Well some big changes are in the works for the TCC. Previous versions of the TCC have had a sawmill so one is being added. The site is the former hardware and mercantile. 100_0572-5 by John Moore posted Sep 10, 2020 at 7:44 PM The hardware, two houses, and some trees were removed. 100_0574-3 by John Moore posted Sep 11, 2020 at 2:51 PM Since the site is small I needed a small sawmill and got one very cheap off Ebay. It is the Pola kit sold by Model Power. 100_0594-1 by John Moore posted Sep 15, 2020 at 6:49 PM I made a paper cut out to place the sawmill and the tracks including two new bridges. And since space is an issue I ordered a #4 unitrack turnout to go in front of the brewery. 100_0581-2 by John Moore posted Sep 12, 2020 at 6:57 AM Because this is a water powered sawmill I had to get the water to the mill so built a flow over dam for the stream and a flume to get the water to the mill raceway. I ordered some culverts to put part of the flume under ground. The control gate which routes the water into the flume. 100_0579-8 by John Moore posted Sep 11, 2020 at 11:03 PM The flow over dam being constructed. 100_0620-6 by John Moore posted Sep 19, 2020 at 5:46 PM I had to bring the mill raceway around to the other side of the sawmill. 100_0597-2 by John Moore posted Sep 16, 2020 at 7:46 AM
In addition to clearing the site for the sawmill I also cleared out the train station and the M of W complex. Ordered again finding on Ebay a N scale station by AHM, and a Kato passenger platform plus two Tichy Trains water columns and a long Kato bridge. 100_0603 by John Moore posted Sep 17, 2020 at 1:01 PM Everything was test fitted and the mill location marked. The Kato bridge and its longer length were used to span the stream diagonally while the shorted Atlas bridge was modified for curved track. 100_0614-5 by John Moore posted Sep 18, 2020 at 3:07 PM With the mill and the track positioned and marked I cut out the small log pond. 100_0615-6 by John Moore posted Sep 18, 2020 at 5:22 PM At the same time I also scrapped the park by main street in favor of station parking and redid some of the grade crossings with GreenMax grade crossing kits. 100_0616-1 by John Moore posted Sep 19, 2020 at 6:07 AM And because space is tight I created a Jillpoke for log unloading. And yes it swivels and it works. 100_0618-3 by John Moore posted Sep 19, 2020 at 10:05 AM Spackled over the bare foam and installed one of four culverts, this one draining the pond. The culverts are Woodland Scenic's concrete. 100_0637-4 by John Moore posted Sep 22, 2020 at 12:24 PM And the finished flume gates ready to install in the stream bank. 100_0619-5 by John Moore posted Sep 19, 2020 at 3:04 PM
Since the station had to be removed to make room for the turnout track going to the sawmill and replaced with a station with a narrower width I decided to go with all new passenger platforms. 100_0623-3 by John Moore posted Sep 20, 2020 at 1:57 PM I cut down the platform ending with this. 100_0627-7 by John Moore posted Sep 20, 2020 at 4:56 PM One of the completed platforms ready to install. Kato includes some neat little things with their platform kits. Small kiosks. and a sprue with speakers and sign boards and flood lights plus other things. 100_0628-8 by John Moore posted Sep 20, 2020 at 8:39 PM The platform installed. 100_0638-6 by John Moore posted Sep 22, 2020 at 12:24 PM The kiosk was converted into a doughnut, coffee, and sandwich shop. 100_0639-8 by John Moore posted Sep 22, 2020 at 12:38 PM Meanwhile I went to work creating a way to get logs out of the pond and into the sawmill. Took some mine track and a very modified mine ore car and built an extension going into the pond. 100_0644-5 by John Moore posted Sep 23, 2020 at 11:07 AM 100_0645-6 by John Moore posted Sep 23, 2020 at 6:26 PM While things were drying and setting up I made a 2nd platform a bit shorter than the first and attached it to the station platform and installed the same. New #4 turnout leading to the sawmill track is behind the station. 100_0678-3 by John Moore posted Sep 30, 2020 at 7:22 PM
Like all my ponds there has to be cattails somewhere and my favorite for reeds is horsehair. I was out of green dyed horsehair so I made my own using food coloring that gave me a bright green. For a duller green I already had some in the color and some yellow/brown for dead cattail reeds. 100_0706-6 by John Moore posted Oct 6, 2020 at 2:30 PM For the drum beater seed heads I tried a new technique of using .04 mm rod. 100_0699-4 by John Moore posted Oct 5, 2020 at 7:16 PM Meanwhile I created the log unload with with 5/64 inch dowels cut to 20 N scale feet long. My log flats are 34 N scale feet long and can handle a 30 N scale foot log. The logs sloping down into the pond are lined up to give me 45 feet wide. 100_0674-1 by John Moore posted Sep 29, 2020 at 6:13 PM In the same photo on the left is the flow over dam and the diversion for the water flume to the mill. A common practice still in use today to raise a river level to feed canals. Every so often rocks have to be replaced in the flow over dam and that way is to use a cableway crossing the river. 100_0675-2 by John Moore posted Sep 29, 2020 at 6:19 PM The cableway is still a work in progress and was made from scrapped catenary masts. The bucket is an ore car.
Thank you. I have been incorporating mini scenes into my layouts for years now. The last sawmill pond I did I had a fisherman in the water having been butted there by a goat and a crew of the sawmill in a boat coming to his rescue. And another fisherman on the bank having just caught the big one. Wicked Wanda's on the water has a mini scene and the fish market also has a mini scene, in fact two of them. The Coast Guard buoy tender also has a scene on several decks.
