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Stubby does that Windmill


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  • RMweb Gold

Had a bit of a think about this today. These calculations are based on the assunmption that the building at the base is about 8' high and 20' in diameter...

... which gives the following ( 4mm sizes in brackets) :

Height of base building -8' ( 32mm)

Height of Roof of base building -3' ( 12mm)

Height of Base of windmill - 5' ( 20mm)

Height of Main wall of windmill -32' ( 128mm)

Height of dome -8' ( 32mm)

 

Width of windmill at base - 18' ( 72mm)

Width of windmill at top - 12' ( 48mm)

 

Which means I have to build 6 panels 128mm x 72mm( base) x 48mm ( top), making sure all the shiplap boards match up on each panel...

 

These will probably have a mount card inner wall, with strip wood frame and strips of thin cad overlaid to represent the boards.

 

Simples !

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Stubby Great to see you're having a go at Allan's windmill I think it's one of his most inspiring early models, so inspiring that I actually built one back in circa 1975.I started from the premise that the roof dome was the critical dimension IE. finding a suitable sized ball might prove difficult otherwise.I think Allan had just this problem.

I used a table tennis ball cut in half which is probably a little smaller than your 32mm dimension for your dome,but it's what I (school) had to hand.

As I was studying O-level maths at the time I was well up on the old dodge of dividing a circle into six chords using a compass. So having drawn round the tennis ball ,found the radius,and used the compass set to this dimension and marked of six arcs around the circle. I had the dimension for the top off my sloping side walls. The "wasp waist" and internal stiffening of the mill building I built from circles of card shaped into hexagons by the above method.

The walls I built from card overlaid with thin strips of postcard.

I made a bit of a mess fitting the base of the tower of the mill into the circular sloping roof at the base of the building by not providing a positive fixing location and eventually was forced to bodge it by sticking the two parts of the mill together with copious amounts of insulating tape and hoping that no real winds blew against my windmill.No doubt you'll have your own brilliant way of tackling this problem.

Another design problem that needs to be tackled at an early stage is how you provide a stable strong support for the axle on which the sails pivot.Allan's original article was a little vague on how he did this,and back in 1975 my solution was a bit feeble to say the least.Perhaps an internal metal support of some sort is the answer.

The biggest problem I think you'll find is tiling the circular roofs,especially if you attempt pantiling like Allan and myself, and use the trusted tried and tested "cupcake"method.You might try using thin strips of Ambis engineering's copper corrugated iron the flexibility of the copper might help in curving to shape and when painted might look like pantiling!

It's very difficult to pantile the apex of the dome and you might be better chickening out and seeing if individually laid welsh style slates look better.I think that only modellers of Downes ability can successfully model such difficulties.Although I look forward to you proving me wrong.

Obviously the mill needs staining with Colron wood dye to satisfy the conditions of the competition,I'm not sure however if this is still available although other stains are available.Back in 1975 as funds were limited, I kid you not, I used gravy browning! and if I remember rightly this was probably the most realistic feature of my mill.

I hope the above observations are of help Stubby and look forward to see how your build progresses.The mill certainly possesses some interesting modelling problems and is certainly not an easy proposition.Best of luck you're a brave man to tackle it.

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  • RMweb Gold

Iain,

Many thanks for your detailed explanation of how you made your version and the problems you encountered.

I'd not thought about the dome itself - obviously finding a suitable donor item is key.

Also the connection between the upper & lower parts, especially if the mill body is to turn, is just as critical. (I might need to raid the kids' Lego boxes).

I need to have further thinking on this model..

Cheers

Stu

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  • 3 months later...

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