The Making of the Old Mill

Most kits we make begin as an idea and we bounce the idea around until we have a definite idea. The idea of the old mill was born after Alison Davies Miniatures asked Mini Vintage to be her European distributer and to present her products at European shows.

We did not want to present Alison’s products on a simple stand .. no, her beautiful miniatures needed something special, but in a Mini Vintage style, and we only have a few months to put it all together!
We wanted to present her miniatures in a factory-like building in a similar way to many antique emporiums in the UK .. the same buildings we see on our visits to the UK when we walk around looking for new antiques for our ‘big’ home.

Once the idea was concrete, we looked up many similar style buildings on the internet, and we collected photos. Some of the photos and ideas were also passed to Alison for her comments .. after all we wanted her to be happy with what we were creating. Another idea and wish was that the kit needed to be completely modular/scalable, 1:12 and have enough space for internal room-boxes and extras like a lift, balcony and staircase. Most important of all was that the Kit needed to be able to be assembled by almost anyone!

As soon as the right combination of photo fragments were agreed, it was time for us to try to create it. We find it is very often that creative vision does not translate 1:1 in the technical drawing world!

This design started on our dining table using cardboard cutouts and tape; how big should this building be? Would the modules fit in the boxes we work with? Is it possible to cut out the parts on our Laser cutters? Do we both like it? After many amendments using scissors and more tape/paper, pen drawings for doors and windows, our initial cardboard ‘Old Mill’ was born.

First cardboard cutouts of the Old Mill

Knowing the size of the floor sections, the base sections could be started. They all needed to be interconnectable and contain supports for the pillars that would line the mill. As each section is a different size (there are 3 size options) .. the wall pillars needed to be placed exactly on the dividing lines of the sections. We wanted to ensure that the floor sections did not need to be glued to other floor sections .. this would allow our customers to build a building as long as they liked.
We wanted our ‘old Mill’ to be approximately the length of 2 sections of our stand at the shows. This meant that we had to limit our building to around 120 cm.

To make it modular, the pillars needed to have vertical grooves that would allow wall sections to be inserted (and removed easily if necessary!) We needed to make sure that the pillars had supports for the balcony or ceiling, and also the roof joists. Again we made sure that the customer could replace the pillars/joists as needed in such a way that the building remains structurally sound. 

Pillars and Joists of the Old Mill
We both prefer to see/touch our ideas in 3D rather than spending hours discussing them. So many prototypes were created. Does it work? Can it be assembled? Does it look right? After many versions of floors/poles/ceilings we could start envisaging the old mill. It took us some time before we both were happy with it. Sometimes furniture was put in to get the feel of size and atmosphere. To envisage a lift we simple again used boxes as shown in the next photo.

 The form was beginning to take shape

We thought the floor needed a pattern (engraved in a similar way to the ones we used for our conservatory). We are not just going to create a floor with nothing on it! And if the customer does not want the engravings, the floor also is able to be reversed.

The pattern needed to ‘flow over’ the modules and be in proportion. Easier said than done ! Several designs were found on the internet and we picked one that was simple/continuous, could be applied to modules of different sizes (most important!) and also symmetric. After some modifications, the floor engraving was designed and applied to the floors.

Now we could start creating the wall panels. These needed to be double thick to ensure that both sides could be engraved with bricks and that the wall thickness was accurate. A wall thickness in real-life of 10 cm would mean that our walls needed to be 2 x 4mm MDF (at least). It was really important for us to try and keep to normal wall heights and thicknesses. Old Mills were between 4-6m high in real-life (smaller than the factories that are created today) so we were looking for a total height of around 45cm. All walls were created with a ‘brick engraving’ but also with the possibility of being reversed for wallpapering or painting on a smooth service if wanted.

Alison offered the possibility to create the mill with her spiral staircase; gladly we accepted. However after measuring the staircase, we found that the balcony we had already created was not at the right height for Alison’s staircase and needed to be altered. Alison’s staircase had 16 steps which would now dictate the new height of the ceiling/balcony, the shape of the supporting poles and the location of the lift doors, which all had to be adjusted.

In the old mills the balcony had often a lower ceiling to that of the main floor. It was often used for storage but it had to be possible to walk in this floor. We decided to make our balcony floor in a similar way.

Final Mill with staircase from Alison Davies

The windows were taken from similar windows that we had seen in our investigations and were added to the walls/front and back of the mill. The front and back doors were also similar to some we had seen in ‘real-life’

Front and Back Doors

After many changes to the design were made, the final floor/wall sections were created and the first real ‘old Mill’ was created.

This mill (our prototype) was to be the one that we would use on our stand at shows. The ‘show-model’ has been created as ‘open build’ including broken walls and missing roof panels to allow our customers to better view the contents of the building.

The Old Mill prototype ready for the shows

While creating our ‘show case’ we came up with several items that were not quite right in the design of the building. We also received comments/requests from people who had seen the prototype at the show. All these were addressed after the show in Jan 2025 and we were ready several weeks later to start producing the kits via our webstore and at our future shows.