My new sand house

[trammayo]

It is nearly two months ago since I saw Steven Large's thread on his newly acquired Sand House. I really liked it and thought that my trailer layout would benefit from one. After trawling the net (no puns intended) I could see that no two were alike so this gave me plenty of room for manoeuvre!

The sand house/depot (call it what you will) is built from 5mm thick foam-board - the type sandwiched between thin white card - detailed with strips of wood to represent a boarded structure. The roof is corrugated (recycled from the ubiquitous Baked Beans tin) nailed to scrap timber and the ridge is recycled beer can material. Windows are from the scrap box glazed with plastic from a damaged CD case lid. The door openings were cut out and the pieces set back in the opening - one receiving stripwood to represent a four-panel door and the other scribed vertically. Door knobs courtesy of the wife's sewing box.

The stove chimneys are 10mm dia. dowel with the caps turned from 20mm dia. dowel. Stays are from mig welding wire.

Advertisements were captured from various sources, printed out on photo paper and varnished before cutting out. The red colouring is red oxide primer and the yellow is emulsion.

The whole is set on a scrap piece of hardboard (previously painted both sides) and the board walk glued directly to this and given a grey wash of oil based undercoat and mainly turps. The air hose is from a piece of 1.5 wire (stripped from some twin & earth cable) with the copper pulled out partly from the insulation to give the effect of a hose at one end and something hard to shove through the wall.

More to follow later.

Mick

 

[Bram]

That's a lovely bit of modelling, looks good. SWMBO has just looked over me shoulder and asked what the black snake was for... I've sent her back to the kitchen

 

[stevedenver]

very nice-has a good feel to it-simple but working
particularly like the roof apex detail-flashing etc

 

[trammayo]

Well that made me chuckle Bram - I thought of a reply (then I thought I'd better not). Yes the roof Steve, if we hadn't converted to showers I could have had a bubble bath (or more).
Any way, a few more details with pics;-

The tower is built from 10mm dowel (uprights), 6mm for the horizontal pieces, and some 2.5mm welding electrodes with the silica bashed off. The tower is fixed to a base of 9mm ply, suitabled disguised. These models cannot be permanently fixed down because they will grace the removable baseboard and they will have to be packed away after every show so they need to be robust enough to withstand travelling in the trailer.

The hopper at the top is a Tesco baking powder container with a part of another container for the base. The outlet pipe is formed from another piece of 2.5mm welding rod. When I was building the trailer I purchased a large box of these rods and had nothing but trouble with them (continually having to strike the arc) so they were relegated to emergency use after I got a pack of decent electrodes.

The hose is made from a piece of soft plastic tube with a piece of welding rod in the end - this allows gravity to become more effective. The ladder is made from two pieces of stripwood and the rungs from 25mm veneer pins with the heads and points removed. All holes were pre-drilled by hand (finger and thumb actually) using a pin vice. The coal bunker - I assume this or coke was used for the stoves - was formed from scrap wood, with the coal heap being formed from some foam bits I saved from fixing the double glazing. Coal is horticultural grit glued down and sprayed gloss black.

The sand bunker is made the same way as the coal one except the foam pieces were covered in PVA and some paper kitchen towel stippled over to cover any gaps. When dry, the "heap" was covered in PVA again and liberally dosed with sifted sand. THe sand had to be sifted because the same sand (alluvial/glacial) is used both for concrete and mortar and, in my case, would have been well out of scale otherwise.

and thats it for now. Might add some more detailing but need to make some boxes to store the the three pieces in. I will also need to alter my layout but this will not be until next April when I drag the trailer out of the hayshed - not so much for the start of the (agricultural) show season but rather the early arrival of a trailer load or two of turf for the winter fire!

 

[Richie]

Looks fantastic very well modelled will have to put one of these down for another winter project

 

[Old Tom]

Some wonderful detailing on there - excellent 'feel' to the whole thing.

