Eastern Tn logging on the DG CC & W RR 1928

SML 1st wl in.jpg SML 1st wl out.jpg SML 1st wl n pl.jpg SML RR br.jpg 1st wall up!

I got the first wall up temporarily. It still needs windows and doors painted and installed. this back wall touches the wall of the rr room. it is such a tight fit there will be no room for battens, window trim, or a roof overhang; so the back side of the model will need to be redone if it ever survives this layout, and is not smack up against a back drop in it's next location. Since the outside of this wall is not visible the best side of each board went to the inside of this wall.

Next I will start to plank the front wall, and we will start to get an idea of how this building will look!

outside the leaves are starting to go, opening up my view a little, so I have included a picture of the RJ Corman Railroad's Cumberland River bridge on their Guthrie Ky. to Cumberland City TN. operation . I had to walk down my front yard some to get more than the the approach in the view. above the river crossing there is a through truss bridge out there hanging. It is a remnant of the old Tennessee Central. before the T C in Clarksville was scrapped I could see five or six railroad bridges from my front porch in the winter when the leaves were down.


Bill Nelson
 
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SML frnt wl prtwy.jpg SML fnt wl prtwy #2.jpg the front wall is starting to shape up. the opvening up top will be filled with some kind of louvers when I figure out how to make them.


Bill Nelson
 
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Sawdust said:
Shaping up real good Bill. If I had that view of the trestle bridge I would have to model that.
Click to expand...

I have been studying it for 30 years. at one time our club was considering building a model of downtown Clarksville in N scale once. I did a study of this bridge, and made rudimentary N scale plans for it. the two trusses and the turnbridge across the Cumberland would take four feet in N scale without compression. the trestle approach on the western side of the river would take close to nine feet, and the east approach would take a little more than six inches.


Bring up downtown Clarksville TN. on Google Earth, and you can find this bridge pretty easily, and check it out. I recommend it it is ginormous!


Bill Nelson
 
I have about half of the last wall planked. when I get it planked I will paint it aiming at a faded white on the outside , Then I will try to see how small I can go with my say and try to cut battens for it. the battens and trim I will paint before I install them, as I thinl it will be neater that way.


Bill Nelson
 
sml ftr clng.jpg sml clng gl w t p.jpg sml glng brd.jpg sml mrkg brds.jpg gluing up boards.

I was gluing up boards on the last wall of the Crooked Creek engine shops, when I realized I had taken lots of progress photos, to show off my progress, but no process photos, to show the techniques used.


so this has so far been about look what I've done, but not very helpful in the how to do department, so I took some process photos of the bosrds going on before it is too late.


Ok, These photograph came up opposite the intended order, so if you look at the bottom photo, you can se how I have used a board to make a pencil line to show where to put glue. that little semi circular mark nearby shows the location of a weak glue joint, so that extra glue can be used in that area when I get there.

The second to the bottom photo shows tacky glue (a thick white glue) applied to the frame where the board goes. ( it was tricky photographing the glue)

the third photo from the bottom shows how some of the glue squished out, and how I cleaned it up with a tooth pick, which picks up some of the glue, but also pushes some of it into the nooks and cranys, making the whole assembly stronger.

and the top photograph shows that same location after the toothpick treatment.

soon all of the boards will be on, and I will begin to paint the walls, as well as experimenting with the saw to cut battens and trim. I'll paint the battens seperately, as if I dry brush the walls, the battens will pick up more paint than the walls will.


Bill Nelson
 
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SML 4 wt wls.jpg painting the engine shops

I did some practice dry brushing on a sample made from leftover boards and was not satisfied so I used spray paint to paint the walls for the engine house with spray paint. The trim and the battens I will paint separately ; as with battens in place you can get too much paint on the wall trying to get good coverage on the battens.
 
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SML BTTN & trm stk.jpg SML BTTN srk.jpg SML cttg bttn.jpg cutting the battens

I set up the saw with the micro side of the fence toward the blade, something I seldom do, as although tiny fence adjustments are possible, the fence is shorter, but it is very helpful with tiny stuff like the battens.


to make the battens ,I decided to cut up the leftover boards from planking the building. In retrospect this wasn't a brilliant idea, as I will have to cut some more to make the doors.

I also cut up some wood for making the trim. I'm thinking the trim and the window frames may get painted green and the battens white, we will see.

I'm going to have to stash some batten material, and some trim material, as the back wall touches the wall of the railroad room with no room for battens or trim. If I ever want to re use this building in a different location, it will be nice to have the stuff to complete the back wall on hand .

In the photo showing how I cut the batten, notice the push stick, which is usually a good idea, and absolutely necessary with the tiny stuff as it is so flexible it will deflect away from the saw blade, and get cut at odd angles, blowing any accuracy you might have going straight to heck.

Bill Nelson
 
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Bill that mill work is finer than frog hair. :eek:That is probably the only piece of scaled lumber that I do buy is the batten material. I have cut manila paper strips from old file folders with good results. I place the strips on a piece of blue masking tape & spray them with a shot of spray adhesive.
 
This saw really shines with the tiny stuff.

because it is underpowered, I have gotten in the habit of being very careful with the feed rate. One I'm cutting material as thin as the boards used for planking the enginehouse, it isn't underpowered any more.

When I was cutting those battens, I though " I might be able to cut mullions and scratchbuild some windows." Fortunately it was just a passing thought. I'm wanting to get these walls done; however, due to the way I have built it, with the walls removeable, the plastic windows I have are a press fit, so I could go a head and use my plastic windows, and replace them later if I felt like undertaking scratching windows . For right now though I'd like to get the walls up.

