I never imagined that I would be sharing a build on this forum. I have been building Sierra West kits for 5 years now, the Shipyard was my entry into model building. People have asked me why I started my building career with Sierra west craftsman kits rather than with much simpler and easy to construct kits. My response is that having no experience, starting with one of Brett’s kits, the detailed instructions, instructional videos on the website, and most importantly the forum provides the necessary tools to develop a modeling skillset.
The forum is amazing. Through it I’ve met (only virtually) a very talented group of modelers. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned through this process. I’m not sure that I can add anything of value to this group, but I am hoping to get critical feedback to help improve my modeling skills.
I model primarily in HO scale, I am working on an RGS layout in HOn3, and I’ve built an handful of Brett’s kits that I will eventually build into modules. As you can see I’m easily distracted and the O scale sawmill kit was impossible to pass up. I’m about 4 months into this so I thought I’d post one photo of where I’m at right now, and if there is interest I can post photos of the build up to this point. I just finished with the shaft installation and the belts/wheels, photos below.
There are three things I’d like to do with this build. One was to incorporate LED’s into the structure, thats been done, and I’m reasonably happy with the results so far. The second is to have a removable roof, I think I have a plan for that which would be a discussion point later. The third thing is to be able to make sawdust look like sawdust rather than just a blob. I’d be looking for ideas from the forum members for that.
Finally, a big thanks to Brett for replacing parts that I’ve launched with tweezers, and for his patience and help through many phone calls. A little long winded to start, we’ll see where this goes.
So very happy to see you on the forum Ray. What an excellent start and introduction. I am sure the many faithful SW Forum members will enjoy watching you bring your mill to life. Thank you for sharing your build with us. Looking forward to more updates.
Looking great, Ray… there’s a build thread by Bryan Brown of the O Scale Sawmill in which he makes a major portion of the roof removable…perhaps scrolling thru Bryan’s thread will help a wee bit
The Sawmill Project kit:#308
btw…I haven’t ‘seen’ Bryan on the forum for a loooong time…I hope he’s okay… a great modeler
Very nice start Ray. Machinery is very well done. The color and texture of the wood is also very nice. That sawmill is one impressive structure. I would love to build one myself, but I also model in HO and wouldn’t have room for it.
Morning Ray and welcome to the forum. Your looking good, machinery looks great and love the coloration of the belts. Two things, first you mentioned sawdust. I don’t know if this will help, but I found that diluted glue leaves the sawdust looking brown, not natural . somewhere on the forum someone mentioned an AK product called Gravel& sand Fixer. It is clear and fixes natural, no color change. Second, don’t know if you have gotten Brett’s Backwoods Tie Mill or not, but he shows a great way to make a removable roof, wish I had seen it when I built my Sawmill. Hope this helps or take it as the ramblings of an old man. ENYOY the sawmill, should keep you out of the bars for 30 mins..Dwaine
Tom, thanks. I also have no idea what I’ll do with this - might be that the kids will have to deal with it, but it’s a fun build. I have started going through some of the threads on the forum and looking forward to seeing your work. Any particular build I should focus on.
Dwaine, thanks for the note. I will look for the AK Gravel and Sand Fixer and play with it. It’s not so much the color that bothers me as it is the lack of texture. A friend of mine has the Tie mill so that will be easy to look into. Thanks again
I’m going to start posting some of the photos (warts and all) of the build up to the point I started with. It will probably take me a couple of weeks to do this. Almost every time I look at the forum the first thing that comes up is reading through the entire manual before getting started, I think that’s a great Idea. One of the first items in the sawmill manual (not the equipment manual) was a section on at what point in the build to build the equipment, this was very helpful.
In this posting I’m just going to have a couple of shots of the Double husk saw and the edger. It would really be nice to build each piece a second time, but I can’t go down that hole, just have to be satisfied with the results from the first build. As much as I like flat green on equipment I decided just to leave all of the equipment in the mill black (this was also a suggestion in the manual.
The warts - the belt as it runs over the wheel thats between the idler bracket there is a slight bulge, I did not notice this until the epoxy dried, one of the problems putting belts on this piece is that you really have to be careful with the load that you put on the part when tightening the belt. I also had the shaft that goes to the blower coming out the wrong side, however it was easily corrected. I am not great with saw blades, but I think there in the right direction. Other than that I’m reasonably ok with how things turned out.
Ray beautiful modeling. I love the machinery. I enjoy watching “O” scale builds as it’s much easier to see specific details that are hard to see in “HO”.
