An irregular series on the construction of an HO bandsaw mill kit from Keystone Locomotive Works:
It is not a rapid process, but the equipment for the main floor of the sawmill is getting assembled and installed. There are eleven major pieces of equipment on the sawmill floor that are provided by the kit. This would not include any extra details that I may wish to add, such as some little workbenches for the maintenance crew. I now have seven of those eleven pieces installed:
I have not yet installed the pistons of the shotgun cylinder, as I want to wait until the actual bandsaws are in place to position the shotgun carriages with logs aboard in the sawing process.
One difficulty I have encountered is in selecting colors for the various equipment. The period photos are all in black & white. I am going on the assumption that most of the framing would be made from locally-cut wood. I’m wishing to show a working sawmill that is not new but is generally well maintained. I recognize that most of the equipment would have had grease bearings back then, and so some grime would certainly accumulate. For the cast white metal pieces that are to look like wood, I use Floquil “Foundation” then covered with a wash of Polly Scale grimy black. For any major industrial metal pieces, I’m going with Depot Olive washed with grimy black.
I have been using several sources to suppliment the instructions. Book #12 in the Logging Railroad Era of Lumbering in Pennsylvania is titled Dinkies, Dams and Sawdust by Benjamin F. G. Kline, and chapter 12-6 has good information on the interior of the sawmills of the period. Also, there was a series of articles titled “The Sawmill Chronicles” in Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette in 1984-86. Although t