This page updated  19 Febuary 2007

This page is now getting huge so I have provided anchor links to the different structures on this project

Head Gear

Loading Screens

Winding House

Here are some links to suppliers I have used for materials

Antics (plastruct girders)

                                 http://www.expotools.co.uk/1308_1.html

Antics (Wills Kits OO Building Pack Brick Plain Bond)

                                 http://www.railway-models.co.uk/1342_1_1040264.html

Rapid Electronics (Electronic components)

                                 http://www.rapidonline.com/

Rapid Electronics (Pulley cable)

                                 http://www.rapidonline.com

I have always fancied the idea of having a coalmine on the layout and made this view known on another forum last year. A fellow member posted me plans and instructions for a colliery head gear and associated buildings. This, for me, is going to be a big scratch building project, I will update this page as it progresses and post progress reports on the forum.

Lets start then.

Due to my scanner being out of commission I cannot copy the plans onto these pages. Probably a copyright issue as well. my apologies. 

I began by physically measuring the different lengths of plastruct sections I would need and took a trip down to Antics. No individual lengths available so I bought the following

• 1 pack of 4.8mm H section
• 1 pack of 4.8mm I beam
• 1 pack of 2.4mm T section
• 1 pack of 2.4mm Channel
• 1 pack of Air rifle targets ( to relieve the insanity which will undoubtedly get me, as well as saving any unfinished structures as the project advances, but otherwise totally unrelated to the project.)

I stapled the plans of the front and rear elevations to some cork tiles and began cutting the main legs to size out of the 4.8mm H section and pinned them directly onto the plans

Make sure that you pin each leg at the top and bottom (red arrows) as well as using AT LEAST 4 pins each side of each strut to ensure stability

I then cut the cross members to size from the I beam section and pinned these in place also.

When you are satisfied that everything is straight and square use a poly liquid cement to “weld” the components in place. The reason for using the liquid cement as opposed to the tube stuff is that you can take advantage of the capillary action of the cement as it finds its own way into the join.

While the cement is setting I cut and placed the t section spars and fashioned the small backing plates ( shown by the blue arrows in the following photo.) from waste plasticard. The small strip of channel section just to the left of the left hand arrow is just a piece of packing to lift the back plate up to the cross member and spars

When you are happy everything is aligned pin carefully, check again and cement in place. When all the cement is dry carefully unpin the frames and gently lift them from the templates. If they are stuck to the paper, gently run a craft knife, blunt side first, between frame and paper. The main two frames should look something like this. My photos show a slightly bowed appearance, this is my crap photography not my crap modelling skills although they may come into play further on in the project. Also dont worry about the different widths of the frames at the top they are supposed to be.


 
When you have finished the front and rear frames staple the side elevation template to a cork mat and pin the completed frames onto their corresponding positions as shown in the photo below.

 Remember that one frame is longer than the other so line them up using the top of the template not the bottom (see photo for clarification.).

 You can now start to measure, cut 4.8mm I beam X-members and pin them in place.
Don’t forget any strengthening plates! Again, taking advantage of capillary action glue them in place

Next, starting from the top, carefully measure and cut a piece of channel section to to fit the diagonal as highlighted in green, pin and glue. Now cut a small rectangular piece of plasticard (circled in red) to and glue in position according to the template. The other diagonal strut is 2 separate lengths of channel section accurately measured and cut to the correct angles so that they fit snugly against the first diagonal in the middle of the centre strengthening plate. Pin in place and glue. This part is not as difficult as it first seems as the template will guide you.
Follow the same procedure for the bottom bracing. The middle bracing is fashioned from T section and is simply 2 lengths which meet at the top in the middle of the strengthening plate.

When the cement has set you should have a sturdy 3 sided structure. At this point I thought I might have to raid my sons stationary folder for some tracing paper to reverse the template. After further thought I simply pinned the frame into position as shown making sure that the longer frame was level with the top of the platform beam. Use plenty of pins to stop the structure moving to prevent any warping

Ready for the platform and wheels


The platform is a straightforward case of cutting 4.8mm ‘I’ beam for the basic framework and ‘T’ section for the spars. Be sure to photocopy the template as the framework will tend to stick to the paper so you will have to rip the template away when all is set and dry. When the frame is COMPLETELY DRY carefully cement to the main head frame. Cut 4 x 1cm lengths of 4.8 ‘H’ section and “shave” one side to make 4 pieces of channel section and glue in place to support the winding wheels.

Next measure and fit the leg supports. I have used the same ‘H’ section as the main legs

The top cage is next to make and I again used pins and the template to achieve square frame. This was then glued in place onto the main head frame. I will add the micro strip x-members after a trip to Antics.

