Superior & Seattle Railroad Build (Volume 4) Started 8/14/21

[S&S RR]

Karl and Curt


Thank you for the encouraging words. I made more progress today - it will be a few days before enough progress is made to warrant more progress pictures.  I did take a picture of the way I'm clamping the vents on the Sayles mill to allow the glue to dry.  Lots of opportunities to use the tools. How many clamps does it take to clamp a clamp in place.

[S&S RR]

It looks like the pigeons have already found the structure.

[S&S RR]

I walked around to each workbench and took a picture at the end of the day, today, for my update.


The vent installation and detail castings are in progress on the Sayles Mill.









I'm adding shingles to the roof on my Water Tank Challenge build - see build thread for details.











Window castings and door castings are going into the structures for the FSM Tribute 1 build.











I'm busy with the markers coloring the tiles for the roof on the Hooker & Son build.

[postalkarl]

Hey John:

Both kits look just great.

Karl

[PRR Modeler]

Everything looks great. I don't know how you keep track of it all.

[S&S RR]

Hey John:

Both kits look just great.

Karl

Karl


Thank you

[S&S RR]

Everything looks great. I don't know how you keep track of it all.

Curt


Thank you for the kind words - I'm not sure that I do keep track of it all.

[S&S RR]

Update: I'm continuing to make progress on the projects on my workbenches.  Here is a few progress pictures from the end of the day, today.

[bparrish]

Just plain WOW...........

thanx
Bob

[S&S RR]

Just plain WOW...........

thanx
Bob

Bob


Thank you, it's all about the details.

[Zephyrus52246]

I'll second Bob's Wow.  I have trouble keeping track of two builds at a time (so I try to avoid it). 

Jeff

[PaulS]

John,
Fantastic modeling as always ...
And I'll echo Jeff's comment, always amazed at how you plan and execute (juggle) multiple projects seamlessly !!
Great stuff and love how your rendition of Sayles Mill is coming along, splendid !
All the best,
--paul

[Mark Dalrymple]

Looking good, John.

The mill, in particular, is looking great.  Those colours all blend together superbly.  It really is a fascinating complex.

Attached is an image of a fly rafter diagram.  Sometimes in yours (and in many, many others work) I keep seeing fly rafters attached to the side of the cladding.  The gable wall to which this cladding is attached supports the roof here, so the rafters against the cladding are redundant - nothing more than an expensive piece of trim.  When there is a very narrow overhang (6 inches) the purlins can support this roof overhang without extra support and without the roof noticeably sagging.  More than this and a fly rafter is needed.  The diagram shows how we always built these fly rafters.  You can see that the gable wall is kept the thickness of the rafter lower than the other trusses and outriggers run from the first truss in, across the gable wall, and out to the fly rafter.  Purlins are then attached above these forming an L-girder.  Dwangs (nogs) are installed between the outriggers down the rake of the gable wall to stop twisting and to add strength (we dwanged all the way down - they only show the top area dwanged here).  A short rafter is added over the bottom of the gable wall running in line with it to give fixing for the bottom purlin at this point.

This is a comment I have thought about posting in many places many, many times.  I think this is no doubt one of many mistakes we make as modelers by copying other modelers work rather than the prototype.  Its a compounding problem.  I think maybe some manufacturers are producing models with instructions telling people to do it this way - which if this is the case, would certainly add to the problem.  I have looked up Campbell plans and as expected, these are done correctly.

I hope this is taken as a future improvement rather than a criticism.  As I said, it is something I see over and over again.

Cheers, Mark.

[postalkarl]

Hey John:

All of those structures look just beautiful.

Karl

[S&S RR]

I'll second Bob's Wow.  I have trouble keeping track of two builds at a time (so I try to avoid it). 

Jeff

Jeff


Thank you for following along and the kind comments. I may have posted this before but the reason I always have many builds going at once is because this is the way I was programed through my 38 year work career. I was responsible for the tooling for car programs and there were over 400 dies being built for one car at any give point in time.  So I spent my day going from job to job checking status, solving problems, and feeding back design changes to the product engineers. So now in my second career, building a railroad, I move between four workbenches.  Today, I was adding roof tiles on the Hooker & son build, adding scenery and details castings to the Sayles build, adding window castings on the FSM Tribute, and final details were being added to the FSM Water Tower.  I work on one structure at a time until on need to let it rest, because I'm bored with doing the same task for hour,  or I need to let glue or paint dry to keep from messing something up. Short answer it's the way I roll.