I haven' t ordered some more City Classics skylights yet, so I can't finnish up a roof, bur I can build the extesions of the post and beam structure that will get it up to the roof level, and run the sawmill for rafters and furring. In the process of my bathroom remodeling, I have gotten a fresh close look at old metal roof construction (although my house had roll roofing originally, and metal was latter added on top of that, I'm thinking construction techniques were similar, although the roll roofing may have been given more support).


This has been a fun project so far, which is realy filling up a hole in Crooked Creek, no telling what the next project will be put I'm really wanting to work on getting the railroad more operable, and develop more tabs. It is likely I'll find another building project to distract me from those goals though.

Bill Nelson
 
SML 1st trim # a.jpg Sml 1st trm # B.jpg trim!

Two days ago, while taking short breaks from my work rebuilding my main floor bathroom I cut wood for trim and mullions.

Yesterday, while taking a short break from electrical work on that bathroom, as well as paint prep, and knocking out a wall that made a closet out of a doorway from what was originally a the master bedroom into the parlor, which is now the Master Bedroom, I got the trim spray painted.


this morning, while waiting for it to get light enough out to cut some trim material for the bathroom, and let the paint store open I did a little experimental trim work on the engine house.

later today I will try to squeeze in time to get the mullion material painted and then let the tedium begin!

Bill Nelson
 
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SML Louvers.jpg louvers!

I got to playing with my trim material making one of the set of louvers this building will require. I'm going to come up short on the trim material , and have to cut more, these windows really eat up a lot of material.

Bill Nelson
 
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SML #9 cnd up.jpg SML #9 bfr.jpg taking a break from cleaning up the house in front of the wave of vistords I decided to take a brak and work on trains.


the project that came to hand first was #9 the switch engine for Harlow.

This locomotive was painted and weathered by me back in the 70's to represent a woods engine in the 1940's, and was thus heavily weathered.

My period has crept backwards to 1928, and #9 has been assigned the job of switch engine in Harlow, which is the Northern Terminus of the railroad and the site of the main offices. I figure not only is this locomotive a lot newer now, but it is operating directly under the eye of senior management, and should be better maintained.



It has been on my work bench, as I contemplated a complete repainting job. that course of action was declined, and I sat down with some acrylic paint, rubbing alcohol, and Q tips. I was able to scrub off some of the weathering with alcohol and a Q tip, and diluting black paint with rubbing alcahol, I was able to dry brush black over the locomotive, in a kind of reverse weathering process to clean up #9 considerably. I also took advantage of the oportunity to paint the roof red, which has become the standard in recent years.

I am so pleased with the result that I am ready to start with Shay # 15, which has been in service since 1968, and it shows. So next, the cosmetic restoration of # 15 to remove the effects of twenty years of being rode hard and put up wet.


Bill Nelson
 
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SML #15 aftr wrk.jpg SML #15 frm's sd.jpg SML drty#15.jpg # 15 got some attention, still dirty, but now more sooty than **** encrusted. the before picture is on the bottom, bassackwards as usual.


# 15's assignment is somewhat up in the air right now. It was the mill switcher for many years, which irritated impatient operators for years as it is so slow after a gear reduction remotoring. Recently # 8 a much larger MDC shay, also with a gear reduction motor has been switching the mill, and # 15 has been switching either the log reload in Ridgemont, or the log camp @ Terrapin.

#15 is a capable , if small, mountain division locomotive, but after forty two years of continual service, I want to shield it from service that will cause much wear and tear.


I' have had some train time, I have to do several hours of cleaning up before I can play with trains again. and I'm setting a timer!



Bill Nelson
 
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SML S R TP # 1.jpg SML clng # 15's wls.jpg SML clng cl A cl whls.jpg SML trk clng trn..jpg Back before Thanksgiving I did some track cleaning, as one of my guests likes to play with my trains. I started working from the top down on the standard gauge, and got doen to Terrapin with the track cleaning train. which would not touch a dirty spot tight @ the Northern portal of the lower Sander's Gorge Tunnel.

I had to go and scrub it out by hand, but I found out that the scenery extension I made @ the Sander's gorge falls area, makes it almost impossible to reach the tunnel portal via the access hole in the mountain.

I finally got it cleaned. I was afraid I'd have to use the hatch under Terrapin knob. the top of Terrapin knob is removeable. the joint is almost invisable, and follows the rock strata, but the top of the mountain is a huge chunk of hydrocal, and weighs a ton, and when you get it off, there is no good place to put it, so that hatch is a last resort.

As the track cleaning train got down to Terrapin, I had to inspect the wheels of #4 and # 15; as I check locomotives for dirty wheel as the track cleaning train goes past them. No good to spending a lot of time cleaning your track and then run a locomotive with dirty wheels on the clean track.

I clean locomotive wheels by turning them upside down and using jumper cables to the rails to run them while upside down, and holding a Q-tip with rubbing alcohol or contact cleaner on it against each driver while it is spinning. leading , trailing an tender trucks get scrubbed manually, but they don't usually get as grody.

The track cleaning train has #16 and # 17 (Riverossi 3 truck Heislers-- # 17 is an ex- C & S locomotive) on either side of a centerline track cleaning car with the roller soaked in goo gone. I also add from one to three hart gondolas with Masonite scrubbers under them. right now I'm only using one , as the other two have some issues that require work. They derail a lot, but really help the cleaning effort.


The top photograph is that hard to reach tunnel portal, I have to paint it black in there, it usually looks dark in there but the flash found it's way in there.


The second photo shows # 15 getting it's wheels cleaned, note the filthy Q-tip end. all that dirt came off of # 15's wheels


The 3rd photo shows #4 getting it's wheels cleaned. and the last photo shows # 15, and # 4 in front of # 16 and # 17 with the track cleaning train.


Bill Nelson
 
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