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.

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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.

Building the Barbose Mining Co. Stamp Mill - Office and Boiler Room - Part 2

We continue on with the Barbosa Mining Co. Stamp Mill build. After the main building its time to build the office and the boiler room. The kit is designed for the office to be on the left (as you look at the front) and the boiler room on the right side. You can swap them but that would put the door to the boiler room on the back of the building instead of the front. If you do the swap keep in mind that you will also need to swap the location of the water tower and the walkways and their supports (which filters all the way down to the ore bins by the way).

This section is very bare bones in the booklet. It simply tells you what length to cut the timbers that support the deck and to brace the interior of both structures like the main building. Six pictures are provided to help you figure it out. All of which is fine, these are pretty basic little square structures after all.

There is one thing that I would change. When you cut the timbers they are basically sized for a walkway that's 5/8" of an inch wide which scales out to 30". That's pretty narrow even with a rickety railing to hold on to. I went ahead cut mine to extend out 3/4" for a 36" wide walkway. This does eat up more 5/32" square stripwood as well as stripwood for the deck itself. I just felt like it looked better with the wider walkway.

Let's just move to the photos and you can see what I did, first the office:

The bracing begins. I framed it the same way as instructed to for the main building.

I used the front as a template to build the roof support for the back side (this will butt up against the side of the main building)

Since there isn't a wall, as such, on the back I added two additional braces across the back to keep everything square.

Here I started adding the support timbers. I didn't measure anything I just sort of eyeballed their placement. Mine buildings tended to be on the quick and dirty side as far as measurements were concerned anyway. You may or may not need the support timbers depending on how you intend to install the building on your railroad. Note; the support timbers extend out beyond the edge of the office on the right (non-walkway) side. You can get away without this extra bit of length and simple go flush with that side. Then measure again...twice...to get the proper length. The timbers should extend at least 5/8" (30") away from the walkway wall for the walkway itself, I went with 3/4" (36") instead.

One thing I discovered is the need for an extra beam to support the walkway on the door side. You can see that extra beam in the FMM photos as well. The instructions basically tell you to cut five beams and I ended up with 7. And what the heck supports that beam just sitting out in space?

The answer is the decking itself. Again important to keep this stuff square especially the decking on the door side of the office. I started with the long boards on the window side, then got out the chopper to cut the shorter boards for the door side. In this shot you can see the floor, not to provide a floor for detailing the interior, but a floor to keep interior light leaking out, well except through the windows (which will likely be frosted)

Here is the decking all in place. Before you start to glue on the short deck pieces, find the door frame from the parts bag and test fit it. With the door frame in place draw a line on the top edge and glue your decking in place. Now you don't have to adjust the fit later when you permanently install the door. Now, using the line as a reference shave off the portion of the battens above the door. This way the door frame will sit flush with the wall rather than flush with the battens.

I do plan on painting the floor black. It is a scrap piece of foamed PVC sheeting that I cut to fit. Also note that my walkway on the window side is five boards wide instead of four. Also note the addition of a roof peak brace.

That wraps up the office, let's move on to the Boiler room:

The boiler room goes together the same way the office did. One caveat, if you are looking at the FMM pictures the window side is flipped, i.e. the bottom of the window is closer to the ground than the top. I didn't like that look so I flipped it the other way, so the window is closer to the top than the bottom.

Simple internal bracing, again added braces to the back and the roof rafter is not quite all the way to the top. I didn't want to trim it.

In theory you only need four support timbers. The spacing is off because of the door location.

There is machinery that rests on the back side of the boiler room so you do need those supports to extend out beyond the back wall.

Added another roof rafter across the middle of the ceiling, an additional support bean, the decking and a "floor". Like the office I pulled out the door frame and temporarily put in place to make the mark for where to shave off battens and to cut a slot in the walkway board where the door frame goes. 

The Boiler Room is simpler than the Office. Both will get a goose neck exterior lamp and one light in the room. There is no intention to add interior detail so windows will be "frosted" and likely, for these smaller extensions, window shades.

Despite instructions to the contrary, I have not done to much weathering at this point. I'm working on the process to get those nice brown/orange patterns in weathered wood. I'm closer to that, picked up a few more colors and I think I have everything I need. Just need to do a bit more experimenting.

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