Building the Barbose Mining Co. Stamp Mill - A Little Weathering

I'm still trying to get the right NBW castings so I can finish the Ore Bin. Third time is the charm!

I have been doing a little initial weathering, trying out the new process with the alcohol markers.

For your viewing pleasure:

Office

Boiler Room

Ore Bin

The Ore Bin is deliberately more gray than the office and boiler room. Let me know what you think!

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Building the Barbose Mining Co. Stamp Mill - The Ore Bin - Part 3.1

Now we get to move on to something more exciting and a bit more complicated, just a bit though, laser cutting makes things much easier.

Ore bins are probably one of the more fascinating structures in and around mines and mills. They range from small bins capable of filling a horse drawn wagon up to bins with multiple chutes that could fill three or four gondolas at once. The bin for the Barbose has two chutes capable of filling a single gondola or maybe a couple of wagons at once.

The book starts off by having you assemble the basic ore bin box with three laser cut panels. Note the wood on these bins is vertical rather than horizontal. While I'm sure that there are bins that were built this way I haven't found any examples and quite frankly after having built this bin I really wish the boards were horizontal. However, in the end its unlikely that the casual viewer is going to notice. If you want to cut your own to have horizontal boards this is the time to do it!

Steps 14 through 16 are good. The only thing I did was add an extra single horizontal brace across the center of the back.

A little late on the picture. I only added the one brace and I'm not sure I really need to do that.

Step 17 is where things may differ a bit. The first thing you need to cut are two braces with a 60 degree angles at the bottom (90 degrees at the top). Instead of fumbling around with a protractor, or something like that, I took the fret that the sides came from and used that as a template to cut the 60 degree angle. Next up is a diagonal brace for the bottom. Ignore the measurement given in Step 17 for this. I cut the 60 degree angle on one end then laid the piece in place to determine the correct length, then added a bit more so I could sand it down for a tight fit (okay, that's the woodworker talking but it still works). One of the last instructions is to glue a piece of 1 5/16" long bracing (actually 2, one for each side) about halfway down. Don't do this! Wait till the Step 19, at that point you will add some braces that will perfectly locate these two braces. As we go forward with adding braces remember to keep everything flush with the back, anything that needs to stick out should stick out towards the front of the bins.

While you should wait to install that center brace that will support the middle crossbeam, when you do install it make sure that its square to the building both vertically and horizontally.

In step 18 you are going to install the horizontal cross beams, except for the middle one. The instructions give you a specific length to cut these to 5 3/4" long. Cut these a bit longer (better yet measure twice...cut once), its better to have them stick out either side a bit than to have them a bit short.

Step 19 is actually the key to getting the center crossbeam at the right height. The placement of this beam is critical. This it where the supports for the walkway around the bin which in turn affects the walkways on the main building. Make sure all five are the same length then glue them in place and then glue your crossbeam into place.

At the moment progress has stopped. I have been slowly working on the weathering for the bins and I want to complete that before I move forward. The other issue is I ordered the wrong size of NBW castings from San Juan Models. Since NBWs were not included as part of the kit I order 2 1/2" diameter castings. These are way to big. I had to make another order this time for 1 1/4" diameter castings, those are still in transit so I can't really work on anything more until they arrive. After I install those I'll move forward with finishing off the bins.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Fences - Another study in weathered wood

In my post on high country weathering, I didn't think things completely through. I think the dry climate has a lot more to do with the colors than the altitude. I walk the dogs in the morning and I'm sort of on automatic pilot most mornings. Late last week while I was still experimenting with some different colors and I realized that I didn't need pictures off the internet to work out the colors. There are plenty of fences in my neighborhood that have exactly this kind of weathering. 

These are fences in the neighborhood that I can see easily, none of them have been replaced while I have lived here so they are all at least 10 years old. Here is a sample:

1. This fence faces east so it gets the morning sun.

2. This one and the next two face south and, I suspect, is really old, likely 20+ years. If you look at the fence post you can see two very different levels of weathering. The section to the right has more cover from a tree that is further to the right while the section to the left has no cover at all.

3. Same fence as #2, just a bit further to the left.

4. And again, but this section is almost completely screened off by brush in front of it and doesn't have nearly the amount of grey in it as the exposed section to the right of this.

5. This section of fence faces to the west. Its not nearly as weathered as I expected because of the western light it gets, however, there is a house directly across from this and provides quite a bit of shadow when the sun is in the west.

6. This little bit of fence faces north and is about a medium grey with just a hint of orange in one or two spots. This is another fence with no cover. I think its grey because it gets a lot of moisture, especially during the winter when the winds tend to drive from north to south. So moisture is really the culprit for wood fading to grey, which makes sense when you look at mine buildings, horizontal surfaces are almost exclusively grey, likely because snow accumulates there during the winter so the wood is very wet.

7. This is the same fence as the photo #1, but it shows quite a bit of difference in colors, especially the nearly solid black on the far right, which is directly adjacent to a much lighter section.

8. This is another section of fence that faces south with no cover. Note that it is, in general, darker than the fence (Photo 1 and 7) next to it. What is interesting is the grey wood at the top, from snow accumulation, rain and, likely, sprinklers. You can also see the greying at the bottom, the water is leaching out the chemicals that are causing the wood to weather to these colors.