Over the past few days I've been continuing the work to finish the house and it's surroundings. Some of the fences are installed and I'm working on others. Have added a couple of trash cans under the car port and am painting a hand truck for them. Got a shipment of 3D printed details from All Scale Miniatures. Wow, these are tiny. Mailboxes and garden hose reals shown here after receiving a coat of Mission Models primer. Years ago, I scratch built a batch of mailboxes but seeing these I think mine might have been a bit oversized. Also tried adding some yellow paint dots to a clump of WS clump foliage to simulate flowers. While glues and paints were drying I started working on the fire station. This is a Rix structure that was left over from my last layout and never really detailed. It will be removable from it's base and I wanted to be able to pose it with the doors either opened or closed. They fit snugly enough for the closed position and for the opened position I installed some Velcro on the backs of the door and on the inside of the roof so the doors can be stored up there when opened. Been painting the inside walls white and am looking for some photos of fire station interiors that I could shrink down and use.
Layouts can eat trees. I vote for adding more. The scenery looks to be coming together well sir. Nice work
Sawmill Design/Build – Pt. 2... Spending a lot of time with Fusion 360 on the sawmill and might be getting close to printing some of it…. Not sure when the picture above was taken. Mill was built in the '30's. An 'A-Frame' was used for some time to unload the logging trucks (logs were never brought in by rail). Notice there was no debarker building when this picture was taken. The logs entered more directly to the log carriage to be cut similar to a lot of sawmills that are modeled. The main building with the head band saw was narrower and the building(s) behind it along with the green chain were small but where they are now. The band saw blades then and now were sharpened in a room not far from the saw and not in an overhead loft. A later picture is shown above and is pretty much how the mill looks today. They now dump the logs into the pond with a large forklift. There is a building with the debarker in it now. The logs are lifted by a chain lift from the pond to a track to the debarker building and on to the mill. At the mill the logs leave the track off to a side deck and a system there on to the log carriage to be cut. The main part of the mill is wider at the pond to house the new log approach to the head saw. The smaller buildings past the saw are now bigger with one large roof and the green chain has more protection, also with a larger roof. The steam power was partially used up to 2013 making it the last (as far as I know) operating steam powered major mill. The log carriage was also recently changed to a much more modern one that doesn't require someone to ride it along with the log carriage operator. The design I'm working on is a condensed version of what the mill looks like today and might have been close to what it was in the '60's but I don't know for sure about that. I'll have logs brought in by rail and truck. I'll move the debarker and approach to the head saw to the other side of the building and log pond. I don't have room for re-saws and other equipment they have but will have what could be a reasonable work flow. Instead of having a separate building with finish planers I'll have the green lumber go to the yard for kiln or air drying. Then brought back to this building via a side dock/door where it can be run through a planer next to the edgers and swing saws. The planed lumber will then go to the green chain again and out to be sorted and stacked for shipment. The mill will mostly be cutting rough sawn lumber. Large/long timbers up to 40+ feet can also be sawn somewhat similar to what Hull-Oakes still does. They will move from the head saw straight out of the mill bypassing the green chain. About 3 days with Fusion to get to the point above. The building and roof will be broken into at least 3 parts in order to fit the build plate of the resin printer. Still need to get windows, doors, loading/unloading docks and other items designed before starting to print. I'll have quite a few hours into this design. To be continued............ A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
This past holiday was focused mostly on detailing and crafting, which I had never done much before. The video chronicles the various "little" tasks that occurred from Oct to early last month and is an export of a PowerPoint with pics and some descriptive text. Some of the highlights; setup, signal replacement, lighting the Coke sign, making signage, first time scratch or semi scratch build structure(Hiker Hut), adding loose snowflake (all vacuumed up later on), first time renovating terrain and finally, packing up. And, a new addition to the fleet of box cars after a very long wait. All in all, a very enjoyable fun filled 3 months...
