Large Scale Central

Devon's 2024 MIK - Featherkile Furnance and Foundry Shipping Building

The MIK - Annual Build Challenge
#1

A nod to my good friend whom I dearly miss, Steve Featherkyle.

Right off the bat my instant thought turned to the Hecla Mine project for this build, specifically the ore bins. But that is an elaborate build with some complexity in construction that I don’t think I could have finished to the level I would want it to be in the time constraint for the challenge. Rooster suggested a shipping and receiving building for the iron furnace project. Since the blower and the boilers are complete for that and really all that needs to be done is make the rock furnace and boiler foundation I thought this would be a good place to go for my MIK.

For the shipping and receiving building I want to make an elevated building built up on a foundation of rock that forms a loading dock. The building will sit on this stone foundation and be board and batten construction of a fairly plain and simple nature. I want a covered loading dock with the tracks entering and exiting both ends so cars can be pulled through the loading dock one at a time to be loaded.

The idea will be to make it just about as wide as one car length and be a two story building with a enclosed lean-to over the tracks.

So without further ado here is the official napkin drawing.

Napkin
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4 Likes
#2

building
building671×569 39.7 KB

A little bit of playing around to get the dimensions. I don’t feel this CAD work is considered “construction” as I plan to use no 3D printed or manufactured parts. I am going go back to old school scratch building for this out of wood.

This is a 36 X 20 X 16 (to the eaves with 6/12 pitch roof) main building with a 30 X 12 lean-to. Meant to accommodate a single box car at a time. A 12 X 12 sliding door on each long wall will allow for finished castings to be brought into the building from the furnace one the side opposite the tracks and then a loading dock with a 12 X 12 sliding door to load cars.

I want to use the Jim Rowson (via Ray Dunakin) method for making a stone “wall” which in this case will be the entire building base acting as both a cobble wall and a cobble deck surface. I want this stone work to be a common theme at this site where the building foundations, furnace, boiler base, and roads/paths/retaining walls are all made with the same cobble.

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#3

OK , i’m interested in just where and how tall the smokestack will be!

As an example, I turned it on the lathe…

IMG_9074
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IMG_9100
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#4

This building won’t have a smoke stack. This won’t be a part of the manufacturing side of things. This is more or less a shipping warehouse.

My overall vision for this complex is the furnace with the blower and boiler where the iron is melted down and then poured directly into molds at the base of the furnace. I will have a “mold” shop next to the furnace for prepping molds. I will have a carpentry/blacksmith shop. And then this shipping building which will have an upstairs operations office.

This is meant to be a very old school back woods furnace operation not a big steel or Iron mill. But I do love the smoke stack and it gives me a grand idea for the chimney I had planed for this. I was going to make a semi ornate brick chimney and a circular one would be fun and give me an excuse to turn something for the project.

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#5

hmmm … ok …ohh, the printer must be broken :wink:

I think that will be a cool looking shipping building, Devon. I like the covered siding/loading area and the cobblestone applications.

I approve, carry on :grin:

#6

Building method I also want to try.

2 Likes
#7

Should we place bets on the odds of Devon finishing in time? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

And here I was not going to do a 3d rendering at all for the first time and now I see you do something like this :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#8

I have a very respectable completion rate for the MIK thank you.

My rendering is nothing more than establishing dimensions for me so I can see the proportions before I start making big wood into little wood.

#9

Exactly what my cardboard mockups have always been about :smiley:

#10

So I bulldozed an area around my table saw and dug up some scrap 1/4" ply. I found a bottle of titebond 3 more than enough to do the job. I have staples for the pneumatic staple gun so can make the rough fabrication. Tons of scrap wood so details won’t be an issue.

Need to blast a hole in the mess in the hobby room. And see if I have a bag of quick Crete and some rock for cobble. I dont think i will need much of anything to make this build.

#11

Atta dude Devon. Great that you’re giving a nod to Steve.

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#12

Things are coming together nicely. I cleaned a large portion of my hobby room. Found the cobble I knew I had gathered for the furnace. Have some pop cans collected to be cut up for roofing. Plenty of various adhesives. I still haven’t verified if I have a bag of concrete or not. But aside from that I am pretty sure I have everything I will need to build this once we are given the green light.

#13

Maybe a new rule is no workbench cleaning allowed, must use the space that is already open , no pre MIK cleaning allowed

#14

If that was the case only Cliff and Rick would be in the competition together and the rest of us would be looking on the sidelines… I seriously don’t know how those two keep such a clean shop space. I try and try…

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#15

I resemble that remark, Craig :wink: The Mik is my annual excuse to clean up the shop.

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#16

I tend to clean mine about once a quarter… :roll_eyes:

#17

What!? I can go into the shed and work there?
I was just getting ready to tell my wife that I was going to have to unstack the washer AND dryer for the next 4 weeks.

#18

exactly. I clean once a year whether it needs it or not.

#19

I was not around during the actual MIK days but I wonder if his hobby room looked like my hobby room and that is why he REALLY built on the washing machine.

#20

Mik’s hobby room was the laundry room and the washer and dryer were the work benches.
If you are going to put a sign on the building, Devon, replace the “y” for an i in Featherkile.