Brick molding machines

Here are two brick molding machines I constructed, primarily of styrene.  You can compare them to the two views from a vintage brick industry book.  The machines show the molding machines in two modes, one where the wet clay bricks have been forced through the mold and the other where the bricks have been moved forward completely cut and ready to be removed for placement in the cart to go to the ovens.  The molded clay is cut by wires placed at the correct spacing for the bricks.  The levers at the left of the machine are used to move the clay through the wires and forward for removal.  There is a bucket on the painted/finished machine which holds the wet clay to be forced through the mold.  As mentioned before, this is a very old early 1900's process which is still being used on my very old brick works operating in 1939.

HO Model brick molding machines - 1 1/2 inches long

Two views, hand cutting, stiff mud, board delivery brick molding machines

Clay disintegrator model

The clay is transported by an 18"gauge clay dump car from the clay storage bin described earlier, and is dumped at a small conveyor.  The clay is manually shoveled onto the conveyer which moves the clay up and into the disintegrator machine.  This machine has large metal rollers that finely crush the clay.  The disintegrator is steam powered.  The conveyor is powered by a small gasoline engine.  The finely ground clay is ejected out the bottom side opposite the steam engine into a low metal container.  The clay is then shoveled from the container and fed to the brick making machines (not yet constructed).  As you can see this is a manually intensive operation that has continued from many years ago and struggles on in the current 1939 layout period.

The figure above is removing the pulverized clay from the bin.  The small red object by the conveyor wheel is the gasoline engine.

Above is the steam engine that drives the disintegrator.  The steam boiler and engine are small Woodland Scenics kits I had laying around.  The disintegrator, conveyor and gasoline engine are scratch built.

Above is the brick car that moves the wet clay bricks from the brick machine area to the brick ovens.  The car is about 1 & 1/4 inches long with the wheels and bottom frame from a cast metal SS Ltd mine car kit and the superstructure made from styrene strip and styrene angle.  It is modeled after a photo in a vintage brick works book.  The car is designed to hold pallets of wet bricks for transport to the brick ovens.  The car "runs" on an 18" gauge track.

The brick works project is moving slowly but is fun.

Scenery modeling method

One of the tools I use in doing my scenery work is a blender.  I bought my own cheap one as my wife would kill me if I used hers.  It is great for grinding up scenery materials.  One thing I grind up is dead leaves which are freely available in the fall, and can still be found now.  You need to be sure they are totally dry and free of critters such as bugs.  After grinding them thoroughly I strain them though a strainer to remover the large pieces, stems and veins.  The straining process can be repeated if desired.  The resulting finely ground leaves make nice scale model leaves to place under your trees and as a forest base.  I keep the ground leaves in a can and use them as needed.  One nice thing is they are already the correct color for dead leaves.

Another scenery material I grind in the blender is decorator moss which can be found in craft storers such as Michaels.  It is mostly too coarse to use as it comes, but after grinding in the blender it results in smaller chunks and fine material.  The resulting material makes a good rough weedy ground cover which is again the right coloring for weeds.

There are many more natural materials mostly found in a dried condition in the fall to provide you with a varied cheap source of scenic material.

Just some thoughts.

More to come on the brick works which is progressing nicely and should result in more photos soon.

Steam & Tractor show

I attended a steam and tractor show at the county farm museum nearby today.  Neat old engines on display including one steam tractor that was driving around the display area.  My main purpose in going ( I have attend many times in past years) was to get some photos of small engines to model for the portable conveyor I have built to load the clay disintegrator at my model brickworks.  There were a number there of various sizes and types.  One thing I did not realize was that some of the larger vintage engines were driven by propane as early as the mid-late 1800's.  As one of the exhibitors mentioned the early oil fields had engines used to pump the oil that were driven by the natural gas by-product from the oil wells.

Above is the steam tractor.  It has a piercing steam whistle

This is a "scratchbuilt" 1906 Olds rail inspection car built follow plans and photos of the original.  The guy that built it is searching for an authentic Olds engine to power it.

This is a small gasoline driven engine that is what I was looking for to model

This is a small backwoods type sawmill that is a permanent exhibit at the museum.  The saw, driving belt and tractor that is providing the power is to the left out of the photo

A very early tractor which while very rusty was running with lots of pops and puffs