Thanks guys... Got a lot of pushpins to pull.... Laid some of the cork for the upper level over the hidden staging area below. Wanted to at least get the cork ready for track before finishing the tunnels on both sides of the backdrop. Also did some more research on sawmills to make sure the tracks I have planned for this area will work. I think I have a plan. Small detour from the layout build ...... got the U50 above in today and decided to run it for a minute or two. Ran well and then didn't. I would stop driving one truck and then the other, never both at once. Haven't had this problem with a U50 before. Pulled it apart and found that the gears on the motor output shafts slipped on the shaft fairly easily. Used some CA on them and it seems to run well now. Will see if the CA is a permanent solution. I need to stop buying these U50's. I have enough UP and SP ones and some others I bought to get the Rail Barron chassis with the skew wound motors. Not sure if I see any difference in running thought with those. I've added decoders to a couple already ( HERE ) and want to put sound in one or two more, then need to sell some of the non-UP ones. to be continued........... A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
sumner you could slide those gaers back just a bit then file some marks on the shaft then use a good ca or some kinda jb weld ect... i had a nw2 the the gear spun on the motor shaft . i filed the motor shaft with a small file enough to make some deep scratches and used ca glue .. its still hold good.....
Tried to finish up the cork in this area the next day. . to be continued........... A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
… on to the next day after a trip to Moab, UT. for my annual V.A. checkup I was able to lay down the rest of the cork in this area.... Next up is filing and spackling.... To be continued........... A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
Sawmill Design Build -- Pt. 1 WARNING: The following might contain information that is quite boring for many. …................................................................................................................................................................................................. I needed to …. …. get the track roadbed through the tunnel, top left above, and on the other side of the upper level here so I could finish up the scenery on the other side of the backdrop. Doing that I ended up wanting to lay all of the cork on this side while I was at it. To do that I wanted to make sure the track where some of the sawmill's output would be loaded was in the right spot and that a sawmill would actually fit in this area. While researching sawmill ideas … …. I came across the B.T.S.'s Sawmill kit that is available in HO, S and O gauges. It is an unbelievable kit and if you are in one of those gauges and looking for a sawmill or sawmill complex be sure and take a look at their offering ( HERE ). Great detail, both inside and out, with lots of options one can choose from. I did use there HO dimensions and sketched out their sawmill complex on some paper towels to see if it might work in N scale. My conclusion was that even though I liked their concept for a sawmill complex it was tool large to work for me in the space I had, especially since I also need to have room for lumber stacks for air drying. My plan is that the mill has a kiln and would kiln dry some of the lumber but not all of it. Some would be rough cut (I used that for posts/beams in our house) and some would be finished like the aspen that our interior walls are covered with. To design this with Fusion 360 I needed an accurate image of the upper level that I could then design on. This way I would make sure that the sawmill design I came up with would fit in the space available. I have 10 foot ceilings in the shop so got up on a ladder and took a couple shots. The high shot directly from above would avoid some of the wide-angle problems I'd get from shooting down closer to the layout. I took the shot, several, and then cropped the image to the area I wanted to work with. I laid a 3 foot and 1 foot ruler on the layout so that I could calibrate the image in Fusion 360 to full size. It is easy to bring an image into Fusion 360 and calibrate it to whatever scale you need. I calibrated the image full size in Fusion using the rulers. At the top of the image above I have the calibrated image showing as the background. I can then draw/design right on it and make the different areas (backdrop, foam board scenery and the one track I wanted 'solid objects'. This goes quick and once I have them designed the image/canvas can be toggled on or off at any time (bottom of the image above). This is a great tool that I've use before. If you aren't commercial it is great to have a program this powerful available for free. B.T.S. Has some great interior equipment that you can buy for HO, S & O scales. If you want to populate the interior you can buy the band saw, edgers and swing saws they make along with some other items (again if you are in those