The Silos is finished

It took a while. But the flour mill / grain silos industry on Chatham is now finished! The finishing touch was a grain unloading shed to suggest covered hoppers being unloaded into the silos. So now the industry can receive various grains in covered hoppers, and can send flour out in covered hoppers or bagged in box cars.

The silos and storage building have been complete for quite some time, but the unloading shed was really a 'last minute' addition - I didn't think an uncovered unloading hatch would have been very prototypical (if anyone has seen one, I would be interest in hearing about it).

The grain unloading shed was built from balsa 'posts', coffee stirrers for the internal framing and weatherboards for one wall, close to scale silver corrugated cardboard made to look like rusty corrugated iron sheets for the other wall and the roof.

The silos were given a decent dose of grime to make them look old too.

The end result looks somewhat rustic, and run down and in need of a good coat of paint - something that appeals to me! To me it gives the impression that it was constructed hastily with a plan to built a more substantial structure to replace it when time and/or money permitted. And as is often the case, that 'more substantial' structure never eventuated.

Some photos of the finished product are included in this post.