Great job Ray , Your attention to detail is outstanding .
Ray Dunakin said:
I’m doing some work on the doors of the mill. There are two. This is the rear door, which will be located near the top of the street next to the ore bin. For this door I wanted to do something to make it interesting, so I decided to have a sheet of plywood nailed up over the upper panels of the door.
The door itself a Grandt Line part, which was given some subtle wood grain prior to painting. The doorknob was made by heating one end of a thin styrene rod. This causes it to form a nice rounded knob.
I found a good photo of old plywood online, reduced it to fit and printed it on self-adhesive vinyl. This was applied to .010" styrene, which was then glued to the door. The sign was printed separately and applied directly to the “plywood”. I weathered it by hand using craft acrylics. I think I went overboard on the sign but it won’t be seen very much anyway.
That’s all for now…
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It’s a fine line, but I think you’ve crossed it. Purely insane. VERY WELL done!
Ray, exceptional work, as usual. But the cosmic question is: What structures do you plan to install on those stepped areas across the street from the mill, next to the bank? I notice they have holes in their foundations, presumably for wiring. Whatever you add, though, it will really fill in the town nicely, IMHO.
Thanks!
Joe, yes those are foundations across the street, with with room for wiring. Next to the bank building will be the old brick hardware store, which I’m currently trying to get finished enough so that it can stay outside. (I’ve only been putting it out for special occasions because, being unfinished, I hadn’t yet protected it with Krylon UV clear coat.)
The next building up is still undetermined. The fourth building will probably be a saloon called The Grizzly Bar.
Farther up the hill will be some more mining structures.
Great minds think alike, Ray. I was gonna suggest a bar, and lo and behold, you’ve already thought of that. I like the name too, although the noun itself is a magnet for puns.
Next installment, please.
Time to wrap this one up, at least for a while…
First off, I changed the sign on the rear door of the mill. The original sign was ok but looked older than the plywood it was mounted on. As you can see in this photo, I also weathered the corrugated metal. And I finished the ore bin, adding tie rods, nut/bolt/washer details, and final paint:
I also finished and installed the windows, and the main door. Like the rear door, this was a Grandt Line casting with added wood grain and cracks. I still have to build some steps up to the door:
The loading dock door was scratch built from a sheet of 4mm Sintra PVC with scribed planks and wood grain. Styrene strips were used for the trim. This is supposed to represent an internal, sliding door, so I added some horizontal scraps across the face of the door. The sign was hand painted:
Here are a couple shots of the mill with all the doors and windows installed:
Here are some shots of the ore bin and sorting house showing the completed ore bin. It was painted with several shades of brown, starting with a golden brown, then a medium brown, followed by a darker, redder brown. Then I added some dark, almost black streaks, and finished with some light gold streaks. As mentioned above I also added tie rods and nut/bolt/washer details. Some of these are made from nails and actually help hold the bin together:
To prevent rainwater accumulating in the upper level ore chute, I added a brass tube for drainage:
For now, I’m calling it complete. Eventually though, I will add some lights, as well as the tram tracks inside the sorting house, and the tram bridges leading to the ore bin/sorting house.
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Beautiful work. I’d love to see them in person - I’m sure that they look even better.
What Bruce said, ““Beautiful work””…
Thanks!
Well, I had a tiny bit of modeling time this week and was able to squeeze in a little project related to the mill – I built and installed the 15" track extending from the mine adit (entrance) above the mill.
I started with a length of Peco Code 100, On30 flex track. I cut off all but a few of the cross ties. The remaining ties were used to hold the rails in gauge while I added new, larger ties. I made new ties from 1/4" strips of 6mm Sintra PVC board. I scribed simulated wood grain into the ties by scraping them lengthwise with a razor saw.
The ties were sprayed with white primer, then painted with a light, brownish-gray latex paint (Behr’s “Shitake” color). When this dried, I went over the ties with a thinned mix of dark brown and black. Then I dry-brushed a little more of the base color over the center of the ties, where they would be worn by the feet of miners pushing ore cars. I finished off the ties by spraying them with Krylon UV-resistant matte clear.
I used Shinohara HO rail spikes to spike the rails to the ties. Unfortunately these are slightly longer than the thickness of the ties, and the track was going to be mounted on a concrete surface. So I had to use wire cutters to nip about 3/16" off the tip of each spike before driving it into the tie.
Here’s a shot of the entire 30" length of track, with one end curved to fit the interior of the mine:
A close up of the track in position. The ground outside the mine is made of mortar, grit and small rocks. When I made it, I used a narrow board to create a level path for the track:
I used the same mix of mortar, grit and dirt , with a bit of concrete pigment, to build up the ground around the track. Later I will use some stains to add more color to this “soil” and make it look more like typical mine tailings:
Now I just have to build a bridge to connect the tracks to the top of the mill:
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Looks great! Do you have any equipment for the mine track yet? What will it be?
Patrick
Thanks Patrick! I don’t have anything yet. For this particular mine track, I just plan to build a couple of simple, hand pushed ore cars.
There will be another track on the ledge above the town, with another bridge going over to the mill. For that one, I’d like build a Porter 0-4-0 compressed air locomotive, and see if I can rig it up to automatically run back and forth between the mines and the mill.
Can’t wait to se it. I believe Del Tang receivers can be set up for automatic back and forth motion with magnets and the time at each stop is adjustable in the programming. I have 3 DT receivers and am very impressed so far.
Ray
This bridge , is it going to to have a dilapidated apperance, real rickety and scary to go on?
Sean McGillicuddy said:
Ray
This bridge , is it going to to have a dilapidated apperance, real rickety and scary to go on?
Nope, old but still sturdy and in use.
Ray Dunakin said:
Sean McGillicuddy said:
Ray
This bridge , is it going to to have a dilapidated apperance, real rickety and scary to go on?Nope, old but still sturdy and in use.
What fun is that?
Ray Dunakin said:
The next building up is still undetermined. The fourth building will probably be a saloon called The Grizzly Bar.
A saloon at the top of the hill?
Your going to have a mess of drunks at the bottom of that hill Ray!
Wayne
With Ray’s skill, just think of the detail those drunks would have in a pile at the bottom of the hill!
A little more progress…
First, I used some chemicals to stain the concrete “soil” outside the mine, making it look more like mine tailings. Mostly I used ferric chloride, the stuff used to etch copper circuit boards. I wet the area with water, then used an eye dropper to very carefully dribble small quantities of the etchant here and there. I quickly used a paint brush and a water to thin it and spread it around. I also used some Rust-All to add some reddish tones. Then the whole area was liberally rinsed with water.
Next, I started work on a trestle to carry the tracks from the mine to the mill. The trestle at the Nivloc Mine in Nevada was my primary source of inspiration for this. I first built a support for the mine end of the trestle that will go to the mill. It’s made of styrene, scribed and painted to look like old wood. Nut/bolt/washer castings from Ozark Miniatures appear to secure it to the stone wall. In reality, I glued it with Dynaflex 360.
The trestle stringers are also made of styrene, while the ties were cut from strips of 6mm thick Sintra PVC. The ties were glued to the stringers and then the whole assembly was primed with white primer, followed by a base coat of light, warm gray latex paint:
I finished painting the ties and stringers, using various shades of brown and black. These were thinned just enough so that they would be a bit translucent when brushed on. Once this was done, I spiked down the rails. The walkway planks and guard timbers were painted individually, then glued to the ties.
I still have to touch up some of the paint, and also need to add a lot of nut/bolt/washer castings plus the handrails. But here’s how it looks so far:
I also need to build a bent to support the middle of the trestle.
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Man this Ray guy is …