An old tailings dump.

Lurking in my box of treasures was a little wooden loading ramp.  Suitably de-constructed it provides the perfect disused tailings dump platform for the Lady Wendy Mine.

I bet there are some snakes under there!

In context

And another miner's shack

I'd hope to squeeze three shacks in but there isn't really room so this will be the last. Here are the two sited on the little bluff at San Felipe de Tapas.

Jeb Bush has just put fancy new green tarpaper on his roof. Tiddles the cat seems to approve.

Next door old man Schmidt is a keen gardener even though room to grow is in short supply.

The two cabins

Another miner's shack

Just finishing this off then with another to be built it will occupy the little bluff overlooking the diner and the Plughole Falls.  I had a little piece of Heki or Noch resin stone wall left so used it for the back wall. The rest is board on board over card and the roofing felt is just painted typing paper strips. A one day project and fun to do.

The mining sector of Cuspidor almost finished.

Here is the vista showing two of the three mines on this wall.  I just have to add the tramlines to the tram trestle and install it.  I'm pretty pleased with the seam between the access hatch and the layout.  Lots of foliage and a few trees to be added plus more trash outside the mine shacks.

Saratoga Mine at left and the Lady Wendy at the right.

Miner's shacks for the Lady Wendy Mine - no more bath nights!

I mentioned to a friend on Trainlife.com that the shacks needed a tin bath.  No sooner had I had the thought than I knew I'd have to make one. It took a strip of foil from a proper wine bottle top for the sides and base, a pencil to shape it on and a strip of sellotape plus a lot of gel and plain ACC to fit the sides to the bottom.

Miner's shacks for the Lady Wendy Mine

I reworked the bluff to the right of the mine so that I could put up some miner's cabins.  

Suitably derelict and ready to go

Rudimentary interior detail

A bit more detail

The broken glass from the windows is microscope slide glass ground up. This is a hazardous process and demands eye protection and care.

The Lady Wendy Mine

One of Cuspidor's early gold mines, the Lady Wendy, played out long ago. Named for the beloved wife of the owner and for the present Mrs K it, (not the present Mrs K, perish the thought), is now run down and abandoned.  Unlike the nearby Saratoga Mine this old place is not sitting on a vein of sought-after rare earth metal, only some quartz and pyrites of no value, so she sits and moulders away while time and weather take their toll.   I pinched the basic design of the structure from a kit company and built it from scratch using scale shiplap for the walls (except the rear walls which are plain balsa as they won't be seen).

The roof is card overlaid with birch stripwood. The tarpaper roof was an experiment, it is strips of black gaffer tape, painted with black acrylic and weathered with washes.  I'm not sure it is a technique I'll use again. The sharp eyed viewer will notice that the hole in the roof betrays the fact that I goofed. The purlins and rafters are the wrong way round! Too late to change and hopefully no-one cares enough to complain!  I still have to disguise the seams but think I have figured a way to do it. All in all I'm very pleased with this simple structure and there's more detail to be added when I get time to play.

The base of the mine and access hatch to track below

The two mines