Looks awesome, masterpiece of

Looks awesome, masterpiece of work.

10/10 points

Fantastic work!

Ryan,

This is looking great!  Those Eastern White pines might have been a lot of work, but they certainly help make the scene.

This is not a criticism, so please do not take it that way, but looking at your rock face I see a number of cris-cross carves into the rock.  My experience with quarries is that they drill vertical shafts into the rock to either set charges or break it off in chunks.  The lines generally are all up and down, not cross-hatched.

Keep up the good work!

Geof

Aroostook Valley Railroad in N scale

"vertical shafts into the rock to either set charges "

The limestone quarry for the Davenport cement plant would blast about once a week. They drilled holes with a mobile drill rig and placed charges then would blast about 200 feet wide at a time( never measured it but I've watched the blast from across the pit).The rocks ended up in large chunks that they would load into big quarry trucks and haul about 1/4-1/2 mile to the crusher. Once crushed it rode a conveyor belt about 3  miles or so to the plant. Before they built the conveyor they hauled the rock in a neat little train  pulled by an electric narrow gauge motor.....DaveB

Criss Cross drilling

Geoff,

I put the drill holes in a Cris-Cross pattern as this is what I have witnessed here in Ontario.  Might not be standard everywhere but is what they do when they blast Granite to make a right of way for roads etc in NorthernOntario. I am heading up to a friends cottage in a couple of weeks and will try and take some reference pictures.  Thanks for looking.

here here to cross drilling

As a powder monkey i concur to cross drilling, especially when using chemical expansion methods so you don't block the quarry up with blast fall out 

it depends on era

Whether you have vertical holes or cross drilled holes may depend on the era you model.  If you are modeling anything pre 1980ish you would likely see more vertical holes due to equipment limitations, more modern sites would likely have cross drilled holes.  Many of the outcrops along the Trans-Canada Highway in NW Ontario  in the Kenora area and the cuts you see on the way up to Flin Flon in Manitoba have (if my recollection is correct) a lot of vertical holes on their faces, at least on the older cuts that were done back in the 1960's and 70's.  In BC there is a bunch of new blasted cuts around Golden that have long vertical blast holes on the faces. I would suspect the blasting patterns in rock cuts and quarries would be different as they are serving different purposes. 

It may also depend on what they are trying to do with the rock from the quarry.  If they want larger blocks you will most likely see discrete lines of vertical holes to pop out big chunks, or if they want a finer crushed product you would see closely spaced holes possibly in a variety of orientations.  If you are shipping product using hoppers as seen in your photos they would likely blast it as fine as possible at the face to reduce crushing requirements.

I'm not a powder monkey but a geologist who has worked in some mines and quarries. 

forgot to mention

I forgot to mention you have a really nicely done quarry there.  My layout will have a quarry/gravel pit, but my modeled area has less relief. 

Enough room?

I too like the look you have achieved here. But....did quarry's simply blast cliff sides to gravel? Most had some form of crusher on site didnt they? The reason i ask is that you havent left much room for one between the cliff and the tracks. I plan to place a quarry on a layout as well and this is important to know for me. I guess it could be simply larger boulders placed in gons with a front end loader/crane and taken somewhere else for crushing right?

Mike

Mike

The crusher and conveyer just won't fit in my scene, so I will just leave it to imagination or possibly put in a photo backdrop in behind the quarry building.  Not to sure yet but will keep working on it.  

Eastern White Pines

"I plan to place a quarry on a layout as well"

Probably the easiest way to do it would be to model the crusher and silos and car loading track then represent the quarry with a photo or painted backdrop. The quarry could be a 1/4 mile or more from the tracks . Google up Aromas ca. and look at the Granite Rock quarry. The car loading area is adjacent to the UP tracks and the quarry extends back into the hills....DaveBranum  

Another here on MRH

Kirkifer has a nice quarry layout...not sure of the scale though.

Pine Trees

Eugene,

The Pine Trees are made using the method Mike Confalone demonstrates in his Modeling Outside the BOX DVD vol 2.

If anyone is interested I could do a blog entry on how I make them.

Mike,

The link you provided does not exist.