I installed the ground throw for the switch at Wills Creek Co-op at Walton and installed the throw rod and plastic tube sleeve at four other locations. I am out of the fascia-mount ground throw pedestals, so I’ll need to make a run to Hobby Lobby sooner than later. I also cut, trimmed and glued down base scenery shapes from 1 inch and 2 inch foam board at Smithville and Walton on the upper level and at the south switch of yard limits at Charleston. Finally, using old Atlas truss bridges, I started mocking up the C&O bridge crossing at the west end of Charleston (railroad south). I may put a Central Valley truss kit here. We’ll see where this goes, although the old Atlas bridges look good from a distance. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I got the foam board put down yesterday and some fascia. Got to a point where I might relook a bit of my track plan before I commit to making a lift out or drop down bridge across the aisle. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The house I've been working on is just about finished. I added a back fence that is newer and is a board-on-board type similar to some we had built last fall. The darker colors represent the pressure treated posts and kick boards. The fence on the left side is another old fence. Other details added include the hand truck in the car port and ladder hanging from the car port posts, the dog sitting in front of the steps, the garden hose on a reel, and the mailbox. I may still add a tree in the back yard. And, I finally found the cast resin propane delivery truck that I had finished years ago.
This past weekend, I was able to get back to the layout for a bit. The big accomplishment since the last update is the layout was removed from the temporary cribbing I used to raise it. It's now back down to it's new height. A big milestone in the current project! Here it is back down and the end fascia panel is ready to go too. Now that its back to normal, I realized I needed to add an extra shelf for cars to the sets I had at each end. The supports for the shelves on one end were just tall enough to add the extra without any modification. On the other end, I had to replace the supports. I didn't have an extra on hand so I "borrowed one from this end to get the other one done. Now I have the two new sections for this end that we see here in progress. Also worked on a couple of freight cars, installed DCC in a Kato SD90 and ran some trains. Progress feels good sometimes
Sawmill Design/Build – Pt. 3................ Some times the green chain is part of the main building but usually on a wing outside the main building. Mine and most others have a roof for some protection from the weather since there will be workers almost constantly sorting and stacking the lumber coming out of the mill. There are walkways down both sides of the chain for the sorters to work off of. Some of the other chains in the mill have bars that stick up off the top of the chain to help push the lumber along. The green chain has rollers on the top of the chain. They make pulling the lumber off the chain easier as it slides on the rollers. I oversize these some but they will still be really small on the actually print and of course won't roll. The green chain starts in the mill where lumber that has been cut to width and length moves onto it. At the edge of the building it will fall onto the incline and slide down to the green chain. Most of the rest of the images are pretty much self-explanatory. . . Hard to see on the image above but I designed and hopefully it is going to print.....corrugated roofing. I wanted to try it as the detail is too small for my filament printer. I'll see how the resin printer handles it. I did print a small sample and the detail is only visible if you are very close to the print. Above is the second print with the green chain rotated so the good side is up in the image, down on the build plate with the side I want to look the best being printed last. The green chain and walkway barely fit on the build plate. I designed the length of both to work like this. . Above is the first print attempt with the green chain and walkway and it shows some of the problems that cropped up. Hopefully the second print will be better. To be continued............ A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
Continuing the work on the fire station, I made up some signage for the doors and added some downspouts from the gutters on the sides of the building. Here is the fire station with the doors closed, and with two opened showing some equipment inside. As the eras of this layout can change, I plan to add various fire vehicles to match those eras. Also at some point I would like to add the flashing yellow signals that are often in front of fire stations. That's the Western Pacific / eastbound paired track behind the fire station. The row of buildings that willl be along Main Street are intended to partly hide this track as on the prototype that track is about 1000 ft and 2 city blocks away.
My father worked for the local paper mill and when I was old enough brought him his lunch and the green chain looks very familiar. Back then there were a lot of flat bed trains with logs, a steam engine to move them and huge piles of logs. It's only a diaper factory now. No logs piles and in the river. Or trains with SW9s. Just a lot of trucks.
