WIP: Watertower

[Mirandir]

Near the railroad in the village where I live you can find this old watertower. The tower's water where used to refill the steam engines back in the days. The tower were built around 1911.

So, I foolishly decided to build it in minifig-scale with a full interior. Maybe I bit off more than I could chew because this has been a slow and often frustrating build. (It's almost two years since I first began working with it) I can't remember how many times I've dismantled it to start from scratch. But at the same time I've learnt a few tricks of the trade. And that's probably why I'm still at it building this thing. ;)

However I was close to canceling it not making any progress whatsoever for quite some time. So I decided to put it aside and do other things instead. So for several months I haven't so much as thought about it. It's just been sitting in a closet gathering dust. However now I felt it was time to pick it up again. And I'm feeling back on track again. But I would love to get some feedback on the progress this far and preferably sugestions on how to improve it.

So here it is. All pictures are links to bigger ones.

First of all: the outside. The outer walls are built with 1x2 bricks with 2x2 and cerain places to sturd it up and secure it to the inner walls. The biggest concern I have with the outer walls are that they'll pretty much just be big flat surfaces of red nothingness. I plan to swap the bricks for 1x2 plates in red, dark red and reddish brown. Only problem is that it ain't gonna be cheap.

And those arches above the ground floor door and windows...? Well they need improvement...

And these smaller windows are the sole reason why I'll most likely change the colorscheme to have white windows instead. This snotted window just ain't looking right.

And that's it with the outside. Time to checkout the interior.

And of course we start with the ground floor. Here seen a little from above

We start out wit the bathroom/dressingroom. It has a bathtub, a mirror (of course) and a seat as well as a radiator. The radiator design is stolen directly from Green Grocer. But here they're in black.

The, in my opinion, beutiful dark red tiled floor is sponsored by no other than our own ambassador Copmike!

For the heating of the tower we have this fireplace/boiler. It's the end result after numerous rebuilds. It's simple yet effective. I guess it's kind of smallish considering that it has to provide five radiators and a bathtub with hot water. But all bigger designs I've tried didn't really work that well so this is pretty much the final design.

Here we have a Hot bulb engine that drives a generator which in it's turn drives the electric pump that fills the tank at the top of the tower with water. Missing from this is an exhaust pipe that will lead out through a hole in the wall. The hole is there, I just need to fins a hose that works out as the exhaust pipe.

The final thing to see at the ground floor is of course the staircase leading up to the next floor. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out but there are still things that could use some improvement. A railing for example! ;)

So, next up is the second floor. It's not much. Just a balcony and a small office of sorts. Here there are a lot of things that remains to do. Next planned step is actually do dismantle it and start over from scratch. Even though I'm sure that some of the things that are there now will turn up in the next version as well.

Here's a closeup on the balcony. I'm pretty satisfied with it's turnout. The piping isn't finnished as I ran out of pieces. One change I'll have to do is to move the pipe that's one stud closer to the camera back to where the other pipe bends upwards. The reason for this is because it pretty much bends and goes out the wall in the roof of this floor. And I realized that thats kind of problematic if there's another pipe in the way...

Also I need to get me some of theese in black to use instead of the dark bley that the lamp is currently mounted on.

Just as in the real thing the office/lab/whatever's "outer" wall is black. Actually it seems like the wall has been in a brownish color at some time. However now it's painted black. And that's the color I decided to use. And to avoid it being just a big, ugly flat, black surface I choosed to exaggerate the walls texture by using log bricks.

And finally we have the office space. It has a desk, a small shelf, a cupboard and a sink. The floor should actually be tiled with 1x1 tiles but I only have a few left after building the tiled walls in the downstairs bathroom. Therefore it's currently tiled with 2x2 tiles.

And that concludes this tour. Finally I just want to once again say that I'll be happy to hear any advice on improvements or just some encouraging words.

Edited May 17, 2010 by Mirandir

[lightningtiger]

AWESOME just simply AWESOME 'Mirandir' !

Great tiling job, fixtures everywhere AWESOME especially the hot bulb engine !

Excellent work 'Mirandir' and I'm a conformist! !

[Selander]

Lovely piece of work so far. I admired both exterior and the detailed interiour with all tiles as "LT" already mentioned.

It'll be very exciting to see more of this project as you progress further.

[Mirandir]

Thank you both for the kind words. I appreciate it.

[Redcross]

Might I suggest you take inspiration from the original. Being an older building was there any damage to the bricks maybe you could use that technique where the brick has fallen away revealing contrasting colour underneath, or perhaps add some simple graffiti built into the brick work. I don't think you need any help with the interiors that are very polished and well thought out.

[Mirandir]

Might I suggest you take inspiration from the original. Being an older building was there any damage to the bricks maybe you could use that technique where the brick has fallen away revealing contrasting colour underneath, or perhaps add some simple graffiti built into the brick work. I don't think you need any help with the interiors that are very polished and well thought out.

Unfortunatly there isn't much of this at all. There are a little graffitti but not much. And I'm trying to stay true to the original with a thirties feel. The bricks seems quite sturdy as there aren't that much damage at all. After all the walls are two feet thick (a bit more 50 cm) and I'm sure there are at least two layers of brick used. There is of course the large stain of, what I think is, grease from the hot bulb engines exhausts where it's exhaust pipe has been sticking out through the wall.

[greg3]

I love this!! Such an unusual building.... both the interior and exterior look great!! I hope you keep on at it and eventually get it finished... nice work.