scales check out the saw mill and other items they have ( HERE ). Their saw mill is configured for two band saws and a set of edgers and swing saws as shown above. Their layout is similar to how saw mills have operated for some time. The equipment now is pretty much laser/computer controlled and doesn't require near the man power as it use to. I decide to copy some of what they are doing but not all. I went from two band saws to one. Kept the layout of having 2 edgers and 2 swing saws. I'm setting it up so that lumber could come off the band saw and move to rollers next to the saw and onto the green chain which moves the lumber out of the main part of the mill. This would be the larger pieces like posts and beams that wouldn't go through an edger. If the lumber moved past the first set of roller it could go to the first set of an edger and a swing saw and move through them to the green chain. This would be rough cut (non-planed) lumber. The lumber could move past that to the second set of an edger and a swing saw. It could move from there as rough cut lumber to the green chain or move across and through the planner after being edged, sized and cut to length. It would move through the planner and over to the last set of rollers and from them to the green chain. The large beams and posts that moved along the first set of rollers could go out a side door of the mill on that side to be loaded into boxcars or onto the green chain and to the yard to dry or be hauled off with a semi (how some of the lumber output will be transported). Using Fusion rollers, edgers, swing saws were roughed in along with the band saw, log carriage and carriage track. I set up the roller lengths and other items where the mill could produce lumber up to 16 ft. long. Longer lumber could be cut it it didn't go through an edger or swing saw. Not sure I'll ever make the interior equipment or not. Laying it out gives me the option that I could if I wanted and that the mill would be the right size to accommodate it. I continued on mocking in the rest of the equipment and set up a single green chain that takes the lumber outside the mill proper to where it can be sorted off the green chain and put into stacks that can be moved into the yard for air drying or to a kiln if the lumber is going to be kiln dried. Above is hopefully how the sawmill will be laid out. Time period is early'60's and this sawmill probably wouldn't of lasted as is much longer but some did like the Hull-Oakes Lumber Mill that is still in operation and was still partially run by steam until 2013. I'm actually going to use the Hull-Oakes as a model to some extent. I'm not trying to model it but use it for ideas. At the bottom of this page I'll put some links to Hull-Oakes as it is a great resource. Logs will come in by rail and logging trucks and lumber will go out the same way. I'll probably add a kiln so that some of the finished lumber can be kiln dried. A tour of Hull-Oakes ( HERE ). A lot of pictures (new and historical) ( HERE ). Also the mill shipped by rail also until I believe 2007 and there is a four part YouTube Series on that ( HERE ) by Ken Olsen who also created a small model railroad and Inglenook puzzle that goes to train shows based on the switching that goes on at the mill ( HERE ). To be continued........... A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
Took a small break from designing with Fusion 360. . Next up is spackling.... To be continued........... A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
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
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
I'm impressed with the level of detail you're putting into the buildings. I'd probably just build the shell and not worry too much about the interior. I'm also jealous I don't have a 3D printer...but that will come in time. Can't wait to watch your layout develop!
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
Sawmill designs and layouts were many and varied. It depends upon your era. Some were dry dock, instead of pond. (Some were both.) Some had their barker inside. (Those things are NOISY!) Some had no barker, but that wasted a lot of wood, simply slabbing it off. Those "swing" saws were "trim" saws, which cut the raw lumber to length. From there, some boards were kicked aside by the trim saw operator, to a re-saw. Shortened, to remove flawed portions. Not all of the wood from the process between pond and green chain, including sawdust, went to the burner. Some went straight to a sawdust/shavings bunker. Slab lumber, nicknamed "hog fuel", could simply go to a pile outside, from there be sold to locals for firewood. (We used to get a truck load of this every year on the farm.) Or be used in fueling the mill boilers, powerhouse, dry kiln(s). Later, all of this simply went straight to a chipper. You might be surprised by the maze of conveyor belts, (carrying the chips, sawdust, slabs, etc), underneath everything- which is one reason for mills being raised. Some mills had a separate planer for large timbers, known as a beam planer.