Not much good to report. Everything I have tried to do over the past week or so has not gone as planned. Trying to get the crossbucks installed and broke both of them. Of course not at the same time so I had to place two orders. Still waiting on one to show up. Broke one of the traffic lights while trying to rewire the thing. Went to run the trains after ballasting (about two weeks after) and had a short that I could not find. Spent multiple days (not all day) trying to fix it. Disconnected the command station (not sure if that's the correct term) powered up and no short. Put an ohm meter across the rails and it showed zero resistance and was squealing. Removed all the locomotives and most of the rolling stock from the layout and still a short. Thinking that the short had to be in the area where I was working I did a visual and physical inspection nothing was to be found. Vacuumed the area that I was working on still had a short. I was thinking that maybe there was something in the ballast I used (locally obtained crushed limestone that I crush even more). I was getting ready to remove the ballast I had recently put down. I bumped the layout away from where I had been working and the ohm meter stopped squealing. A quick look showed something shiny between the rails. It looked like part of a paper staple. It may have come from a package I opened for something I was using where I was working. Again I bumped the layout in the same area and the ohm meter started squealing again. Bumped the layout again and the ohm meter stopped squealing. Bumped the layout about 6 more times and no squealing. Hooked the command station back up and all was good. Ran a couple of locos with multiple track cleaning cars (one with a magnet) and other than dirt found nothing to cause a short. An electronics circuit that worked great on the simulator and the breadboard isn't working as planned. Of course, this is discovered after 3 of the sensors are embedded in the new ballast and after the mystery short issue. Multiple hours were spent trying to fix that. The key word here is "Trying". Sorry, there are no pictures to show, I spent too much time on the other issues. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I was under the impression that a hobby is to be relaxing. LOL Gary
After a few Mods and another Printing... After reinforcing a couple areas the second print of the green chain and walkway came out well. This was a 3 hour print. This time I got the side that I wanted to look the best printing last. I'm happy with the print but it took probably a half hour to remove the supports as the green chain has some really fragile parts to it. I broke a couple but after getting the print off the raft/supports used some CA to fix the breaks except for two where the piece broke and disappeared. Still there are so many boards in the chain the couple missing ones aren't noticeable and the chain will be under a shed roof. The supports for the walkway were much easier to remove and only took maybe 5 minutes. . For the first print the rollers might have been close to real size at 2 inches in diameter and 6 inches long. You could hardly see them even up close at that scale (.013”x.038”). I increase the diameter to .020 inches ( about 3 scale inches) and like it a lot better as at least now you can see they are there. Above I cut some larger timbers and put them on the chain. I though about beefing up the frame members under the chain to make it easier to remove the supports but decided against it as I like the look the way it is. If there is interest in this I'll put the print files up and just take it real slow in removing the supports. I've got about 6 days in the total project so far, the green chain and shed along with a lot of the main building done. I just looked and I've created 392 files in the design stage. I backup often while designing so a number of those are back-ups at different stages of designing. I like it so not complaining but if you bought a printer and plan on designing there is a lot of time that goes into it. I find it to be very rewarding coming up with something where there was nothing there before and like that I can design specifically for my railroad. To be continued............ A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
Really interesting - you are doing this on the resin printer? any way to recycle the supports and other stuff, or does it not take up too much material?
The next project on the layout will be to create a representation of the downtown area of Carlin. In it's heyday during the steam era, there were several two story brick buildings along Main Street and across from the Southern Pacific yard and engine facilities. These were mostly hotels, casinos, and bars that served the travelers and railroad workers. By the time of my layout era of the 1970's to 1990's these businesses were mostly gone but at least some of the buildings lasted until the late 1990's / early 2000's. For this scene I am going to have at least two that were still in operation although it will be obvious that the business district has seen it's better days. Something like this is the perfect project for the Design Preservation Model kits. I have a box of these as I have a hard time resisting the deals I find on them from time to time. The price tag in the photo below is from our local hobby shop but must have been from the 1990's. I think I paid $4.00 for this kit at a club open house. I selected the Hayes Hardware and Crestone Credit Union kits for this project. They actually fit just right in the space I have so will not need to be modified but they will get quite a bit of details and enhancements. The scene with the two buildings will be on a removable base and will have a vacant lot between them where another had been torn down.
