I have no words…
Except ones like unbelievable, astonishing, incredible, astounding, stupefying…
Seriously, “wow” just doesn’t cut it!! But an understated “wow” anyway.
Thanks Ray for continuing to blow the doors off.
===:>Cliffy
Time to start making up words: raylike, dunakinesque, fanfrickintastical, stupelievable, incredonishing…
Thanks for sharing Ray , glad your back at it ! I love your attention to detail .
Ray,
Great job!
Ray,
I have a man crush on you. lol. You are a master of detail. I would not much even consider a cake in the window much less a decorated one much less one that has tiny writing that is actually readable. You are a gifted talented man and I hope to some day come close to your skill level.
In my minds eye, I see building things like Ray does . Unfortunately in the real world my level of work looks more like a group of kids, with the help of several Red Bulls and Donuts, were told you have 20 minutes to build, GO!
Wow, awesome in every detail
The Princess Shilo Mine needs an ore cart, so I built one. It was loosely modeled after this old ore cart in Goldfield, NV:
I started by cutting out the bottom, sides, and ends of the cart’s “tub”. Then I glued styrene angles to the inside bottom edges of the side panels:
I began to assembly it, first gluing the sides to the bottom panel:
Styrene strips were added to represent the iron straps. I simulated rivet heads by dipping the tip of a sharpened brass rod into some thick CA adhesive and dabbing it onto the model:
The prototype ore cart has a mechanism connecting the “tub” to the frame. This mechanism allows the tube to rotate and to tilt for dumping, and has a fairly complex shape. I didn’t try to make an exact replica, just something that would look “close enough”. I started by cutting a 3/8" wide section from the side of a 1" diameter styrene tube. Then I carved it into an approximate shape, added a bit of putty here and there as needed, and built up some details with styrene strips, etc:
At the rear end of the cart is a release lever that allows the tub to be titled for dumping. I cut this out of a sheet of .020" styrene:
The lever hooks onto a bracket at the end of the frame. I made the bracket by gluing a short piece of styrene angle to another section of angle, then sliced off a piece to the correct width:
I built the frame out of various styrene strips. I also built two axle bearings. These aren’t prototypically accurate but they aren’t really going to show, and I needed to keep them simple. The axle bearings won’t be glued in place until after everything has been painted. I used HO scale train wheels for the cart’s wheels:
The ore cart’s tub, frame, and axle bearings were all painted separately, using Rustoleum paint/primer satin black. The tub was glued to the frame. Then the axles were lubed with a plastic-safe grease and inserted into the bearings. The bearings were then glued to the bottom of the frame. At this stage the ore cart is complete, but it looks brand new:
Of course I don’t want it to look new. I want it to look like it’s had several years of hard use. So I weathered it. Most of the weathering was done using Sophisticated Finishes brand “Iron” and “Rust Solution”. I had a little trouble with the cast metal wheels – whatever metal they were made of wasn’t quite compatible with the rust solution chemicals. I ended up painting them with rust-colored acrylics.
To finish off the cart, I made a load of ore by carving a piece of pink insulating foam to fit into the tub, and glued crushed rocks to it. I also installed a small lead weight in the bottom of the cart, centered over the wheels, to give it a little heft and keep the center of gravity low. Here’s how it turned out:
That’s all for now. Eventually I will sculpt a miner figure to go with the cart.
.
Just beautiful, Ray. Must be very satisfying modeling things that echo your adventures.
Is a hoist house in the plans? Or maybe I missed it…?
Thanks for the tip on the finishes, I need some of that iron and rust.
Yea, what he said!
Ray;
Very well done, as usual. Just to satisfy my curiosity, are the rods at the top of the hoist frame a form of lightening rod?
Best, David Meashey
Now we need an updated drone video of your pike …(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Cliff Jennings said:
Just beautiful, Ray. Must be very satisfying modeling things that echo your adventures.
Is a hoist house in the plans? Or maybe I missed it…?
I forgot to answer this earlier… Yes, there will be a hoist house and possibly some other stuff.
I finally got around to finishing up the Mineral Ridge Mill. I started this building in December 2013, and had it basically completed by July 2014. But it still needed lights and interior details.
For a while I considered leaving the building empty, and just putting some lights in it to make the windows light up. Towards this end, I sprayed the inside of the glass with matte clear coat, to fog them up. I wasn’t happy with it. Even with the windows fogged it would still look empty. But I didn’t want to try modeling realistic milling equipment, especially when trying to fit it into a compressed structure.
The solution I came up with was to just make some “view blocks” that could be positioned near the windows and would give the impression that the structure was full of machinery, chemical vats, structural timbers, stairs, etc. Behind these, I would still have plenty of room to run wires for lights, and access the interior for maintenance if needed.
Here are a few photos of this process. The first shows one of the view block assemblies and its installation in the upper level of the mill:
Next, the middle section of the mill:
And the lower level. At the left is a small enclosed area representing the mill’s office:
I made some fixtures for the building’s exterior lighting. The lampshades were made from Plastruct styrene domes, carved out to a thinner profile. I made two versions, one with a short neck for use above the freight door, and two long-necked lamps to light the main and rear entrances.
One mistake I made in the original construction of the mill was using removable roofs to access the interior. The unsecured roofs warped badly. To correct this, I needed to make them a permanent part of the structure. Ideally, it would have been best to build new roofs, but that was way more work than I wanted to do and would have wasted a lot of material. So I decided to glue the original roofs in place and also use screws secure them to the walls. This would have the effect of straightening the roofs a bit. The results are not perfect but are acceptable. Then I had to add some extra bits of corrugated metal to hide the screws, as well as to cover some gaps:
Next I masked off all but the new bits for painting. I used a coat of self-etching primer followed by Rustoleum’s Cold Galvanizing Compound. Later I weathered it to match the existing structure:
The sorting house on top of the mill’s huge ore bin also needed to have the roof screwed and glued permanently in place. Unfortunately the openings in two of the walls, combined with the lack of a floor, caused the walls to be pulled out of shape, and it no longer fit perfectly on top of the ore bin:
The only way to fix this was to make some metal straps that could be used to hold the walls firmly in place, forcing them into shape. I made them by cutting up some small brass hinges:
You can see the metal straps in this photo. I still need to do some work to minimize the appearance of the full-scale screws:
At the very top of this structure is a place for ore carts to dump ore. I had never gotten around to making the grate, or “grizzly” for this, which screens out oversized chunks of ore, so I did it now. I still have to fill in the gap where the mine track enters to grizzly:
I also made a lamp post to shed some light on the track and grizzly:
One thing left to do is make a small trestle extending from this side of the ore bin, for dumping waste rock:
A view of the sorting house interior with the newly added lights:
As darkness falls, the lights bring the mill to life:
Looking through some of the windows:
Looking up the street towards the ore bin, sorting house, and trestles:
That’s it for now. Enjoy!
Well played Ray, though it most likely won’t be noticed, will you be adding some ledgers and paper piles to the office shelves?(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Amazing, simply amazing.
Doc
My flabber is officially gasted.
Yea, what they said!..
Wow, just Wow!
That’s awesome Ray, and once again my favourite photos are the night shots. Other then the trains, my layout gets pretty boring at night. Yours on the other hand really comes to life. Well done.
Shane