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Interesting project.

Bernd,

From the regularity of the blocks I would guess they are cast concrete, not stone. Or, is that what you meant by stone?

If you made one and made a rtv rubber mold you could cast innumerable identical blocks.

Mike

Neat project! I look forward to following along!

Looks like a great project. Mike is right, they are cast stones. You could carve the master for

one stone or crinkle some aluminum foil to get the roughness, pour some plaster over it, and

cut one stone from that. Once you have that one stone (plus the smooth corner stone), then you

can make a rubber mold and cast as many as you need from plaster or resin.

Bob

That looks super! The locos are excellent as well

Like Michael and Bob, those look like cinder block 'stones' rather than the real thing. There was a nice article (by Michael Tylick?) in the MRR magazine years ago about casting them. He pointed out that because each block is identical is has quite a different look to a stone wall. Are you modelling in O or HO?

Bernd,

How about using a piece of balsa wood in the CNC mill to make your pattern. cut the mortar lines a little deeper, and then press that facing down for the individual blocks. Make the mould from it. Do you think that rounded top edge of the blocks is from erosion? Maybe it's the lighting from the sun that makes it look like the smoothing is more pronounced on the upper part of the blocks. You'll figure it out, you always do.

Jim

I'll be following along too. :up:

Bernd,

By golly, I hope all of the seats aren't taken yet. I will be following along with you too.

Rich

Bernd, an idea for a faster way to do the "stone" walls might be to try the same technique some guys use to model paving stone streets: Shape the ferrel of an old paint brush (after removing all the bristles) to the correct size and use it to stamp the motar lines between the stones on a wall section laid flat on your work space.

You could then scrape the faces of those corner stones flat and smooth. That last part could be a little tedious, but overall the method probably still would be faster than casting and laying all the stones individually.

WOW, what an audience. Thanks guys. There are plenty of chairs to sit in. One thing I want you guys to do, and that is if I slack off for any length of time to give me a kick in the butt. I have a habit of getting enthused on a project and then lose interest as I go along.

Now let’s see about those suggestions.

First Michael Hohn said


Yes, you are right they are cast concrete. I am looking for that texture on the surface. I believe it will be had to create in HO scale. I’ve already played with a couple of pieces of plaster I had laying around. Cut it approximately to and HO scale block and then broke the end off. The outcome was nothing I was looking for. For the crusher building I’m going to go with limestone blocks. I just need to figure out a size.

BTW, I did finally find the pictures I took. It was only the front of the building and I now remember why I took them. It wasn’t so much the texture or what they were made out of, but the size. I never did get to measure them. Anybody got any good guesses?







@stgbob

I agree they are cast. They all look alike. Funny thing about the crinkled aluminum foil, I thought of that also. I have an idea about how I might want to use that on the rock storage bunker casting. At present I’m leaning toward another idea on the crusher building. I’ll summit it up at the end of this thread.

@Neil

I think I remember that article or one similar. Any idea about what year that article may have been? I’m in HO and the three different gauges, HO standard, HOn3 and HOn30

The loco’s are both written up in threads on the forum. The green ones was a tribute build to “Geezer” and the electrics were sort of an SBS thread.

@Jim

One thing with the mill is I haven’t taken time to learn how to program it for 3D milling if you’re talking about the CNC Sherline mill. As I said above to Mike and Bob they are cast. The pattern looks to repetitive. Take a look at my three pictures again.

Karl and Rich, I have two seats reserved for you right down in front.

Now here’s what I have in mind for the bottom half of the rock crusher building. I’m going to go with cut limestone blocks with smooth sides. I’ll leave the rough looking block when I eventually get around to doing the roundhouse. BTW here’s a pic of that roundhouse off the net.



As for how I’m going to make the blocks. When I started the quarry line I wanted to have a pit where blocks of limestone were being cut and loaded onto flat cars. My idea was to use soapstone. The material that was once used to make sinks back in the day and is still used in wood fired stoves today. The material is workable with plain steal tools. It’s soft, but won’t break very easily. Here is a pic of a piece being cut in a hand powered miter saw.



So I close with that picture for now. I’m going to see what can be done to make scale blocks for the crusher building.

Until next time.

Bernd

Hi Bill,

Yes, I've seem that technique being used. Not really a fan of that technique though. Thanks for mentioning it.

Bernd

I don't think anyone has done a model in soapstone before! This will be fun to watch!

dave

Hum, I see many Egyptians at work cutting stone.