Morgan gets Her Wings

I know that there hasn't been a lot of activity here lately, or even this year. This time there is a better, for lack of a better term, excuse. We have been providing dog hospice for the last two weeks and Monday (10/5) we made the hard decision to let her go.

Morgan is a German Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix. All the girls in the litter looked like mom and all the boys looked like dad. That's why she has pendent ears instead of the GS radar scoops. In the last couple of years her muzzle started to go white and I would tease her it was her inner Pyr coming out.

Back in May she was fine at her check up, a little chunky, so we were dealing with that. Then we noticed that she was loosing a lot of weight. We rushed her in to her vet, they did an ultra sound but apparently she was to wiggly to get a really good read and we were referred to another clinic (Alameda East of Animal Planet fame, its literally just a couple of blocks away from us). That session took about 4 hours and then we got the bad news. A mass between her spleen and liver and the x-rays showed spots all over, including her lungs. She had developed a very aggressive cancer. We were told it wasn't months it was weeks, she made it two and I think we were lucky to get that.

It’s a tough decision to let our pets go. Morgan was doing all her regular doggy things up till the last four days and it was time.

Morgan gets her, well-deserved, wings and I'm sure she is hanging out with Lani. I know they are keeping an eye on us till we join them sometime in the future, hopefully not the near future mind you.

Here's a look at Morgan over the years (to few, she was only 7):

5 Weeks Old

8 Weeks old and quietly sitting as we drive home from her birthplace on a farm in Morgan County

First treat certainly has her attention.

All ready to big for the bed

The food will not escape

Are you my mom? (Phoebe is pretty accepting)

Becoming a long dog

 

That black nose is a little overwhelming at this point.

Working on the tan.

Look at all those colors coming out

A Christmas ensemble

Getting her first kitten, that's Omar Bratley

Halloween ensemble

Hanging out with Larry the Cable Cat

How's that for a Valentine's day greeting

Morgan and Roxy, Morgan treated her like her own puppy.

Lounging in a chair

Last Days.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Building the Barbose Mining Co. Stamp Mill - Windows and Doors

Things continue to progress at a slow pace. Weathering is pretty much finished on the four sub-assemblies and I'm moving on to windows and doors, which is pretty much in line with the instructions at this point.

I mounted everything on a piece of plywood with double sided tape, then primed, painted the base color and then added an oil based wash. They still came out a bit to uniform but I'm not sure what else I can do at this point. Will have to dwell on it a bit.

I test fitted the windows and doors and now I'm ready to add the window glazing. Not going for see-through windows on this one, everyone needs to be fogged so we just see the impression of light rather than the interior. There is not going to be very little if any interior detail on this one.

The painting on the windows and doors is complete.

And this is what it looks like after I have pulled them off the double sided tape.
One important note here. I used Scotch brand double sided tape, be careful to only tape the edges of the castings. This tape is strong and I broke off a few mullions getting the windows off, because I made sure they were well taped down!

Windows and doors waiting to be installed. Anything gray is the backside and are windows I had to fix.

Quick test to make sure everything looks okay. Its not bad and I think this was a better choice than painting the window and door frames in almost any other color.

The inside and why we don't want to see it!

Building the Barbose Mining Co. Stamp Mill - The Ore Bin - Part 3.2

I finally got my hands on what are, more or less, about the right size. These are 1 5/8" NBW castings and I probably could have gone up to 2" castings, the 2 1/2" were much to big though. So I opted for a bit smaller.

Do they pop out, not really, but even if you don't notice them right off they add a bit of "unconscious" realism. I'm happy with them at this point.

I gave the ore chutes an initial coat of paint and a little rust. I will leave these as is for the time being. I'll work on these more when the whole building is together and I work on the final weathering. 

I added the hatches on the top of the bins and I'm calling it good for now. I didn't want to add the walkways and railings at this point until I'm ready for final details. I may go out and see if I can find some better railings. The ones in the kit are on laser board and are very flat, which isn't wrong by any means, but they would look better with more thickness on the posts just to give some visual separation from the rails.

Building the Barbose Mining Co. Stamp Mill - Even More Weathering

Things have been progressing very slowly at this point. This particular weathering technique is not quick by any means. Its not difficult but switching off from one marker to the next just gets clumsy and the board and batten siding doesn't make it easy either. I have to deliberately running a marker down the side of the battens to make sure its colored. I have discovered that raw wood looks truly awful, you need to make sure that you cover it all.

Still, almost finished!

The back, which is unlikely to ever be seen, so it was a good place to practice.

Straight on view, the ore bin will fit in the big space at the bottom.

Office side. I decided didn't need to weather the section where the office building will be attached.

And the other side, getting ready to finish it off.

While I will finish this one off with this technique I'm not sure if it looks good or not at this point. Maybe once its on a base and finished it will look better. Right now it looks rather rough.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday

 

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.