You’re welcome!
Nice start Travis (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Okay, Here is a hrs. worth of progress on my mill. I been trying to work on it after I get off work for a little while before bed.
The main part of the mill. Yes the roof is offset… (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)I will be adding a few windows to the sides and three doors on one end.
This side will get two windows ans I am thinking of a overhang at the bottom for a covered loading dock for the barrels/bags of flour and grist that will be shipped out to the customers… The main structure is framed out of Luann and corner pieces of 1/2 square pine glued and pinned.
Now onto the water wheel. I decided to try something different this year in the challenge… I am working with styrene. I like the idea of the plastic weld stuff cuz of the assembly time is cut way down. No waiting on wood glue… However I am not sure how to get a wood grain look?.. I have heard of guys using a razor saw and scribing it into wood… Does this work on styrene?..
The other side is laid out into the square piece and divided up for where the paddles or “buckets” will set. I went with fifteen sounded good to me…LOL . To get them all evenly spaced I took 360 degrees (full circle) and divided it by 15. This will give you the angle of degree at which you want for each paddle. then keep adding until ya run out of space. I used a Protractor from when I was in school… Yep I still have some of my engineering drafting stuff from High School… (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif).
This picture shows how I made both sides even…or pretty darn close anyways. After I cut them out of the square piece I had laid them out on they weren’t perfectly round. So I drilled a hole in the centre of both screw them down to a piece of pine board at the edge a used a sanding block to take off the excess to the outside line. I sanded on the end grain of the pine board so I could keep from taking off to much. This worked out really good. I do have a jig I made for my band saw to cut circles which are darn near perfect… no sanding needed… however I figured it would chip it out since I have a coarse band in it. So I used my Scroll saw and set it on the lowest setting and it worked perfectly. It is a Dremel variable speed scroll saw… Next I will be cutting out the centre hopefully tomorrow nite after work…
So that is my progress for the evening… Thanks for checkin (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
Good progress Travis. I am very interested in how you complete the water wheel (Read: I want to steal use your ideas(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)). Thanks for sharing. BTW: what is the diameter of the wheel?
The wheel is 7 in. Diameter… This is the first time for me to make a wheel. LOL (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)
Well, for a first timer, you are doing good so far.
Tonite I finished cutting out the centre of the sides of the wheel and cut a thin piece of styrene sheet for the bottom. I am not sure yet how wide it will be, I need to come up with something for the centre hub that the axle passes thru.
Yes, you cut off the spokes for the wheel, now you’ll have to replace them. But still looking good and a fair way along (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
coming along
David, I plan on making a centre hub and spokes (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif). I am cutting it out tonite now that I’m home from work. Will post some pics later today…
I am really behind on this project…I hate when work gets in the way…
Yea, sometimes life just gets in the way.
Work, work, I didn’t think we were supposed to use four letter words on here(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-sealed.gif)
four letter words? Like;
soap
bath
pain
wood
glue
dirt
rust
play
loco
foul
frog
rail
Well I made some more progress today. Worked most of the day on the two building that will make up the mill. I decided to add some post and beams since I will have some windows and want to add lights. So this took up most of my time on that. I later started to address the water wheel. which I think I am gonna change my plans on it. I think I am gonna go with wood to make it instead of styrene. I started out with the styrene but am gonna put it aside for another mill at a later time. It is getting to complicated to figure out all the angles in the sort amt. of time I have to build. Wood will go faster for me since I am used to working with it… I also changed the one side of the mill roof which both pitch of the roof is same on both sides. I will have to lay out the doors and install the flooring also. Another change is that I decided to mount this to a base for this building… So much to do and very very little time to work on it… Pictures coming soon…
Hmmmm… The wife seemed to be a little miffed when I fired up the table saw and then the band saw in the basement at 2: 30 in the morning…
Ok. So I made a change of plans on building the wheel. Decided to go with wood since me and styrene aren’t gettin along to well… Here is how I am doin it.
