Additions

Its seems longer then 8 days, since I posted a progress report. But the last one was on the 2nd and today's the 10th. 
Modeling abounds in those 8 days along with a stab at figuring out the location and size of the mill pond. I've had to order more foam board to help get all the levels correct.
Additionally, I am still fidgeting  where the buildings have to fit in the space. With nothing glued down it's tedious, but until I'm finished building this thing I have to live with it. 

I got to the point where I needed to open up the foam board and use the table top as the pond to get to that next level of fit. I messed around with trying to get trackage into the mill site, and wrote some additional track ideas on the foam at bottom left. I may not be able to sort that out until the model is on the layout.

Log ramps are built with entry trackage on the inside of the mill. The dam is built, its right up against the uncut foam. You can see it peeking out left and right. The two sided rough drying shed without the roof is also complete and resides on the opposite end of the mill.

One last thought for today. I am so happy I took the time to stain every last piece of wood for this project on Day 1. Now I just look up the bag number for the dimensions I need, pull the wood and I'm good to go. As I cut and fit legs or supports the ends are prime wood with no stain, so I go back to the staining and painting table in the garage with a hand full of parts, decks, legs etc and restain the bare ends. Why not - it looks so much better in the end.

Next is the Log Pond dock and Dynamite Shack dock. I am happy to be building that which will stand in the modeled water. 

See you all next time and happy modeling

Space considerations

As previously mentioned , the space needed for the entire Twin Mills Deer Creek diorama is not near what the Placerville Branch layout can provide. 
I decided on woodland scenic's foam board as the diorama's base and took it to the layout and and cut it to the shape of the space available. Once that was done I started by placing the basic four sides of the new mill on the layout to gain perspective as to how this might work not just for space, but for view perspective as well

 

In the above photo, what with only single building half way constructed its a real guessing game what will be included and what will not. I've done enough of these fit ups and compression's to know that it takes time. The more data you have, meaning the more pieces placed on the available space the more the space reveals itself. I know, sounds a bit airy, but its how I at least work out a "what'll fit," problem like this. Here are some other on layout prospective's with the new Mill shell moved around.

My next step was to take everything up to the modeling room, put out a small table, put the foam on it and as I build, move the pieces around to see if i can sort it out that way.  I probably have a good year of building ahead of me, so no rush. I'll move things around when I have a fresh notion.

I'll keep adding to the structures until all structures are built, then I'll sort it out from there. The lower 2 photos show the new and old mills partially built and the boiler house shell tagged onto the new mill
More building next time. Next up; the drying shed.