i am starting a new layout (3'X6'), my third. neither of the first two were completed, poor planning on my part left me frustrated. the things i remember from age 6 to 12, when we lived on Granddaddys farm is what i want to include. surface coal mining, the farm itself and the "mill dam". boshell's mill is less than a mile from the farm just across the SLSF mainline.the mill included a sawmill on one side of the creek that cut trestle timbers and crossties for the SLSF and on the others side a gristmill. see the info here: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query...South+of+Route+78,+Townley,+Walker+County,+AL well, i can not get the link to work. (edit)new search for boshell mill will get you to the photos photos. any suggestions on scratch building these structures or modeling this creek would be helpfull . thanks david
I tried your links and the LOC direct with no success. I just put "boshell mill" into Google and it found the LOC links just fine, along with those excellent photos. What a cool place. I can see why you want it. The photos are really good resolution and from useful angles. The first thing you'll need are some rough dimensions and mockups to see if you can fit and pull it off. If you, or somebody you know, is good in Photoshop, you can take those photos, pull the perspective out of them, and make elevation-style 'drawings' to scale so you can at least piece-together cardboard scale mockups of the structures. That will help you lay out the rather complicated site plan you'll need. You can use the cardboard mockups and laminate stripwood products right over top, including what looks like vertical board & batten sheeting. The complex stone piers 'might' have something close enough in a plaster stone bridge abutment casting... that stuff can be cut with an expendable hacksaw if necessary. The water, and lots of it, is probably WS water, or casting resin water, with the cotton-base waterfall in there like in MR and others. Keep this thread going. That's a great project, but a tough one. The one tool that you have now to really help you out is Photoshop. In the 'old days' the lack of measurements or dead-on photos would be a killer, now you can really get around both with just one assumed dimension. Lets see if I have any better luck with posting the link: (nope, I pulled it out). Well, try the google one: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=boshell+mill&btnG=Google+Search
Before the mill was removed or after? I like the water, kinda green and yucky above and below, with an industrial beige right at the falls. Makes me homesick for Pittsburgh! :bear-laugh:
tony, model will be as it was just before it shut down in 1963. one side burned in 1975 when i was in high school the other in the 1980's. many of us were dissapointed the mill was not better protected. being in the very rural coal mining area there was not enough interest.. david
