Look great

Nice to see laser kit in Nscale and fine work; these show Nscale is a finescale.

Hope to see more.

marc

Actually these are HO!

LOL I did N scale for many years but these are HO! I think I fixed what may have caused the confusion.

Michael

NBW castings..... to use or not to use

I've just about finished the water wheel and am now confronted with the choice of whether or not to use NBW castings. The kit came with them but these things are tiny! I never used them when I was in N for obvious reasons and I'm inclined not to use them in HO, at least on this kit, for the same reasons. No one will ever see them even though the mill will be toward the front of the layout.  They are about the size of a speck of salt. Debating if it's worth pulling my hair out over!

Michael

Did some NBW.....

....but not all. Pointless because only one side of the wheel will show.  Good thing too because I lost about as many of them as I was able to put on. Going to have to get myself a shallow box to work in but it went better than I thought it might  Pics of the finished wheel in the morning once the paint is dry.

Michael

Water Wheel

As promised, a pic of the water wheel this morning. Camera is showing me some fuzz on the "spokes" that I need to clean up but other than that, I think it turned out pretty good. Pics are great for showing you stuff you can't  really see with the naked eye.

Michael

Finishing up the mill....

I took advantage of no one being home today  and the house being dead quiet by finishing up some of the more "fiddly" parts of the mill. As I mentioned, on these "Zip kits" there are very little instructions and much is left to the modelers imagination as to how things go. That and a single picture of the assembled structure is about it.

I think it turned out pretty well considering my Doctor has me back on meds I hate because they tend to make my hands shake even more than they already do.

Next up is figuring out a foundation for the building. I'll probably just use a cheap plastic sign and cut it up to assemble a mold and then pour the foundation with plaster and carve the stone work.  Actually a lot easier than it sounds. As always, thanks for taking the time to look at my blog.

Michael

Mill foundation

Don't know how many are following along but I'll keep documenting because I like to keep track of my stuff anyway. This next pic isn't much but it does show a cheap and dirty way to make plaster molds. The pieces shown were cut from a plastic sign picked up at the local discount store and I'm about to assemble them into my foundation mold which I will pour with plaster. It's a two tier foundation which I've never done so this should be interesting.

Michael

Anxiously waiting for

the next step in the casting process.  All new to me and a great opportunity to learn.

Thanks

Looking good to me

I'm wondering how you will treat the shingles. They do look good as they are.

pqe

@ Michael

Don't worry!  We are following along.  I want to see you carve some stones.  I don't know how high a foundation you are looking for.  If it had been me I probably would have used one of those flexible walls by Chooch to build the stone foundation.  So, I'm watching your way of doing it with interest.

Den

Shingles and stones.....

@ Pelsea....I haven't really given much thought yet to whether I will leave the shingles alone or give them more weathering. I have been following along on your engine house build and took great interest in the steps you went through.

@Den....The Chooch walls had crossed my mind and are still an option if this doesn't work but I'm trying to make do with what  I have around here. I've cast bridge footings and fairly simple bridge piers using this method before  so I thought I'd give it a try. This will be the most extensive "pour" I've ever done and I've determined it will have to be done in two parts. The foundation has to be 1 and 1/2 inches high at it's highest point to accommodate the height of the wheel. In the past some of my castings have proved to be a bit brittle. That's probably more my impatience with letting them get good and solidly dry more than anything but I may need to experiment with different plasters. My old standard Plaster of Paris  is easy enough to carve but something like Hydrocal might be harder (literally) to do. The whole cast foundation idea may be for naught in which case I'll probably go for another idea like the Chooch walls  but it's worth a try.

Michael

The foundation mold...

...is now assembled.  As I already said, it's just pieces of a plastic "For Sale" sign and not even a new one at that. It somehow found it's way to my work area floor and got kind of nasty but it will do it's job. 

I started out by just holding some of the pieces with masking tape and then went over everything with liquid cement or in my case just MEK I have in a brush bottle. I'm making a two level foundation so what will be required  is a pour of plaster that fills everything to the lowest level first and then after that's had a chance to set up, another pour will be required for the second level. This is as large a plaster  piece as I've ever tried to make and I'm not even sure it will work but it's just a bit of plaster to try ane hey, "nothing ventured, nothing gained"

Michael

Depending on how deep that is

Depending on how deep that is you might consider some scrap pieces or rail or other material to act like rebar that they use in concrete construction.  Something to provide a tiny bit more rigidity *AND* for connecting the bottom and top pours... 

