Lancashire Green Ayre: Smoke 'Em If You've Got 'Em

[iL Dottore]

Afternoon Chums,

 

At the behest of Jamie92208, and with the aid of Unravelled's laser cutting skills, Jamie's CAD drawings have been turned into lovely laser cut pieces of 2mm plywood, which I am assembling, covering (with either embossed plastic sheet or DAS clay [to then be scribed]) and then finishing.

 

The structures are: a small office (stone), a large chimney and its base (brick), a sand drying house (stone), a small chimney attached to the sandhouse (stone) and a bog (a WC in wood planking).

 

First off is the small office:

Then we have the large chimney and base. This was originally to be connected to the sandhouse, but a rethink of the design by Jamie resulted in the hole for the flue as being superfluous. However, by the time of the redesign/rethink, Dave (Unravelled) had already cut the parts. I used a 2mm ply piece of scrap, cut to size andglued in place - backed/supported by two wooden lolly sticks!

The chimnay is actually ramrod straight. The Leaning Tower of Pisa effect is an artefact of perspective caused by using a 'phone camera.

The chimney structure was composed of 16 panels (8 top, 8 bottom) three octagonal supports - which slotted into the panels, and a central core made up of a wooden dowel cut to length. Each assembled panel (1 top, 1 bottom) was attached to the octagonal supports, with the wooden dowel providing rigidity and acting as a jig. Some details of this approach can be seen here:

The small chimney, seen below, had the same sort of construction approach of panels attached to supports which were mounted on a wooden dowel cut to length to provide rigidity and act as a jig (albeit with this chimney fewer panels and side):

The next structure, the sand drying house, suffered from a minor error in the CAD drawings which were accurately translated into the finished, laser cut, pieces (one of the few drawbacks - if you can call it that - of laser cutting: what you see is indeed what you get) which required the use of a stanley knife and a straight edge to amend. Once sanded down, all looks well:

Finally (last but not least) is the bog/loo/khazi. I will not endeavour to try and surpass Stubby47's filth encrusted 7mm scale toilets, so the door will be kept resolutely shut!:

All structure have a 10mm base to allow them to be embedded into LGA's ground cover - thus avoiding the whold "plonked in place" look.

 

Currently finishing is experiencing a hiatus whilst my thumb is recovering from some minor surgery to remove necrotic tissue from under the nail (don't ask...). However, I am now back to being able to type (but not write longhand) and I shortly expect to be able to use pens and knives again when I change the dressing from gauze pads to plasters.

 

At which time I will start with cladding the bog and the large chimney (the latter I suspect will need to clad with single brick strips to allow for the tapering of the chimney)..

 

Stay tuned

 

iD

[jamie92208]

They are looking good Flavio.  The large chimney has come out better than I expected.  

Two comments.  

1.  The redesign was due to better interpretation of the available photos that made us realise that what I originally thought was a rebuilt and reduce in height chimney, were in fact two separate ones about 50 yards apart.

 

2.   The reason for the large chimney having to be made out of compound panels was simply the length of the bed on the laser cutter which meant that each panel had to be made in two pieces, hence the resulting design.

 

I had better get on with the windows.

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

Progress Report:

 

Due to being hors de combat due to thumb surgery and recovery from same, progress on Jamie's building had stalled (sorry, Jamie). Now with the surgical area healed and the thumbnail growing back I have started modelling again.

 

I have completed the wooden WC (now ready for the paintshop):

The brick chimney is proceeding nicely, albeit slowly:

There is some "make good" work to be done on the base's brickwork and I won't add the door furniture until I have finished wrapping the chimney. The wrapping, by necessity, is a slow process as in order to manage the taper of the chimney I can only use 2-brick high strips of embossed plastic, However, as the chimney wrap progresses I am developing wheezes to speed up the process. e.g. when I first started I only wrapped 1 strip at a time, now I'm up to three at a time and should be able to do four at a time. The process is simple, but tedious. Each of the side of the octagonal chimney must have its' strip firmy glued in place (and dry) before curving the strip around to cover the adjacent face... So it's glue strip to a chimney face, clamp in place with sellotape (I can elaborate further on this if anyone wishes), let dry, curve the strip onto the next - adajacent - face, glue.... etc., etc. The join is unavoidably noticeable, but the cable for a lightening rod will mask that gap and add veracity to the build.

 

More updates to come..... eventually.

 

iD

[jamie92208]

Those are looking good Flavio. I'm glad that the privy has been done, we wouldn't want the layout to be an inconvenient one.

 

When we were up at Lancaster one of the retired enginemen told me that the privy was actually built over a culvert that empties into the river behind the station. Apparently the cleaners used to enjoy floating lighted paraffin rags down the culvert when someone was occupying the privy.

 

Not sure if I can replicate that on the layout.

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

Some further progress.

 

The loo has been finished and just need a little bit of "making good" here and there (the white base IS deliberate)

 

And in the meantime the chimney wrapping proceeds apace, one flaming brick course at a time...

 

And I have almost completed the pedestal...

 

Unfortunately, I decided to start wrapping the chimney from the edge of one of the plywood panels. This was a mistake as this doesn't allow me to fully align the start and end of each brick course, leaving a gap....

This will be neatened up and a thick wire "lightning conductor cable" will cover the gaps - both on the chimney and on the base (which has a much, much thiner yet still noticeable gap between start and end of the sheets.

 

More progress photos to be seen by 2116

 

iD

 

[iL Dottore]

HURRAH! I have finally finished cladding the buildings with DAS clay and will shortly start scribing, sanding and finishing (photos to follow).

 

However, the brick strip wrapping of the chimney continues to be a slow and tedious process. I am pleased, nonetheless, with the progress being made.

 

iD

[jamie92208]

HURRAH! I have finally finished cladding the buildings with DAS clay and will shortly start scribing, sanding and finishing (photos to follow).

 

However, the brick strip wrapping of the chimney continues to be a slow and tedious process. I am pleased, nonetheless, with the progress being made.

 

iD

 

There is a 2mm finescale model of the Woodhead line with lots of 76's I believe Alan Whitehouse who used be the BBC Northern Transport Correspondent made it.  I think he now spends a lot of time on the NYMR but you might be able to get to him via the 2mm finescale group.  I don't know the official name of it.

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

Well, much, much later on I have finished the construction of the two chimneys. Cleaned them both up and made good on the brick chimney.

First off, the brick chimney:

Then we have the stone chimney, which - under the cruel eye of the digital camera - has revealed problems that need addressing:

The "cable" running from the base to the "lightning rod" at the the top is ostensibly the conduit for electricity attracted by the lightning rod, but really is there to disguise a gap - but so it goes...

 

iD