Thanks and as you mentioned I left a lot out since it would get too big. I build my first house outside of Sheridan, WY ... ... shown above in the 70's for $3800. It was small at 850 square ft but worked for us. It is pole construction with slabs on the outside. The small family mill gave them away free to avoid having to burn them. I looked for slabs that were almost a board in width and thickness and would go through the pile and maybe keep one for every 10-15 I looked at. All the posts/beams and... ..... inside lumber was rough cut from the same mill, I want to think it was about 15 cents a board foot. The walls were a foot thick and hollow with the slabs on the outside and the board on board on the inside nailed to horizontal stringers. There was a huge mill in town that only cut studs and they had a planner for the studs and lots of chips off the planner. They would sell those to ranchers for bedding and I bought a semi load for $40. I filled the walls with the planner waste and 16 inches in the ceiling. Ran all the wiring outside of the walls in channels I routed in the back side of bottom trim boards. I could heat the house for $70 a winter with local coal ... ... in the barrel stove shown above. Just gave it to a friend. Did all the work on the house myself and most since except had a well drilled and paid a guy with a backhoe $35 to did a hole for the septic tank and leach field. Slip formed the septic tank (concrete) and back-filled all the leach field by hand. Mixed all the cement for the septic tank and floor in a mixer I had and .... ... hauled all the building material in what is now.... .... my street rod, '48 pickup, that I bought for $150 (it doesn't look that good anymore with 150,000 miles on it and a couple thousand on the salt flats). A few years later built the addition shown above that gave us tomatoes in the winter and heated the house pretty much. Didn't have much money at the time and wanted to borrow as little as possible. Lot of work but good times. Sumner
The best of times, I'd reckon, though you might'n't known it then. Workin' too hard for smell'n roses, but left with mem'ries sweeter'n them.
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
@Sumner Your construction report is not a report. This is unprecedented scientific work. Absolutely detailed and extremely interesting. Thank you for your elaborate presentation.
N Scale Stacks of Lumber ... Been working on the sawmill design so I could work on the scenery in that area once I know how much space it is going to take up. A sawmill produces lumber so worked on that also. These are stacks of 2 x 4's, 2 x 6's, 2 x 8's, 2 x 10's and 2 x 12's in stack lengths of 8', 12' and 16'. The stacks are roughly 4 feet wide by 4 feed high. The stacks can also be printed with or without some loose boards on the top of the stack. I printed these with my resin printer as some of the detail is probably to small for a filament printer but might work. . . . There are three missing stacks above as those stacks/prints came off their supports during the print so will need to reprint them at some point if I want them. The next images show the stacks as designed using Fusion 360. . . . . . I was able to get all of the stacks on the build plate of the AnyCubic Photon M3 but 3 failed during the print when they came off their supports (see image further up this page). You can find the print files for the 2 x 4 stacks ( HERE ). You can find the print files for the 2 x 6 stacks ( HERE ). You can find the print files for the 2 x 8 stacks ( HERE ). You can find the print files for the 2 x 10 stacks ( HERE ). You can find the print files for the 2 x 12 stacks ( HERE ). Lots more items you can print on my site ( HERE ). To be continued............ A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
Sawmill Design/Build – Part 5.... Spent way to much time on designing the sawmill complex but it is almost over. Over two weeks have over 80 hours in on this project. I save my work after any significant design steps and also save an image at that point in case I have to back-track. I've got over 800 files stored now from those changes and images. It is almost like having to design the real building. . . . . . . . . . Still need to design the de-barker building and the chain from it to the main building above. Also the log lift that lifts the logs from the mill pond up to the chain leading to the de-barker building. To be continued............ A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
Sawmill Design/Build – Part 6.... Still spending way to much time on designing the sawmill complex but enjoying it. . . . . . . . . Started work on the lift that lifts the logs out of the mill pond to a track that takes the logs through a de-barker building and then on into the mill. To be continued............ A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
This is looking great Sumner! So glad I got my Photon M3 and can start doing similar for myself now too Your tips are very welcome and extremely helpful too!