Not that I know of. The resin I buy is fairly expensive and just went a little over $40 a bottle vs. mid $30's that it was. Still at that price I could print a bunch of the two items that were on that build plate. With that in mind you can print a lot of items for way less than buying them, that is if someone even sells them. A printer can save one a ton of money if they are going to use it very much. Sumner
Lots of great work happening in here. Impressive stuff! I'm not sure if I actually qualify for the layout party thread since I don't have a layout yet. Feel free to remove if not. I've been working on research and design for a future layout I intend to build so I'm looking for constructive feedback from anyone who wants to offer it. If you care to see the entire evolution of how I got to this point you can go read all about it here: https://www.trainboard.com/highball...e-sub-with-union-pacific-track-rights.154106/ If you just want to see the pretty pictures though then here's where I'm at today...
Sawmill Design/Build – Pt. 4... First finishing up the printing of the rest of the items needed for the green chain.... . . Once I got the resin printer I was hoping that I could print corrugated roofing with it for some of the buildings on the layout. I found the dimensions of different 'real' corrugated roofing and for some the corrugations where too close to do in N scale. You wouldn't see them if the print was totally to scale. I found one, maybe newer than my time period, that I decided to try and was able to stay 'pretty close' to the actual measurements and I'm happy with the final results. If there is any interest I might put up some print files for some different size flat sheets one could print. In ….. …... this case I was able to print both sides of the roof as a single print. With the printing done I moved back to the design of the main building of the saw mill. I can't have everything that most sawmills have as the building would get to large but want to try and represent some of the main features of a mill. One of those can be a planer or multiple planers if they planed lumber at the mill in addition to having rough sawn lumber. This mill will have one planer. The green lumber to be planed will exit the mill via the green chain where it will be sorted and stacked to air dry (later the mill might add a kiln dryer). After the lumber has dried …. …. it will be brought back to the mill with a forklift and put on a dock near the planer. The forklift will place it on a cart that rides on rails that are gauged to 3 feet. The carts are hand pushed back to the the planer and unload and at the same time run through the planner. The planed boards will go over and above the green chain. There they are mechanically push back and above the green chain to the point they fall on the chain and proceed outside to be sorted and stacked. They will go back into the yard and will leave the mill via truck or train. The empty cart won't go back to the loading dock directly as another cart or two is on the rails loaded and ready to be moved to the planer. The empty proceeds along a track away from the planer to a turntable. The cart is empty and it easy to turn the table by hand so that the cart can continue on the track to another turntable and on back outside to the dock to be loaded again. There can be a number of carts on the track at the same time and 2-3 could be loaded and left for the planer operator. Needing a cart one was designed. No the wheels won't turn but it will sit on the printed rail on the mill floor and can be placed anywhere along the track. Also some lumber to be planed was needed, so ….. …........ back to Fusion 360 and the printer to come up with some different loads. At the moment there are the loads shown in the image above but I will also design the other ones listed in the image. Amazing now what we have at our finger tips to use in modeling. Thought about the lumber loads laying awake at 3 am. Got up, designed some with Fusion 360, printed them and painted them all before noon. Our options for what we can do are many now and don't cost all that much. I printed a lot more that what is shown above on one build plate in an hour for a couple bucks and a $200 printer and was able to use a very powerful CAD program that is free if you aren't a commercial user. Getting closer to printing the main building. Need to make sure I have all the openings that are needed in the final design before printing. The building walls will have to be printed in at least 3 prints because of the size as I'll use the resin printer. The Ender 3 Pro does do a good job on buildings, such as the coal mine complex that was entirely printed with it. The mill's roof and roof trusses will be removable to reveal the interior if wanted. The interior floor also will be removable. That will allow the interior to be detailed more in the future if so desired.. To be continued............ A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
If I was still in Quality Assurance (inspector) I would give you a passing grade. And send complements to management.
