A Trip to the Country

Over the June NSW long weekend ,I had the opportunity to visit my Uncle in the Central Tablelands. It was great time to visit and reminisce some of my childhood places I use to go with my family in the country and also to catch up with extended family.  

Like anything my mind is constantly working on how I can get the next project done. What I had in  mind was the first building on my Newtown section of the layout, the grain silos of Crago Flour Mill.

Whilst travelling around the country I did get to view a few silos. 

Above: The large silos at Molong,, Central West NSW

 The basis for the model

The grain silos is a large imposing structure and as I only wanted to represent this as part of a larger section of the layout I aimed to build a low relief version. A search on the internet found a cardboard 4 cell concrete silo kit on Ebay sourced from a South Australian producer , BAM. This would provide a cost effective way to model the Crago Silos.

Above: Contents of the kit, it required the modeler to source their own  "Concrete Cells"

Outside assistance

During my visit at my Uncle's and knowing him being a "Man of the land" both resourceful and handy I asked him if he knew where I could source some PVC pipe from the local hardware store.  

He responded in saving that he had some PVC pipe and will also cut it too. 

Upon my return to my home after the long weekend I spray painted the silos in a plain white colour. 

However, it was only when I starting constructing the corrugated roof and conveyor belt that I had not cut it short enough and I required further trimming and sanding in order to complete the model.

Above: spray painting of the PVC pipe, concrete silos

 Completed model
 I completed the model as per instructions however, to achieve the illusion of silos of the Crago Flour,I changed the arrangement of the 4 cell to a 3 x 3 cell and only included one side of the 3 cell.silo . I cut the original roof in half so I could use it to extend the roof to cover the third concrete cell. Below is the completed silo kit in the desired location on my layout.

I still have to build the actual Mill which lies adjacent to the silos. This will be the next project