Ponty Mine , Old South Wales .

[shropshire lad]

I have finally got around to posting some photos of what I am working on at the moment . This is going to be a model of a fairly recent coal mine that was in operation about 20 years ago . It has since disappeared . I was inspired by a set of photos I came across in a book that I bought a few years ago  , called " Small mines of South Wales vol. 2 " by A J Booth . This is one of a collection of four books that document some of the smaller and very often unknown mines around Britain . South Wales merits two volumes on its own . Within these four books there is a wealth of modelling inspiration and I reckon I could spend the rest of my modelling years just building dioramas from these books . Well worth buying if you come across them .

   I shall start by showing the photos I had to work with . I apologise for the poor quality of the photos but they are just scans of the book and the photos themselves are not up to much .

   My progress shots will follow .

   Nick

   

[shropshire lad]

First two pages

[shropshire lad]

Next page

[shropshire lad]

And the last page .

[danpickard]

Welcome back Sir!
That looks like it has some decent potential.  Certainly lots of individual elements for detailing.  Interesting mix of some old and newer parts. 
Is this planned as a static diorama, or are there complex plans to get the incline a working feature?

Cheers,
Dan

[mad gerald]

... not very much bricks involved then, I presume (regarding the pics) ...   ... (interesting choice anyway!)

Cheers

[Gordon Ferguson]

Good to see you back Nick,

Think you had better post that cement block building you have done ..... You know you want you 

[shropshire lad]

At the moment I have no plans to make the model into anything other than static .

As the saying goes " Man cannot live by bricks alone " , you've got to add some concrete blocks into the mix .

I had been waiting to start this project until a suitable means of reproducing the large number of 9" concrete blocks that would be needed . This was presented to me by Diorama Debris in the form of a couple of experimental moulds . After much trial and error I have devised a method of casting the blocks that make them look convincing in 1/35th scale . This , however , does not include the use of plaster , rather a resin that is added to sawdust to make a wood filler . This , I suspect , is not that easy to get hold of . I just happened to have a can kicking around .

   At the moment these moulds are not available to buy and I am not sure if there is any intention in doing so , so if you want some , you will need to pester those good people at Diorama Debris to put them into production .

Having cast several hundred blocks last September I spent part of my holiday in Scotland building the office building and the retaining wall .

  There were a couple of other hurdles to overcome before I could get properly stuck into the project . The first was to find as suitable model to represent the front end loader . This I managed to do by buying , what appears to be , one of the last front end loader kits made by MIG Productions available in Britain .

  The other was how to represent the arched steel girders that were used in the entrances to the adits . The solution was provided by Barney who built me half a dozen out of styrene .

I will try and post some photos that I have got on my iPad and see if I can make it work ,

Nick

[TRAINS1941]

Well it certainly is good to see you back with something to say!

Looks to be a very nice diorama.  Hopefully pictures will follow?

Jerry

[Ray Dunakin]

Very interesting prototype! Should be a fun build.

[darrylhuffman]

The 4 books you refer to are exceptionally good books for anyone interested in small, industrial railways.

I look forward to your progress reports.

[finescalerr]

A subject right up your alley, assuming you actually have an alley. I expect (and demand) your usual absolute perfection. Please post photos of every step. And try to stay out of the corner long enough to make some real progress on this thing. -- Russ

[Chuck Doan]

Glad to see you back at the bench Nick!

[shropshire lad]

I have finally got around to sorting out some work in progress photos . Blurb to follow .

[shropshire lad]

The turnouts were made by Bernard , but have become obsolete because he has superseded them with a newer version . I removed to motors to make them fit .