I decided to design my own pumphouse to support my windmill using some styrene I had on hand, part of a Piko shingle roof, and a door from Stoneworks.  I think it turned out pretty well for my first custom building. 

The exterior is simply a thicker sheet of styrene with battens of thinner styrene glued and plastic welded over the top.  I assembled the door first and used that to create a mockup using poster board to determine the size of the structure.  The roof I just snipped out of the larger Piko shingle roof on my miter saw, covering the peak with some 45-degree styrene corners that came with some other items I ordered from Stoneworks.

Although I didn’t get a picture, I used blocks of 3/4” PVC board to create a solid core that I glued the roof onto.  That separate solid core slides down into the exterior frame, and then silicone to help hold it together.  A hidden solid base underneath unifies it all, with screws inserted behind the removable door and up from the bottom.  To hopefully hold it in place in high winds, I added strapping to the bottom and pounded a large spike into the ground on each side.  We’ll see how well it holds up.  My hope was to be able to create a solid structure that I could dissemble when the time comes to repaint it or if I should choose to add further details.

For the railway I ended up needing two trestles to cross a dry wash, and figured I’d build them myself using some redwood strips I was able to buy on eBay. The actual process was pretty simple, I laid the strips out on the coffee table and adjusted them until they looked good visually. With both trestles the same height, all I’d need to do was to build enough bents for both.

After figuring out how they should look, I simply drew out a scale plan on a sheet of paper and made several copies. Then I just taped the plans down on the workbench under some wax paper and proceeded to cut all the pieces to length. Once I had everything laid out, I simply glued and nailed them together (using an air nailer and a standard outdoor wood glue).

For the trestle decks, I decided to keep them solid, and just glued and nailed four of the strips together. With the straight trestle, assembly was easy. For the curved trestle I had to plot out where each bent would go and then draw out the deck so that I could cut each short section at an angle to match the curve as best as possible while coming together in the middle of each bent. While it took a little trial and error, it worked out well.

Once the trestles were assembled, I used some more of the strips to build some abutments, and then I attached each completed trestle to a piece of green-treated lumber to support it evenly. Then it was just a matter of leveling the ground to get it down to track level and then covering the green-treated board with landscape rock to hide it.

All in all, it was a fairly simple project that’s stood up to the elements, and the rabbits, very well.