Not a bad thought....

It's  1 and 1/2 inch deep at the back and 3/4 inch  deep at the front.

Michael

Inner voids?

Maybe you could set a couple of plastic boxes in the middle to reduce the amount of plaster you need and the ultimate weight? Support the boxes on nails or pins and weigh them down with something.

pqe

"Rebar"

Back in the day I worked for a pool construction outfit doing odds and ends jobs and I can remember the guys "tying" together grids of rebar on the pool sides.  I got to thinking about that after the suggestion made above.
 One thing I have plenty of is scrap rail so I came up with my own version of  a "grid".  I put it together with twisted wire and CA.  I thought about soldering it but that seemed like too much work for something that doesn't have to be pretty and won't be seen. Here's the result.....

Should strengthen it some I would hope.  I may have gotten a case of overkill but i really want this to work.

Michael

Hi Micheal You may need to

Hi Micheal

You may need to think about the leveling of the mix between the two different layers.

The top layer will want to level out with the bottom layer and you will get over flow.

Unless of course you fill to the bottom layer first then the top layer.

Cheers

Pour order

What I planned was the bottom layer first and then allowing it to semi-set and then another pour to complete the top. Then I'll have to use a commodity I'm sometimes in short supply on and that's called patience because if you do too much handling of a plaster casting too soon, it will break on you no matter how much reinforcement it has.
 Ask me how I know this!

Michael

I would also recommend

Pushing some books or something up to the outside walls as they will want to bow once filled. The front wall of the top slab will want to bow also.

Now it's time to hurry up and wait

Ughhh....just time to wait now. I don't want to risk my progress by handling my newly poured foundation too soon. Pic is below. It's far from perfect with a few places where the plastic sign material actually pushed the plaster inward  rather than the plaster pushing outward on it.  The thing is though that it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm going to be carving on it and putting a general dilapidation on it anyway. I'll be the HO scale version of mother nature. Most of my "quick n dirty'' plastic molds do  produce less than perfect results. However, if you'd like to try this old technique and need something to turn out straight and true, you could either support the plastic  better or even use wood. Anyway, here the pic...

The top portion is of little concern because that will be covered with ground cover anyway. Below is a " proof of concept" pic with the mill sitting on the foundation and the wheel just stuck beside it. It will actually be a tad higher off the ground and I still have to cast a separate small pier to hold the other side of it up. Also just sitting in place is the small set of plastic stairs that came with the kit. Yes, I did intend to make the foundation wider with empty space on the left side. As the title says, now it's time to hurry up and wait and then I'll start carving stone work. I must confess that i did cheat a little though and "practiced" a little stone work carving on the back that won't be seen. Time to go hide this thing from myself!!! Oh and please forgive the less than tidy appearance of my workbench where some of these pics were taken!

Michael

One more dirty worbench shot....

...to show where I stand now. Once again everything is just sitting in place  Been carving on the foundation and cast the pier and carved it as well. Worked everything over with brown acrylics and india ink wash.  Time to get this thing mounted on a small board as the area of the layout it's for is yet to be finished. I'll probably wrap this up within the next couple of days and move on to something else.

Michael

Turned out great

Michael!  

Thanks Dave

I'm pretty happy with it so far. I want to get the whole thing mounted on a base now where the water wheel and it's outside supporting pillar can remain intact.  I'll also do a bit of scenic treatment once that's done. A favorite scene of mine has always been the trestle with the lake and dam on the original Gorre and Daphetid. What many people don't realize is that there was a mill complete with water wheel on the other side of that dam. The construction of the mill is another step in getting my own "tribute scene" built.

Michael

OK one last blog post....for awhile

I've now gotten this project to a point of completion where it's going to have to wait till I get the surrounding area to where it will go built. The truck dump is the same way but the Mill actually takes bench work modification as  well as scenery. Here she is with a bit more work done and with the pic shot directly under the layout lighting rather than the indirect light of the workbench.

I'm pleased with it but I don't know how I got the wheel off the ground quite as high as I did. My calculations had me thinking it was going to be about a quarter inch lower than it is. No worries though because I think it will give me room to work on some sort of spillway under and in front of the wheel. I'll do that once it's in place because the cardboard base is not going to stand much moisture otherwise. I notice looking at this pic now  that you can barely see the stairs but they are there. Just need to junk it up a bit  and maybe put an old truck out front. Once more, thanks for taking the time to follow my blog.

Regards,

Michael