Withywindle Mill from SimonCox.com

Withywindle mill wins ExpoNG Pizza challenge

Simon Cox — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 24:00:00 GMT

My pizza layout, Withywindle Mill, has won the competition it was built for - the GDNGRS Pizza layout competition! It was a late decision to have a competition at this years ExpoNG so we kept it to members only. On the day there were five layouts but I know of five others that were underway but not finished in time - hopefully we will see them all one day. We needed an impartial judge for the competition so we asked Carl Arendt who runs the very popular Micro/Small layouts for model railroads website who kindly agreed.

The layouts and Carl's commentary on the Pizza layouts are on the November 15th breaking news section of his website where you can see some of the images we sent to Carl for judging.

I have also added some images on my Flickr site of the Pizza layouts.

Withywindle mill in Narrow Gauge Modeller December 2007

Simon Cox — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 24:00:00 GMT

Magazine cover with Withywindle Mill as the main image.

Update

This is of course a spoof. There were quite a few enquiries about where to get the magazine - so many that I did think about creating it for real!

Withywindle Mill progress

Simon Cox — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:00:00 GMT

Withywindle Mill is progressing though perhaps not quite as quick as I would like as the exhibition at Amberley is next month - 6 weeks away. As you can see from the image I have built some landscape - I used a technique called FRocks which uses upholstery foam ripped up and covered in diluted filler. More on the technique can be found at Mario Rapinett's FRocks site.

Hedging is foam and rubberised horsehair. At the moment it looks very dark as I have only under coated everything - I always do this in black and build the colours up on top.

Withywindle Mill - the pizza layout

Simon Cox — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 01:00:00 GMT

I am building a new layout and have decided to name it Withywindle Mill. We are having an internal competition within the GDNGRS this year to build a pizza layout (more on that later) but I have added extra pressure to myself as I intend to display it at the Amberley Railway Gala on the 14th and 15th of July.

My pizza layout is 500mm square with one loop of hand built track. In the middle is a watermill and a stream runs through from one side to the other. A set of sluice gates keep the stream backed up for powering the mill when required and an undershot watermill powers the mill itself. Working in such a confined space means that the scenic details must be top quality to keep the attention of viewers but it does also mean that a layout can be built fairly rapidly - we shall see!

After doing quite a bit of research I have decided that the mill will be based on a fuller mill for textile manufacture which will allow me to give it some history and texture rather than just being a water mill. I intend to power the wheel but lets see how far I get with that! It should not be difficult but I need a really slow motor and a set of gears.

Operationally it's not that exciting with one continuous circle of track and no points but it does allow engines to have a good run in while the operator is busily chatting to people - which is what exhibiting a partly about.

I will put some photos up of progress, as I did with Loxley Barton. in due course.

For more information on pizza layouts you must visit Carl Arendt's Small Layouts Scrapbook site.