Started with a 7 x 7 piece of Luann x 2 for the sides.
I then cut them out on the band saw using my circle jig that I made. this allows me to cut near perfect circles. these were of maybe a 1/16th or less from each other. I figured that the plywood was the reason… anyways…Here they are cut and laid out for the paddles,spokes and the centre hub.
Up next cutting out the centres after laying them out…
Both sides cut out and a perfect match, almost just a hair off just needs to be sanded yet… These were cut individually on a dremel scroll saw.
Laying on top of each other still need to be sanded to take out some minor imperfections in the circle.
And the paddles, spokes and hub ( wooden sewing spool ). This will all be assembled to make the wheel. So if I do this right, I will glue the paddles to one side and the lay the other side on top and it should match …Hopefully.
Next I worked on the inside of the mill as mentioned before. I decided that eventually I am going to add interior details to this build, however they will come at a later time due to the time limit. Added all the 3/8 x 3/8 beams.
And then the angled braces for the look of the post and beam… I am also adding flooring too, but later down the road… This is the smaller structure. I will takes some pics of the main mill building later on. This gives ya a Idea of what I did…
The angle pieces. I think I cut over 40 of these…These hear are for the smaller addition. I cut some that were about twice as long for the mill section.
Well this is where I am at. I got a lot done this morning. So now I may be able to get the wheel assembled later today and the structure mounted to the base. Once that is done I hopefully can zip thru the rest… I really don’t think I’m gonna get this done by the deadline. It should be close… Thanks for checking in… 
Wood is good, styrene is mean…that’s my opinion. Your build is too good not to finish. I say the people need to step up their fire prevention program in your county for the next two weeks and you get some late nights in.
The wood wheel will look much better than styrene. The post and beam interior really looks good. I’m looking forward to seeing the mill when it is complete, on time or not. Keep chugging along.
Thanks Guys. Actually John, I am a volunteer fireman. My full time Job is Honda of America Auto Manufacturing. We have been working non stop. So between that and sleeping I don’t get much done. LOL… I need to take some more pics today of the big buildings interior…
Almost done with the water wheel. I accomplished a lot today while waiting for my daughter to get out of school. Took today off from work to surprise her for her 11th birthday,so took advantage of it while she was in school. This morning I glued up the paddles ( buckets ) to one side of the frame. I bought some Gorilla wood glue at Wal-Mart. I was a little skeptical about it as I have had bad luck with the other Gorilla glue the type that expands when it dries… I would like to say so far I am pretty happy with it. It sets up pretty fast so I was able to continue working on the wheel.
The crew going over the final fit and finish…
Here I am cutting out three of the spokes in the plywood to replace with a spoke on the outside this is the opposite side with the paddles. I did this to keep the centre aligned. I did both sides this way…
next…fitted and marked the centre and test fit… The new spokes are made from pine… This was repeated for both sides…
Finished sides with spokes and paddles.
Now for the inside or bottom of the “buckets”. I gave this some thought while at work this week while driving. LOL. I didn’t want to individual lay boards in this as it would be time consuming. It would probably look better but due to the time as you all know I went this route. I ripped a piece of pine board down to 1/16 or thinner. I then ran it across my table saw fence rail bars to give it a round shape. It had just enough spring in it to help hold it against the paddles and frame work.
So I realized I didn’t use a long enough board when I cut it…S&*T… So I just marked it at half way and will hope that it will stay in place which it should…The piece above is the thickness of the board… I will say its thin enough to cut with scissors, but thick enough to not break…
First half test fitted and being glued in place. I am gonna give this a hr or so for the glue to set up more since this is really critical that this stays in place until final assembly…
Well as I am posting this my glue should be dry by now enough to remove the clamps and it stays…lol will find out shortly… After the next piece is cut and glued I will be ready to glue in place the other side and the hub. I have decided instead of dragging out and setting up the lathe, to use a wooden thread spool that was in the previous pictures … Thanks for looking… To be continued…