Visiting the Gate Hill Railway
while I was recuperating from a hip re- placement. The mill is scratchbuilt from a plan that I came up with after much research on the interior layout of a sawmill. I used coffee stirrers for the majority of the construction along with stripwood. I wanted an open side so people could see what was actually go- ing on inside, so I purchased the inner workings of a sawmill from Sierra West Models. The assembly of all this equip- ment was a long and tedious chore, but well worth it in the end. At the same time, I had to figure out the correct placement of all the machin- ery and how I was going fit in the over- head belt system to drive all this equip- ment. In the process, I came across a great material called Tyvek®
, for mak-
ing the belts. You can buy an envelope made of Tyvek at a stationary store and have enough material to last a lifetime. I painted it earth color, measured it to size, attached the ends with cyanoacry- late and it was ready-to-run. The sawdust burner was also scratchbuilt from a Styrofoam®
flower
arrangement base and covered with metal sheeting that had been bathed in Radio Shack Etchant to give it the rusted look. The bottom vents are plas- tic tubing cut on an angle. All of the bracing and conveyor belt framing was built out of stripwood. To top it off, I used a tea strainer painted black with a red bulb and installed a smoke ma- chine under it to give the effect of saw-
The expanse of the entire sawmill opera- tion (belowand opposite) can be seen with the highlight being the working area inside the mill. The placement of the machinery from Sierra West Models was carefully done to emulate prototype reality.
Station
Mine
Smelter Tower
Hardware store
Miner’s camp
Main St.
Engine house
Sawmill complex
Depot
Bob Robins’ On30 Gate Hill Railway
56
AUGUST 2013
Drawing by Ken Lawrence
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