Garden Railway Forum

I needed to revamp part of the stream which runs beside my railway because :

• a) I thought I had a leak,
  b) the trackbed had sunk slightly beside it owing to mouse excavations,
  c) I wanted to create a mill stream / race for the water mill

As it turned out there was no leak in the stream lining ...... but I did sort out the other problems and tracked down the leak. For those interested - here' what I did - http://riksrailway.blogspot.com/2017/07 ... tream.html

Rik

Very well explained and illustrated Rik, I am not a fan of maintenance for its own sake but to be able to improve a site and add further detailing too makes it all worthwhile.

Excellent Rik and thanks for the Blog explanation.
I've always been envious of your stream, and even more so now.

Looked like a major task. At least you had the help of the blackbird.

Great work Rik. I've always admired your stream from the moment I first saw it. The tracklaying looks good too, nice geometry.

It's lovely to see the wildlife taking an interest.

Andrew

Must echo what others have said Rik, and I sympathize with your leak problem as I have the same. I just love the overgrown trackwork to the right of the stream. I imagine you would be building an undershot style of wheel for your mill. Getting mine to turn slowly and steadily took some thought. I have a large gear wheel and a square wooden box attached to the shaft inside the millhouse. The box has four holes in the sides and has about 8 small hardwood blocks rattling around inside and provides a nice chunky wooden gear type noise as the wheel rotates.
I later added the small battens inside the box as shown, as it caused the blocks to tumble to a greater extent.
Just something for you to ponder.
Grant.

Hi Rik,

thank you for posting this. Highly entertaining and informative as usual. Top notch presentation. However you have now given me even more ideas for projects to start when I have got far too many on the go already. We have a stream running under the garden but not where the railway is, maybe I could get them together somehow .....

thanks

Dave

p.s. I was trying to squeeze a computer mouse joke in somewhere but I left it out as I thought that would be taking the mickey.

LNR wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2017 3:06 am Must echo what others have said Rik, and I sympathize with your leak problem as I have the same. I just love the overgrown trackwork to the right of the stream. I imagine you would be building an undershot style of wheel for your mill. Getting mine to turn slowly and steadily took some thought. I have a large gear wheel and a square wooden box attached to the shaft inside the millhouse. The box has four holes in the sides and has about 8 small hardwood blocks rattling around inside and provides a nice chunky wooden gear type noise as the wheel rotates.

Untitled.jpg

I later added the small battens inside the box as shown, as it caused the blocks to tumble to a greater extent.
Just something for you to ponder.
Grant.

Hi Grant
That's really useful, thanks. I was wondering how to slow down the wheel by some mechanical means - your idea has the added bonus of natural sound effects.

My wheel will be undershot. There are three working water mills nearby all on the 'River' Gowy (which is little more than a stream). One is overshot (Bunbury), one is (I think) breast-shot (Bates Mill - privately owned and so not accessible. He uses the wheel t generate electricity) and the other is undershot Poncelet (Walk Mill). I've made a little video of Walk Mill - I'm so impressed by how much energy they extract from little more than a two foot head of water.



Rik

Great video Rik, they are amazing pieces of machinery. I imagine the diameter of the wheel accounts for the amount of torque, mine is overshot and 12" diam. It is very hard to stop with very little water going over it. Looking forward to the build.
Grant.

I would love to have a water feature like that in my garden or railway.

For the wheel Rik could you not connect it to one of the ZeCar toys which would stop it spinning really fast as it has a flywheel?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kikkerland-Zec ... B000L2JVKW

You can hide the device in the building and connect the wheel to the axle.

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:27 pm I would love to have a water feature like that in my garden or railway.

For the wheel Rik could you not connect it to one of the ZeCar toys which would stop it spinning really fast as it has a flywheel?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kikkerland-Zec ... B000L2JVKW

You can hide the device in the building and connect the wheel to the axle.

Another possibility, Tom. Looks like I need to do some experimenting

Rik

The sun shone this afternoon, so I decided to test-run the stream .....



Rik

Ah! the sounds of gurgling water, very relaxing I find. You've certainly got a raging torrent by Australian standards Rik, should easily drive a mill wheel.
Grant.

A thing of great natural beauty and a work of art too! That is spectacular! Although it is recent work it looks so well established, top marks.

Beautiful.

Great item Rik - I love the way you tell the story with words and pics - I always forget to take pics at each stage so leaving gaps in the story

Love the stream - with me running at 4 feet off the ground, the weight often wet stuff is always going to make doing anything meaningful with water on my line very hard work - I have recently been gifted a good length of blue water piping so I am thinking how I could get something including, maybe a waterfall behind and then under the line!

One for next year I think though

markoteal wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:04 am Love the stream - with me running at 4 feet off the ground, the weight often wet stuff is always going to make doing anything meaningful with water on my line very hard work - I have recently been gifted a good length of blue water piping so I am thinking how I could get something including, maybe a waterfall behind and then under the line!

One for next year I think though

That would be an interesting project. Be interested in seeing how it goes.

Rik

Love your idea on the Water Mill Rik, where can i see a video of it please, i have been on you Blog, but i am not able to find one on it.

FWLR wrote: ↑Fri Sep 15, 2017 8:32 am Love your idea on the Water Mill Rik, where can i see a video of it please, i have been on you Blog, but i am not able to find one on it.

Hi Rod
Do you mean a video of the model mill? I assume so as there is a link to the video of the mills I'm basing the model on in the thread.

I've not actually constructed the mill as yet but, by coincidence, I am literally in the process of constructing it at this very moment - in fact the tablet on which I'm writing this reply is resting on the sheet of pvc foamboard I'm marking up for the ends of the building.

Foamboard is a new venture for me. I'm using it for the first time for this project - partly inspired by FBGR's thread ( https://gardenrails.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10112 ) and also by the models on the In-ko-pah railroad (http://www.freerails.com/view_topic.php ... forum_id=6).

I decided to use foamboard after discovering that it would cost me over £50 to clad the shell of the building with brick embossed plasticard. It's a bit tedious impressing the brickwork into the foamboard, but very satisfying as the courses can be tailored to suit the structure of the building.

When I've finished the mill, I'll post a full description of its construction on my blog and an outline on the forum but, in the meantime, here's a shot of the first side of the building which I've so far completed.

Rik

Yes, it is very satisfying to worth with and your mill is looking good so far.

I've been meaning to ask for ages, roughly, how long is your stream, end to end? its difficult to get a handle on from the various videos, because it has so many different viewpoints.