The Princess Shilo Mine

[Ray Dunakin]

I've started on a new mine for my 1/24th scale In-ko-pah Railroad which will be named after our oldest grand-daughter. The Princess Shilo Mine will be located in a prominent position on the southwest corner of the layout. The mine will be on the hillside, with an ore bin that straddles the track:





I liked the look of the Great Western Mine in Gold Point, NV. The Princess Shilo Mine will be a different design, but will retain the same basic features: a wooden headframe with a riveted steel ore bin:




I made the ore bin from a 6" ABS tube and matching cone, from Plastruct. I filed the tip of a nail to a rounded point and used it to emboss rivets into sheets of .010" thick styrene. These were laminated to the exterior:





Some of the embossed rivets were damaged by the solvent adhesive, so I applied tiny drops of 3D fabric paint in their place. This worked reasonably well. The larger rivets are from Tichy Train Group, and are individually applied in drilled holes:






The ore chute and gates were a bit of a puzzle. The Gold Point prototype didn't have any that I could see in the photos. I found pics of other mines with similar ore bins but no close ups of the gates. I eventually settled on something loosely based on the discharge gates of a concrete skip.

I began by building a square box of .040" thick styrene, and cutting arches out of the bottom edges to fit the cone. Then I cut the other end to the necessary double-curve shape, and gradually built up the gates. When finished and installed, a lever will be attached for opening the gates -- though they don't actually work:












The complete bin with a coat of red primer. Eventually it will be painted to resemble rusted steel:





The wooden support structure was another puzzle. Unlike the mine in Gold Point, this ore bin must straddle the track to load hoppers. It will also be separate from the headframe. I couldn't find pics of any other prototype that was set up this way, so I engineered something based on what I know of how wooden ore bins, water towers, and other such structures are designed. The upper part of the structure forms a sort of bridge and cradles the bin:







Then I added legs and bracing. Here are a couple shots of it temporarily in position on the layout. There are still a few braces to add, plus NBW details, etc. I also need to cast concrete foundations on either side of the track:









This last photo shows where I have chiseled away a clearing for the hoist house (upper left) and the beginnings of the mine shaft. The shaft pit will only be a few inches deep, with the bottom painted black. I need to pour a foundation for the hoist house, and create a collar for the shaft, before I can build the hoist house and head frame.




Meanwhile, I've also done some work on the mill at Mineral Ridge. I've built a wooden ore bin that will become part of the mill structure:








That's all for now. Enjoy!

.

[tigrazor]

Oh yes, I did enjoy that! Thats freaking awesome...

[Ray Dunakin]

Thanks!

BTW I forgot to mention, one thing that helped was that the Plastruct cone has faint mold lines on it, dividing it into four sections. So I was able to trace these marks and use them to create the pattern to fit the styrene to the cone shape.

[Leon]

Mighty fine looking scratch building Ray.

[wbill76]

Very cool Ray! You nailed the look of that ore bin for sure.

[Prop Duster]

great job of building. looks like it should carry the idea off with out a hitch.

[bbd468]

WOW, excellent work fella! Very nice indeed.

[Ray Dunakin]

Time for an update!

I had previously prepared the site by digging out the soil under the spur and pouring in a rough concrete base. Now I smoothed and leveled it by adding a layer of tinted mortar, squashed down with a piece of foam core art board. Two strips of foam core were glued to the top to stiffen it.




When this had set, I hot-glued some simple forms for the ore bin foundation, and filled them with mortar:






Meanwhile, I used exterior, latex house paint to paint the wooden frame of the ore bin. Although the wood is Western red cedar, I still wanted the protection of a good coat of paint for maximum durability. And so, ironically, I was attempting to paint wood to look like wood. For some reason I struggled with this more than usual, but eventually got it to look enough like old wooden timbers. It's not great but it'll do:




After it was painted I added some NBWs from Ozark Miniatures.

Next I painted the ore bin, again using latex house paints. I chose several shade of brown, primarily dark brown, chocolate brown and a rusty brown. At Home Depot you can buy custom mixed paints in "sample" size jars, which is convenient for modeling.

The paints were stipple on with a cheap 1" brush. After the initial coating had dried I added some streaks, by dribbling thin washes down the sides. Later I added more, subtler streaks using the dry brush technique. A little more stippling and streaking was done until I was satisfied with the look.

Sometimes old mines had the name of the mine, or the mining company, painted prominently on a building or other mine structure. This ore bin seemed like the perfect candidate for that. So I laid out the text in a drawing program, and printed it onto self-adhesive vinyl. Then I drew directly on the vinyl, modifying some of the letters to give it more of a freelanced, hand-painted look and less like a modern font.

I cut out the letters and used the vinyl as a stencil. I mixed "antique white" with some of my rusty metal colors, and stippled it with a stencil brush. After removing the stencil I did a little touch up, added streaks, etc as desired, by hand. Here is the result:








There are just a few minor things left to do with this ore bin. I have to add some stains to the foundations, and install a lever to open and close the ore gates, and possibly add some lights. I also need to ballast the track and blend the edges of the "soil".

Next will be creating the mine, headframe and hoist house.

.

[deafpanzer]

WOW! Great work on the water tank!

[Ray Dunakin]

Progress has been slow lately due to lots of other obligations, but here's a brief update:

I built the "collar" of the mine shaft, of "square set" timbers with planks on the exterior. I decided to make this a double-shaft mine:






I also enlarged the pit I'd dug in the hillside for the mineshaft, and moved it slightly closer to the ore bin. I made more room for the hoist house too. Here the shaft collar is test-fitted in the pit:




I poured a bit of mortar into the pit and positioned the collar, taking care to make it as level as possible since it will support the headframe. I rebuilt the hillside around the mine shaft, bringing it up almost level with the top of the collar. Then I started construction of the headframe. In this shot, the main vertical element of the headframe has been temporarily placed in position:





The next step will be finishing the headframe. Then I'll work on the hoist house and its foundation.

.

[sabre]

You've done an excellent job on the stone work Ray... Very realistic and your carpentry skills are outstanding.

Any chance of coming around my place and finishing my bench for me... LOL... only joking.

Keep up the good work mate, looks like a labour of love right there... I'm one jealous guy.

[Prop Duster]

I don't understand RRs or mines, but talent in modeling I do understand.
Very Good job, your teaching me a lot about how to create a wood structure....now where is that scale wood cataloge?

[bullardino]

Freakingly awesome, this is really hard to tell from a real counterpart.

[Ray Dunakin]

Still making slow progress...

After studying pics of a prototype headframe, I realized that the rear horizontal members on this part of the structure were not needed, so I carefully cut them out. (I left the two lowest sets because, unlike the prototype, my headframe has not other support in that area.) In this photo you can also see the holes for the tie rods. Some of these had to be predrilled during assembly:




Next I put together the support structure, which is somewhat like a trestle bent:




The two components were painted separately:




I scraped and sanded the paint from the contact points, and glued the two sections together. Then I started building the rear braces. There are still some other details to be added. These details, and the rear braces, will be painted once everything is in place. Here's how it looks so far:





I also have to build a "bridge" from the headframe to the top of the ore bin. Carts full of ore would be pushed across this bridge, to be dumped into the bin.

[wbill76]

Some nice woodwork there Ray, the joins are nicely done, looks almost like a single piece.

[deafpanzer]

Superb work on the wood!!! Loving this...

[WigWag Workshop]

Talk about an inspirational build! That there is some outstanding scratch building!

-Steven