Hoist House

Updated 4/20/2009

The hoist house is made from modified DPM walls and Chooch stone walls.  The slate roof is scratchbuilt using shingles from Rusty Stumps.

This view shows the remaining two walls.  The reason for the extra pilasters on some walls is to carry the load of the cable on the sheaves.  Modifying the DPM walls allowed for the staggered openings for the cables and an entry door at gound level with windows above the belt line.

A closeup of the sheaves.  The reason they are at separate heights is because the hoist machinery is a double drum.  And, each drum on the hoist has its cable wound the opposite from the other.  As a result, the cable comes off of one drum at the top while the other has the cable come off the drum at its bottom.

The underside of the roof has a complete truss system.  Nearly 400 individual pieces of styrene strip, angle, and sheet were used to construct this.  In addition, over 1400 rivets were used.

Overhead view of the interior.

A closeup of the hoist machine and steam engines.  Both  are from Western Scale Models.  The hoist kit comes with an electric motor.  I kitbashed the model by adding the steam engines to drive it.

The next four photos show a closeup of the interiior details. Details came from Rusty Stumps, Evergreen Hill Designs, Grandt Line, Durango Press, Alexander Scale Models, Funaro & Camerlengo, Master Creations, Tichy and River Dam Model Works. Note that the cables come off each drum differently:  one at the top and one at the bottom. The "Safety First" sign was created and printed on my home computer.

NMRA scores from judging:

Category Division Region National Construction 32     Detail 19     Conformity 22     Finish and Lettering 24     Scratchbuilding 15     Total 112