When I had my Lego city I had little scenes like that all over the place. I had a crook breaking into the bank through the skylight on the roof, and at the same time the armored truck driver left the door open on the truck (which another crook was taking advantage of) and he even had money falling off the cart he was pushing into the bank. A lady too caught up in her cell phone didn't realize that a cat had chased her toy dog across a rooftop. I was there with my portable HAM radio, and even a guy asking a gal to marry him. Things like that.
Well the cattails have been installed and now waiting for the glue to dry before trimming. There are ten patches of them. 100_0717-3 by John Moore posted Oct 9, 2020 at 11:50 AM A couple of views of the station and the M of W complex now more compact with fewer buildings. 100_0718-4 by John Moore posted Oct 9, 2020 at 11:50 AM 100_0719-5 by John Moore posted Oct 9, 2020 at 11:50 AM Kato's doughnut and sandwich shop has just been installed. Waiting for delivery today I hope of some Arizona Mineral and Rock dark earth. Some of that is going in the pond in light patches to give a muddy bottom. When that sets up I will be installing vegetation in the pond. And 140 inches of 3rd rail is ready for installation as soon as I get the insulators ready. 100_0711-2 by John Moore posted Oct 8, 2020 at 10:53 AM
Well the cattails are in and trimmed to 8-10 N scale feet high. They grow that high. The drumbeater seed heads were installed but one has to squint some to see them. 100_0723-2 by John Moore posted Oct 10, 2020 at 3:17 PM 100_0722-3 by John Moore posted Oct 10, 2020 at 3:17 PM And I have installed third rail between the station and the port yard lead which is as far as it will go on this end. 100_0725-1 by John Moore posted Oct 10, 2020 at 3:17 PM Now I have to go back and trim up the insulators and get rid of the red marks that were used as the markers to install them. The rest of my supplies show out for delivery today so I can get back to scenic work on the sawmill.
Well three solid days of rain and a 99% humidity have played havoc with getting glue to set so had to turn on the AC and deploy the portable heater in the man cave. But I finally got the last of the vegetation in the sawmill pond. 100_0728-1 by John Moore posted Oct 12, 2020 at 7:04 PM A mix of fine and clump grass and some small woodland ferns. This pond will get two or three pours of water up to about a half inch deep. The white showing is glue still drying. I also applied scenic material around the mill and office/hardware and the the small hill to the right of the office. 100_0729-2 by John Moore posted Oct 12, 2020 at 7:04 PM Wanting to put some small evergreens around the mill and on the small hill I went looking for Z scale trees, Did not like what I saw in appearance, amount, or price so decided to make my own. Cut the tops out of a bunch of bottle brush trees so I had some ten to twenty foot trees. The trees that I cut the tops out of just need a pair of scissors to get back into shape again. I have a few plastic trunk trees I will leave as is. 100_0729-2 by John Moore posted Oct 12, 2020 at 7:04 PM So tomorrow will be tree planting day.
The horizontal trees are delivered by rail. About a month from pouring water for the stream, flume, and pond. Hopefully by then the danged humidity will have dropped. That is the negative side to living in a maritime area. The plus side is great fishing, oystering and claming, and shrimping, and plus great seafood. More trees to plant this afternoon and third rail to install.
Yes I have lived near the Puget Sound most of my life and when I was not there the Navy made sure I was close to water. I could live out of the ocean and be a happy man.
Installed some more trees around the sawmill and also installed the cableway system for the flow over dam maintenance. 100_0736-1 by John Moore posted Oct 14, 2020 at 11:34 AM Now working on stacks of lumber for the mill.
Thanks. The real fun was figuring out how to place the mill within the small space then redoing the water channel to the mill water wheel. Then the next challenge was how to get the water to it. I remembered the flow over dam on the Yellowstone at intake that is used to fill the Yellowstone Valley irrigation canals. The next issue I faced was how to not let the water flume take away limited space thus part of it is below ground. A lot of the issues would have been easy if the sawmill was on the right side of the stream but that would have involved tearing out the entire brewery complex.
Yesterday I got the lumber stacks, pilings, and poles placed on the sawmill grounds and added some more trees. Over by the cable tower I have one of my little Fordson tractors that I found at a train show years ago. I built a front bucket for it. On another one I have a rear mounted mowing deck. [ 100_0739-1-1 by John Moore posted Oct 15, 2020 at 8:51 AM GALLERY=media, 139642]100_0739-1 by John Moore posted Oct 15, 2020 at 8:38 AM[/GALLERY]
Well no work has been done now for 2 days. Some how the door came ajar during the night to the man cave and when I walked in the room in the morning I found one feline sleeping on the computer desk and another sleeping in the harbor. The harbor looks like a tsunami hit with vessels capsized. Crossing gates were either broken or damaged and there was some damage to the village notably the fire station hose drying tower knocked off and vehicles laying on their sides. The brewery looked untouched and the sawmill area was untouched. So I have already decided to replace the crossing gates with simple crossbucks and I found some on Ebay for cheap. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tichy-Trai...rentrq:3cf58fa11750a9c5660d95f9fffbf478|iid:1 So two sets of Tichy Trains crossbucks are on their way now and when they get in I will spend a day installing them and repairing the damage. Luckily my 32 pound Tiger Tabby did not get up on the layout or it would look like a tsunami plus a magnitude 8 earthquake.
Well the Tichy Trains crossbucks arrived this evening in the post. So this weekend I can replace all the crossing arms with simple crossbucks. 100_0740-1 by John Moore posted Oct 20, 2020 at 5:16 PM Unlike some N scale stuff I have seen these appear to be to scale. Now to figure out how high these are supposed to be. A quick Google check gives 9 foot to the center of the X on the crossbuck.
