The sorting and transfer tables, tool and donkey sheds, log brow, unloading platform, slab conveyor and slab bin OH MY!

 I've been building the Sierra West Mill kit and I have made good progress these past 6 months. The latest flurry of activity has me at the middle of the build. Its best in my opinion to not look too far ahead, but to keep your focus and attention on the here and now. The project seemingly never lets go. In the build manual I'm on page 58 out of 120 pages. So it is getting to the hump of the matter anyways. And it absolutely continues to be a fun build.

The sorting and transfer tables with a small transfer cart was straightforward, although mounting the rails in 5 minute epoxy was a challenge. I ended up using HOn3 spacing. It came out like this;

I had to hack off several scale feet of the sorting table to get it to fit in the space I have which is an overall width  of just 16." Getting the diorama fitted properly in the available space has been an ongoing concern.

The tool and donkey sheds were interesting to build, as they were constructed using 4x4's and were delicate to put together.  Only the donkey shed has a roof at this point. When I start getting into the details of the build the steam donkey with its exhaust poking out of the roof should look good. Here are some photos of the sheds.

Note that at the end of the deck and pointing to the log brow will be a triangular crane that will be used to lift logs off log cars and dump them onto the log brow. The log brow is tilted and angled so the the logs roll off the brow and into the pond.

The log brow was not a difficult build, but its scale bothers me. I hope that when its sitting in the mill pond it will look different. Operationally the movement of log cars in and out of the mill will add to the operations around the mill. 

The last pieces built during this round are the slab bin and slab conveyor. The conveyor will transport wood out of the new mill and connect with the bin.

That is the latest. In progress is the log conveyor to the new mill. Which I'll show next time. Thanks for reading about the Pino Grande mill build on my Placerville branch Rr.