Nice one

 

[korm kormsen]

i like it.
and i like even more the wide range of materials used.

 

[steven large]

[H2]hi..yr is lovely and it superb scatchbuilting and aslo kitbashing a sand house!!!!! well done mate,,,so u need varish on the advert ok?....waterproof varish...so here is my sand depot photos for u to see it..wink.need work on it....[/H2]

 

[nico]

fantastic work

 

[trammayo]

Thanks for your kind comments everybody.
Steven - just love your adaptation of the sandhouse and the dereliction you have created (really reminds me of civilisation as we ex-town dwellers know it!). It was your work that inspired me to make one of my own. It started off clean (as though it had just been repainted) then I decided to make it look, just a litle, grubby using the dregs in a spray can. Not so sure I like it.

Next job will be to see if I can alter the trackwork on my baseboard to create an avoiding loop round the back of the sawmill to join up with the sawmill siding. Might have to extend the baseboard a bit (which will create packing problems in the trailer), so I can put a R/H radius 1 point in. I need to buy some radius 3 points for my garden line which will then release the Rad 1 types for use in the trailer. Talk about quart in a pint pot.

The other project I have in mind is to make the same model in more weather resistant materials for the garden line - so I suppose these are my winter projects!

Mick

 

[trammayo]

I have been pottering around for the last few weeks and added some detailing to my new Sand House. I had a couple of Bachmann figures - engineer from Bachmann 45 tonner and a fireman (which must have dropped off one of my big haulers). The fireman was given a long handled shovel for the sand and just pinned in place by the sand pile but the engineer has had his legs shortened, his arms amputated and fixed back in different poses but, as a consolation prize (not for the pin that fastens his posterior to the crate) he has a mug of coffee to go at.

I made two wooden wheelbarrows (one for coal and the other for the sand), two wood crates, two oill drums, a pair of coffee mugs and a can and stuck lettering on the sand hopper.

Although the detailing isn't all that precise or refined, it doesn't look too bad viewed from a distance (even if I say it myself). I try and keep viewers at least 3 feet away from the trailer and this particular cluster of structures will be at the "back" of the layout - or will be when I redesign the baseboard trackwork.

AS these models have taken up space the house (a few hints from SWMBO) I now have to make some stout cardboard containers to safely store and transport these items. I travelled over 1,200 miles this year with the trailer and usually end up with something to repair after each show!

Anyway, some pics for now as it will be next spring before I can complete the new trackwork. Meanwhile, I am considering making the same in more weratherproof format for my garden line.

Mick

 

[Richie]

Very nice Mick I would say it looks good enough to at the front of your layout

 

[trammayo]

Thanks Richie. Unless I can work out a way to modify my layout it may well be up at the front!

Mick

 

[trammayo]

Well, this past week has been a mixed bag as regards the weather but Tuesday was a good day. The traiiler is in the hay shed and the latter doesn't have full-height doors (I like the Swallows to have free passage!). Because of the horizontal rain we all seem to enjoy, I have to choose a reasonable day to open up the front end of the trailer (the only portion I can actually open up because the main viewing side is up against the wall.

So I decided to put the Sand House structures in the boxes I made and take them down to the barn, along with some spare R1 curves.

With end opened up you can see the baseboards etc strapped to the wall. All this had to be undone to get to the very last board!

This shows what I call looking down the front - the main side that people view - obviously I would need a minimum 4ft gap between the trailer and the wall which I cannot have because of the hay bales and the turf on the other side.

These are the boxes I cobbled together to try and effect safe transport.

This is the Sawmill siding which I want to join up to.

The baseboard (minus connecting track pieces and Sawmill buildings).

I set out the curves and it is possible, by extending the baseboard 6 inches to extend my turning loop and install a R/H point.

Trying out the new buildings for size. With the loop being extended, the buildings will fit in OK.
Now I need to build a new Mill, extend the board and tracking and repaint the base.

Mick