Grain storage shed

At the Elliot Magill Malsters Mill at Redan is a large horizontal grain storage shed. I assume that the storage shed was fed from an auger from the discharge pits below the sidings situated to the south of the shed. The angled walls supported by a complex timber frame make the shed an interesting modelling subject.

I'm unsure when this shed was built although a drainage plan of Redan from 1940 has a notation about a proposed grain storage shed at this site. Given its timber and corrugated iron construction its likely to date from the 1940s or 1950s when steel was in short supply as a building material.

I've had a cardboard stand for the grain storage shed to the north of the mill for the last 5 years. This was a shoebox that had been shortened and had an angled roof added.

For the building I used thick cardboard as the base and which was covered with home made corrugated iron. Styrene sheet and shapes of various thicknesses has been used for the doors, gutters, facial boards etc. The complicated timber bracing on the walls of the storage shed is a combination of cardboard of different thicknesses and balsawood. This was cut to the appropriate length and painted with a mix of grey and brown paint to reproduce the weathered timber look. The timber framing took a long time to built, as each A frame support had to be produced individually in a makeshift jig and the attached to the sloping wall after the glue had dried.

There are still details to add, such as the fire escape access to the roof of the shed, and long grass and material stored around the shed. You will also see from the photos that the adjoining oil depot was completed between starting and finishing this the grain storage building, demonstrating that some projects take longer than others.