Ready for the decking and handrails

The decking is cut from wills scenic tongue and groove boarding and the handrails are plastruct ready made handrail.

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Coal Screens

The next Item in the long list of colliery buildings is the loading screens. A loading screen is basically a large building on stilts with rail lines running through to enable easy loading of coal from the pit head into trucks.

I started, as before, by stapling the elevation plan to some cork and pinning the various components into place I used 4.8mm ‘H’ section and 4.8mm ‘I’ section for all stantions and struts and “Wills” brick and corrugated iron for panels I also invested in a windows and doors pack. Always cut window openings from the back side of the plastic then if your knife slips the brickwork is not spoiled.

I cut the panels slightly large and carefully trimmed them down to a good fit. This prevents wasting a panel if you cut to exact measurements and your knife slips. The above photos show the production of the front and rear elevations but I actually produced the side elevations first.

Note the small square cut in the top right hand corner this is for a conveyor from the pit head With a temporary roof and some track it starts to come to life.

So we now have a basic empty structure in need of some internal and external elements.

The floor is a simple case of measuring and cutting a section of plasticard Conveyers are used to load the trucks so I set the gears in motion. The photo above show the basic ingredients to make a small conveyer to protrude from the underside of the floor

• 2 x 3 lengths of 4.8mm ‘H’ section
• 7mm wide strip of thin plasticard
• waste plastic from a kit moulding (must be round)
• 2 short lengths of 2.4mm ‘T’ section (not shown)

Begin by gluing the ‘H’ section together and cutting a 10mm length of waste plastic from the kit mould and gluing this to one end You can see from the photo that I have also “shaved” the middle slightly so that the belt will sit snugly in the channel. I made 3 of these one for each track lane. I then painted them a suitable colour in this case humbrol 96. Paint the belting  black and leave to dry. Once it is completely dry you can cut it into lengths of 7” and wrap and glue into place. I used bostik all purpose for this as the poly cement doesn’t bond through the paint. Make sure to leave a “saggy” belt on the bottom side of the conveyer. Next job is to carefully measure and cut 3 holes in the floor as shown below Take a deep breath and glue the short ‘T’ sections to the conveyer end to make hanging brackets and then glue the whole thing to the floor. Note the hanging belts. Glue 2 lengths of ‘H’ section in between the conveyers.  The floor can now be painted Carefully fit the floor into the structure and glue in place. I then made a simple sloping floor from the coal inlet hole and attached “spreaders”. I do not know if this is right but the spreaders will enable me to glue coal heaps against them. Here you can see the sloping floor in place and painted

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Winding House

No Colliery would be complete without a winding house. Winding houses drive the head gear cages from the pit depths to the surface. I have no plan or drawing for this structure so this is my first attempt at true scratch building. I decided a basic four sided square built from wills brick sheet. I had a couple of sheets with arched windows in from an abandoned Engine shed kit. These became the front and back of the building with a rather grand looking door and frame from the Wills windows and doors pack placed in the middle of the front sheet. The lopsided holes are for the winding cables. The next item on the agenda is a chimney and I decided on a 1” square X 3” tall corner mounted structure. The building also needs a floor to mount the motors onto. I made the floor from 1/8” thick Basswood. I knew which motors I wanted  to use but could not find them. They were from the real robot magazine project and were from the drive wheels. I had the mounts and wheels, reduction gearing and spindles but no motors. Plan B came into being when I took apart a “rumble robot” The main drive motors were mounted in a plastic sleeve side by side. This was perfect for my needs but they were too long so I cut a hole in the back wall and added a lean to to hose the motor housing. Then I found the “real robot” motors. Never mind the lean to will add dimension to the building. I fitted the motors to the gearing and glued them into position on the winding house floor with each “wheel pulley” lined up with a cable hole A simple roof made from wills tile sheets with a square cut for the chimney was then added but not glued as I need access to the motors when I place it into the layout. Each motor will run independently of each other with an auto reverse circuit.

The electronics of the winding house is based around a station shunt project I found in the IC 555 projects book by EA parr (click this link to buy from amazon  IC 555 PROJECTS )

The above picture is for the stripboard curcuit diagram (please ignore the resistor in the bottom right corner. The following picture is a scan of the circuit diagram showing the component values

The basic Idea is that the IC 555 will switch the changeover relay every 12 seconds which will then reverse each motor. When the winding house and pithead gear are connected by “winding cables” this will give the illusion of one shaft cage going up when the other is going down with the whole thing automatically reversing after 12 seconds. This has the advantage of not having to use a continuous loop of “winding cable” but just a single cable for each motor which is weighted under the baseboard. Watch this space for more frustrated developments as I try to align winding house with pit head (should be fun - not!!)

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