A-FURNACE Part 37

A weekend visit to Bethlehem inspired me to dust off the A-Furnace stoves and add some details.   They have finished renovating the very old cast house that was I think associated with a furnace that predated the five existing.   This stone structure was located at the end of the high line, in front of A-Furnace stoves - part of the high line actually extended over the roof of the structure.    This structure and the area around it had been fenced off since the furnaces became semi-accessible to the public, however, since the renovation and the opening of a visitors center in the building, a courtyard to the side enables excellent access to the south side of A-Furnace.  The new permanent low fence that marks the edge of the courtyard is within 10 feet or so from the end stove.

South Side of A-Furnace

The ability to take close up shots and really stand there and take in the stove structures allowed me to "fill in the blanks" so to speak from the Mike Rabbitt drawings that I have been using for construction.

Strap supports - need to still add standoffs between the stove and the hot blast main

One detail that I'd not picked up from the drawings were the arrangement of the strap supports for the hot blast main.   I used some strip styrene and brass rods to created these supports.

I also started to add some of the most excellent stove cleanout doors, produced in cast metal by KenRay.  Another detail I noticed this weekend with the clean out doors at Bethlehem - they had arms that connected them to a trolley rail.  This allowed them to be unbolted and just slid out of the way to one side, instead of just dropping the whole thing on the ground and then wrestling back in place to re-bolt it.