Station, and several yard office and outhouse varieties) , mostly because the wood is not cheap here either, and IF it isn’t cedar or redwood, couldn’t trust the outdoor existance… So mostly I find the used G-scale buildings by the name brand companies, and then alter or personalize them to suit myself, before putting them back up for sale… Just my bag… Elaine
Hi Elaine, I’m near Daytona. I was raised in East Norriton (Norristown). In Florida, I bought a few yards of limestone screenings from a local stone place to use as ballast. Here they were $60/yard, in PA about $20. I have about 20 structures that are all store bought and they’ve held up well. 6 years winter/summer in PA, 7 years in storage, and one year in Florida so far.
I did build an 8 foot long curved trestle out of a plank of 1x6 cedar ripped into lumber on the table saw. I also carved (melted with a soldering iron) a bunch of stone block tunnel portals out of foam insulation sheet. I’m thinking about trying to make structures, my neighbor makes coroplast signs, so I can get some material.
Lots of sand here and no free rock so I used concrete backer board to make a retaining wall for a second level, and then hid that behind a shell of carved concrete cliffs.
Finally starting to look like something…
The roof is coroplast also, with some PVC bracing under it
The corner trim I painted a lighter shade of gray ( almost said pale)…
Working on covering the roof now. And I’ll probably weather the stone a bit and a few other details to work on; hoist, door braces, etc.
Mike McLaughlin said:
Hi Elaine, I’m near Daytona. I was raised in East Norriton (Norristown).
Another area I’m familiar with. when I worked for the phone company. I was in Engineering in Valley Forge and Norristown was one of my responsibilities. My biggest project was Germantown Pike and Chemical Rd relocating a major conduit and cable run for the Blue Route(476). The area was solid rock and we were only making about 20’ a day. What a PITA!
The mill has turned out great Ken.
Ken, your mill is coming together very nice. Do you have the item number for the Lowe’s mosaic stone tile that you used? Did you buy it recently?
Ken you have a winner. That looks awesome and the color looks great. Ya done good sonny.
Mike McLaughlin said:
Ken, your mill is coming together very nice. Do you have the item number for the Lowe’s mosaic stone tile that you used? Did you buy it recently?
Item # is 0255450. Just picked up 2 more packs about a week ago. They don’t seem to stock much of it, but there’s usually at least a box or 2 on the shelf.
Thanks Ken. A search on lowes.com couldn’t find that item number. I never have any luck with their website, when it does find something, I have to sort through unrelated items to find what I was looking for. I guess a trip to the store is in order. I have two locations I could go to, they are both more than a half hour from the fern fields I live in.
Ah Ha! Eureka, I have found it. I took the leading zero off your item number and it came up!
That’s the stuff, Mike!
Wow Ken,you really did get around… So you worked for the Phone Co too? My hubby did when we lived in Trevose, but most of his area was Levittown… Climbing poles became old, but then they wanted to put him back in an office and that would Never have worked… Think pay was decent, but the HOURS were terrible, almost a widow… But he went on to bigger and better very quickly… I became a stay-at-home “Mother and Wife”-no trains then…
BTW: looks like your rocks are steep in price, but very effective on the buildings… Do you have to do anything to seal them? (Other than the wash you mentioned?) No mortaring? It looks like for once, they are available everywhere, even here…
Mike,
We used to go to Daytona pretty frequently, as our relatives had a time share on the beach, nice area IF you didn’t go when they were having “car races”… There’s a fantastic train show in Deltona 4 times a year… It sounds like you have a great layout… Too bad our FGRS has pretty much died, or you could have joined… They love seeing and meeting new train people… So you lived near Norristown, that was the place everyone shopped IF we wanted to go to larger stores. And the Reading was called the Norristown Local, which went past us (Wissahickon Station)to your town. I’m always amazed at how “small” this world really is"…
Elaine
P.S. Ken the Grist Mill LOOKS GREAT!! Thanks for all of your insights too.
Working in an office wasn’t working for me either. The only saving grace was I could get out most of the day to look after my conduit crews and survey other jobs that needed done. I liked the Engineering part of it, but the management end was a drag; meetings, BS and politics. Finally had enough went went back outside to West Chester and a Lineman. Retired back in '04 when that part started going downhill.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the buildings that already have the stones on them, as they haven’t been sealed, just the wash. They look like they’ve held up well, so far.
I just picked up a couple of the tiles this afternoon. They were marked down to $9 something at the store.
I went to the train show at Volusia county fairgrounds in Deland last weekend. FGRS was there with a modular layout.
Ken, again thanks for all of your input. The building really looks fantastic… Do you put them outside in the winter? Or save them for special occasions? There’s a pretty active G-scale group in SEPA, are you a member… .From all accounts they seem to do some of the shows?
Mike, I’m glad to hear that the FGRS is alive on the East Coast, it’s pretty well dead over on the West Coast… They are a great bunch of people… I used to travel back and forth all the time to their meets, was their “raffle queen” for almost 3 years. But, circumstances change and I had a whole house full of dogs, that were aging and could no longer just disappear… That used to be a wonderful show too… Elaine
P.S. So are you going to build something with your new-found tile? Certainly do look like PA…
Elaine Haggenbottom said:
Ken, again thanks for all of your input. The building really looks fantastic… Do you put them outside in the winter? Or save them for special occasions? There’s a pretty active G-scale group in SEPA, are you a member… .From all accounts they seem to do some of the shows?
Anytime, that’s what the Forum is for.
Yea, all the buildings stay out in the winter, which is why there’s so much bracing and weight to them. They do require maintenance from time to time, but that’s expected. Cars and details I bring in, like people, crates, baggage wagons and stuff like that, but everything else stays out in the weather. That way I can find out which techniques work around here and what don’t.
I belong to SEPGRS, but I’m not very active with it. Most of them are up north of Philly, but there’s a few of us down in this area. And most of them are into the roundy-round method of running. They do have a couple of module groups that are always doing shows, and I use to help out when they did the big floor display at the Greenburg show in Ft. Washington, but it’s all modules now. Once I got into the “Operations” end of running my layout I lost interest in the club, since most of them aren’t into that.
The only special occasions here are before and after the ECLSTS, if anyone wants to stop by and run a train or 2 they’re more then welcome and in the fall there’s a Model Railroad Open House thing that lasts all through November that I sign up for. Everything else is just informal, like when Bruce comes up or Ric Golding stops by on his way home from the “Invasion”.
Here’s a link to my website if you care to check out any other stuff:
I did check out your website Ken, Thanks, it was a great display of everything. I’ve never made it to the York show, although I always wanted to… Once we moved to FL in 1982, it was pretty well out of the question. This year Harry is running it, and He was fantastic to work with when he did the shows in Perry… my one trip to PA (last year was the first since 2003) this past year was by Amtrak, and this year my hubby and I are celebrating our 50th Anniversary, so our kids bought us tickets again for the Auto train, BUT it isn’t until the end of May… Too many snowbirds use it before then, making the cost totally prohibitive… It was on my “bucket list” so I was so happy to have one train trip under our belts… And one of our kids lives in Hazelton, so it’s nice to touch base with him and his new family… Great job… Elaine
Well, Elaine to get from Lorton, VA to Hazelton, you’ll be driving right past here (or pretty close), so feel free to stop in…