| Milling Caps |
 The 1/4″ Poplar mills pretty well. The hardest part is keeping everything aligned in the mill. I basically have a stop at the far end that the wood butts against. Once I get the notch right in a scratch piece of wood I run all eight caps through .. then move the table enough to cut the right notch width and repeat.
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| Milling Completed |
 Finished milling the notched in the caps. Once set up the milling wasn’t a problem. What was .. was the setting up. I need to purchase some Parallels. Micro-Mark has a set but they are WAY too large – 20-piece Parallel Set. Heck .. the vise on my mini-mill is ONLY 1/2″ deep.
The 1927 Talbot Van is just in the photo to show the size of the caps (Talbot is 1:50) |
| Texturing Completed |
 I used a razor saw to texture each and every one of the pilings and caps. It’s true that for the most part these will be hid under the pier. That being said I can guarantee that if you don’t texture them all then the one that you CAN see .. would also be one that hadn’t been textured. It’s some kind of Corollary to Murphy’s law I think. Murphy’s law states “If anything can go wrong, it will”. I like one of the Corollaries (or perhaps just another of Murphy’s laws) is .. “No matter how perfect things are made to appear, Murphy’s law will take effect and screw it up.”
So. I textured everything. The pier will be right at the edge of the layout .. perfect for anyone to stoop down and peer under the pier (I like that). |
| I think I will go ahead and start coloring .. graying followed by something that will look like creosoting .. curious to see how the will look. |
| Creosoting |
Creosoted pilings and pile caps Think it came out pretty good. I used some brown RIT dye to color the bottoms a brown and then came back after that had dried with some AI on the bottom .. diluted and spread out with mopping on some more brown RIT. Yep. Think that will work ok. I may try something. I notice that looking at old creosoted pilings there are often almost a crust of creosote/tar. I might try mixing some Spackle and black acrylic and using a small bit of sponge to add that |
| Fender |
 No actual modeling tonight .. just some virtual stuff. I looked in my strip wood box and found some 1/8″ strip wood. Cool. I said earlier that I had looked at some full-size timbers at Lowes and that the 6″ x 6′ timbers are BIG!. My little dock isn’t going to have the SS United States docking but much smaller boats. Heck. It’s only ten feet above the water. Fenders measuring 6″ x 6″ would be fine.
So. The original design had the fender timbers as 8″ x 8″. That was just a ‘what if’. Since I am planning to use my Proxxon Mini-Mill to notch the timbers I had to have the plans right to start – (you can’t spin gold from dross) .. so I spent some time modifying the plans to use the 1/8″ .. aka .. 6′ x 6″ timbers. Just for fun. In the photo to the left the top design uses the 8″ x 8″ fender timbers and the bottom the 6′ x 6″ versions. |
| More Creosoting |
 Tried something last night. Mixed some black acrylic with modge-podge and daubed at a couple of the pilings using a sponge. Just while ago I came back with some of the RIT brown stain and swiped over the ‘tar’. Dominic Fawver suggested some drybrushing at the waterline .. which prompted the additional wash of brown. I’m thinking that after everything is in place and the waterline is set I will come back with pure AI and darken the pilings at that waterline.
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yup i like it