Superior & Seattle Railroad Build (Volume 3) Started 7/27/19

[S&S RR]

It's ready for some of those wonderful Bob VanGelder roofing tiles, tomorrow.  Time to get out the plastic bag with the markers.

[Judge]

John - Sayles Mill must be some sort of Yankee structure of which I am unfamiliar.  Also, I am not familiar with the kit.  What is the tower for?  What will be milled there?  Grits?

[deemery]

Judge, the towers in DamnYankee mill buildings (and I suspect in their North Carolina cousins) provided the stairway for access to the floors.  They often also provided the loading docks (with a block and tackle at the top) for machinery.  This allowed the actual factory space to be wide open.  (Compare to contemporary office buildings, where the elevators and lavatories are usually built around the center of the building.)  Often the tower would have a bell in its cupola, to indicate mill starting hours (and for fire alarms.)

There are some good examples with full floor plans in the HAER archives.  This book is very good on the topic (I've heard the author speak), but it ain't cheap.  You could probably get a copy on loan through your local library:  https://www.amazon.com/Fireproof-Building-Technology-Nineteenth-Century-American/dp/0801863112

Here's a photo of a typical (wide open) mill interior.  This one is cotton, but there other fabric mills, shoe factories, or tool factories, with similar designs.  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_of_a_cotton_mill_1909.jpg

dave

[S&S RR]

John - Sayles Mill must be some sort of Yankee structure of which I am unfamiliar.  Also, I am not familiar with the kit.  What is the tower for?  What will be milled there?  Grits?

Judge


The Sayles Mill is a South West River kit by Bob VanGelder.  He has retired now but he put out a series of kits, mostly mills based on NorthEastern Prototypes. The buildings, with some modifications, can fit in in the midwest and west.  In the Northern part of Michigan "Copper Country" (aka as Superior country) there were many stamping mills (used to crush rock to get the native copper out) that were usually steam powered but a few were water powered.  The tower on this mill has a bell as Dave described and I plan to use it. Here is a link to Bob's website so you can review his kits.  To-date I have 6 of Bob's kits on the Superior & Seattle RR, and there will be more.


http://www.southrivermodelworks.com

[S&S RR]

Judge, the towers in DamnYankee mill buildings (and I suspect in their North Carolina cousins) provided the stairway for access to the floors.  They often also provided the loading docks (with a block and tackle at the top) for machinery.  This allowed the actual factory space to be wide open.  (Compare to contemporary office buildings, where the elevators and lavatories are usually built around the center of the building.)  Often the tower would have a bell in its cupola, to indicate mill starting hours (and for fire alarms.)

There are some good examples with full floor plans in the HAER archives.  This book is very good on the topic (I've heard the author speak), but it ain't cheap.  You could probably get a copy on loan through your local library:  https://www.amazon.com/Fireproof-Building-Technology-Nineteenth-Century-American/dp/0801863112

dave

David


Thank you for helping to answer Bill's questions and the link - sounds like a interesting book.

[ACL1504]

John,

Sayles is coming along very nicely. You have many miles on the road with this build.

I almost got this kit but nothing like this would fit in the south. I have seen pre Civil War mills in NC but none south of Atlanta.

Excellent work my friend.

Tom 

[S&S RR]

John,

Sayles is coming along very nicely. You have many miles on the road with this build.

I almost got this kit but nothing like this would fit in the south. I have seen pre Civil War mills in NC but none south of Atlanta.

Excellent work my friend.

Tom 

Tom


Thank you for stopping by and the encouraging words. I love building these big mills so I'm doing a little force fitting for the region I'm modeling - as they say "it's my railroad".  I have a plan for the town of Superior for a prototypical scratch build of a stamping mill and smelting facility - it's a few years off in the plan.

[postalkarl]

Hey John:

It's looking just fabulous so far.

Karl

[Judge]

John and Dave - Thank you for clearing up my questions about the mill.  I can imagine watching a steam-powered rock crusher must have been quite an experience. 

Will there be bats in the mill's belfry?  We have lots of bats locally.  There is a "bat house" in the park down the street from our house.  We've had bats get into our house every now and then.  They fly around and land on curtain rods so they can observe what's going on from a safe height.  My wife doesn't like them when they fly around the room.  They are pretty smart creatures.  They will fly out if you leave a door or window open for a few minutes.  They are not good to eat and are not housebroken.  They like to eat flying insects and that is a good thing.

[deemery]

We definitely have bats in New England (including in my own attic, hopefully they're gone.  But I hung a bathouse on the chimney.  I want them flying around eating skeeters, as long as they do it outside.)  They're small things, definitely "flying mice", so it would be really hard to model them. 

dave

[S&S RR]

Hey John:

It's looking just fabulous so far.

Karl

Karl


Thank you,

[S&S RR]

John and Dave - Thank you for clearing up my questions about the mill.  I can imagine watching a steam-powered rock crusher must have been quite an experience. 

Will there be bats in the mill's belfry?  We have lots of bats locally.  There is a "bat house" in the park down the street from our house.  We've had bats get into our house every now and then.  They fly around and land on curtain rods so they can observe what's going on from a safe height.  My wife doesn't like them when they fly around the room.  They are pretty smart creatures.  They will fly out if you leave a door or window open for a few minutes.  They are not good to eat and are not housebroken.  They like to eat flying insects and that is a good thing.

Bill


We have lots of bats in Michigan.  We also have some politicians that are "" - ops can't go there. Anyway, yesterday, while I was working on the mill I took this picture of the instruction book - Bob's explanation of the mill towers.





I will find a way to model "Bill's Bat" when I complete the tower on this build. At HO scale and 4 foot away from the aisle way it's only going to be us forum members that know it's there.

[S&S RR]

We definitely have bats in New England (including in my own attic, hopefully they're gone.  But I hung a bathouse on the chimney.  I want them flying around eating skeeters, as long as they do it outside.)  They're small things, definitely "flying mice", so it would be really hard to model them. 

dave

Dave


I have had bats fly down the chimney at my cabin - they sometimes have trouble finding their way out and I find them when I go to start the first fire in the fall.

[deemery]

A neighbor had 28 removed from their chimney...  Our name for the guy who does that is, of course "Batman" :-)


dave

[S&S RR]

A neighbor had 28 removed from their chimney...  Our name for the guy who does that is, of course "Batman" :-)


dave

Dave


Well that sounds appropriate.