Threshing the Wheat

A turn-of-the-century post card advertising Case products gave inspiration to the project

As has been mentioned before in this blog, wheat is the major item shipped by the Stockton & Copperopolis. The prototype ran through huge fields of wheat, all of which had to be harvested and then threshed to separate the grain from the chaff. To be true to the prototype the model S&C had to have at least one threshing scene. 

     

The threshing machine assembled from the Shapeways kit. The wagon is a Jordan farm wagon kit. Decals are custom based on early photos.

This project started by assembling a 3D-printed thresher offered by Desert Canyon Miniatures on the Shapeways website. This kit is fairly complex with numerous small parts. The result, though, is a pretty impressive machine. I painted mine to resemble a Case machine of 1890s vintage. 

   

A Keystone boiler was used with steam cylinder and flywheels taken from parts from the scrapbox.

 The second part of the scene was the portable steam engine which powered the thresher. I adapted a Keystone portable boiler and added a cylinder and flywheel from parts I found in the scrap box. This unit was connected to the thresher by a long leather (brown paper) belt. The reason for the distance from the thresher is the fire hazard. The engine, of course, has a fire and any potential conflagration had to be kept away from the more expensive threshing machine.

     

The complete scene showing both threshing machine and portable engine.

Figures are from Faller.