Amen on the fur babies, my condolences, Bill
Here is a close up of the paint job on the Taylor blocks. I sprayed on a base coat of sand colored camo paint. Then an uneven dusting of black chalkboard paint, followed by a dusting of a white primer I had. I like the speckled look.
That looks like the real thing.
So got the body of the structures built. All bare wood is slathered in Titebond III. Then they were glued and pinned and another coat of glue on all the edges. I am a dumb donkey/burrow and stuck the big building to the base without cutting the doors in or doing the siding. I am blaming it on my brain condition, that’s my story and I am sticking to it. Will make it much harder now to cut in the doors and apply the lap siding. The siding is made from strips of aromatic cedar.
Looking good. Please post video (with audio of all the cuss words) as you attempt to cut your doors and windows. Should be lots of fun to watch!
Jim Rowson said:
Looking good. Please post video (with audio of all the cuss words) as you attempt to cut your doors and windows. Should be lots of fun to watch!
Fortunately no windows in the main building and only three doors. The no windows thing is a real life thing, in order to keep it cold they limited the number of openings in ice houses. But I have a big door in back and two man doors in front. Should be interesting.
Is it done yet!
Devon, will the doors be operable? Are they already made? If no to both, can you make them in such a way that they are just attached flat to the wall without making a hole? Just my lazy bone trying to find a simple solution. May not work but thought I’d throw it on the table anyway.
Print your details of decal paper and slide them on …(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
Dan and John.
I have/am considering both options. The doors were not going to be open or functional on the main building. So a combination of a decal for the door plus a door jam on the surface to give it depth maybe the ticket.
I think I solved the door dilemma. While looking for pictures I could print as a decal I came across the simple and yet still nice and 3D option. Sliding doors. I can put sliding doors on the main building. I even saw some that had a build in man door.
Devon - Judging by the period you are modeling, I would suspect that a mechanical ice house would use an ammonia refrigeration system. Probably have a piston ammonia pump to compress the gas back to liquid driven by a small one or two cylinder steam engine. There would be (similar to your A/C condenser for your house) a series of looped pipes acting do dissipate some of the heat generated in the compression process. For the Challenge build you might just show the coils on the back wall, then going through the back wall.
My tuppence worth.
Bob Cope said:
Devon - Judging by the period you are modeling, I would suspect that a mechanical ice house would use an ammonia refrigeration system. Probably have a piston ammonia pump to compress the gas back to liquid driven by a small one or two cylinder steam engine. There would be (similar to your A/C condenser for your house) a series of looped pipes acting do dissipate some of the heat generated in the compression process. For the Challenge build you might just show the coils on the back wall, then going through the back wall.
My tuppence worth.
never even considered that an 1880’s ice house would have mechanical refrigeration. I knew they had really thick insulated walls, no windows and minimal doors and they layered the ice with straw to help insulate but it never crossed my mind that they would have an actual refrigeration system. I will need to take a look and for sure model it.
Devon Sinsley said:
Bob Cope said:
Devon - Judging by the period you are modeling, I would suspect that a mechanical ice house would use an ammonia refrigeration system. Probably have a piston ammonia pump to compress the gas back to liquid driven by a small one or two cylinder steam engine. There would be (similar to your A/C condenser for your house) a series of looped pipes acting do dissipate some of the heat generated in the compression process. For the Challenge build you might just show the coils on the back wall, then going through the back wall.
My tuppence worth.
never even considered that an 1880’s ice house would have mechanical refrigeration. I knew they had really thick insulated walls, no windows and minimal doors and they layered the ice with straw to help insulate but it never crossed my mind that they would have an actual refrigeration system. I will need to take a look and for sure model it.
I have a question for you, Devon … how did you think they got the water to freeze? Not trying to be a smart a$$ because I had no idea myself other than it had to be by some means of refrigeration. I guess you could add some operational interest to the layout and have a fast freight coming in every day from above the arctic circle hauling large hunks of ice to be cut to smaller blocks locally (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
Ice used to be harvested and stored in caves and ‘icehouses’ no kidding. Rivers, lakes and flooded fields…
Yes regardless of the ability to have refrigeration harvesting, keeping, and storing ice has been around long long before the ability to make ice.
They had quite a market in cutting, hauling, storing, and selling ice. And honestly that is what I was making is an ice storage facility.
Okay, after reading about ice factories and their ability to make ice, it is out of the scope of a little ice house on a small back woods narrow gauge in 1880’s Idaho to have ice production. Storage in a small storage house is far more reasonable and likely especially in the northern part of a northern state.
I’d hate to be the guy on the other end of that saw (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
I guess it must have been someone who lived in the south that invented refrigeration cause there’s no ice harvesting down here (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
Hold your breath