March 3, 2025
I have decided to create a model of the Johnson Woolen Mill. This mill has been in business for over 100 years and still going strong. Its another historic building in the town of Johnson, Vermont. I will be donating the model to the historical society when its finished. First here are a couple pictures of the buildings I will be modeling.
March 3, 2025
I have visited the Woolen mill and taken more pictures of how it looks now. I have also drawn up plans for the walls that will be needed to create the building. I’m looking into having the windows and doors laser cut this time instead of doing it by hand myself. Depends on the cost if I go that way or not.
March 18, 2025
I’m looking into getting my walls laser cut instead of cutting them by hand. Not sure how this is going to work but will add this information once I have it completed. I do have all the blueprints drawn out and submitted to the company for the cutting. Here are my blueprints. There actually drawn by hand not real blueprints.
As you can see there are lots of walls and lots of windows. Next I will be waiting to see if the person I have asked can cut my walls out.
April 4, 2025
I have all my walls cut and braced so they are now ready for painting. The plan to have the walls cut has not worked out so I decided to cut them myself. Here are the pictures of the walls. As you can see Building one has less walls then Building 2.
My 27, 2025
I have made some progress in the Johnson Woolen Mill. I have painted all the walls and windows. below you can see that I also have attached three walls on building 1, and pictures of the fourth wall and floor as well as a cutting table I am experimenting with. I also have all the walls for building 2 painted as well as the windows for that building painted and installed.
June 5,2025
I have been working on the woolen mill building. I am working on Building one interior. I decided the first/ground floor would have no longer been used as it has flooded in the past and therefore only used for certain machinery. I have therefore been working on the second floor and have created racks for the rolls of wool and cloth. I decided that there would also be a table where the fabric is cut down into patterns of the clothing that will be made into jackets and etc. I also installed the stairway going down to the first floor. There is a stairway from the third floor landing on this second floor but I will wait and install that later. Here is a picture of the floor
June 8, 2025
So a change of direction. I had planned to finish the interior of the 2nd and 3rd floors of Building 1, however realized this is going to be a background building and not always viewed. I decided that only the top floor will be finished inside and that would house all the racks of fabric used in the manufacturing of the clothing. The cutting and sewing is done in Building 2 located next to the main highway. I will finish a couple floors in that building. Here is a picture of Building 1 third floor finished. I will install lights that I have on order and have not arrived yet.
July 18,2025
I haven’t had a lot of time lately do work on the woolen mill but have added lights to the buildings. The first set of lights I added did not light up enough, so I had to get some larger ones. I got my lights from Evans Design. They are led’s all prewired with four lights all tied together so only one lead wire is needed to hook up. I am also working on creating a new adapter for plugging the lights into a adapter with a wall wart, therefore doing away with the battery setup I used on the other buildings. I found the battery setup is ok is not used often but break too easily if used over and over. I plan to have the adapter box made so up to eight buildings can be plugged in. I will add a picture of that when its finished. For now I have found some miniture sewing machines and purchased them. They are a little large for HO scale but the only ones I could find.
New pictures. You can see I have removed the basement windows of the building 1. The building now no longer has those windows visible. Also I have included pictures of the lights and interior of buildiing 1.
August 3, 2025; The picture you see on the left is about the river that flows alongside of the Johnson Woolen Mill building. The white area is a waterfall that used to be a dam however has been broken down and no longer used as such. I use Realistic water to cover my river’s after I have painted the bottom the colors I want. I like to mix black, blue and green leaving a greenish color for the river. I also used Woodland Scenics water effects to create the ripples and waves on the waterfall. After all that is dry I paint the waves and ripples with white. I have not glued the building down yet as I still need to add a plug on the end of the light wire that I have ran through the base. That plug will end up being plugged into my junction box which will light the building.
August 12, 2025
I have finished the roofing on the buildings and now only need to finish the installation of the buildings to a base. I will post some pictures of the roofs and do a progress report after I take some pictures. Should be able to do that today.
August 20,2025
You will notice I have repainted the roadside building a different color. As I look back at the pictures of the buildings I believe this building was a darker color, however the year I’m modeling (around 1950) the building was lighter in color so I repainted it to match that. I have attached both buildings to a base, added some grass and now need to add the steps on the front of the roadside building.
September 10, 2025
I have finished the Johnson Woolen Mills buildings and donated them to the Johnson Historical Society.