HEAT TREATMENT #3 - Part 1

By now you probably have come to realize that I don't just work on one project at a time.   For me, part of the fun of model railroading is researching the prototype and the coming up with a plan to model it.  These ideas usually come in spurts, and I usually want to get right into the project.   I'm not big on developing an elaborate set of plans.  I build things for a living, I always have other than a brief foray into the office world, so I am used to jumping right into things.  That being said, you need to have another skill to be able to make that quick jump - you need to be able to visualize a project 20 steps ahead, otherwise you are usually in for a disaster.   What's my point here?  Two things - if you can visualize that way, go for it, get your hands dirty as soon as possible, however, if you can't, make a set of scale drawings, triple check all your dimensions, and use these drawings as templates and guides for building.   The other point is you will see me jump from a nearly completed Pig Casting Machine, to the preliminary work on another model, and then back.  Don't be alarmed, I don't think I have ADD.

Heat Treatment #3 is a building at Bethlehem Steel, in Bethlehem.  It is a unique building in that it was built to allow the heat treatment of very long narrow pieces of steel.  Initially I believe it was built to specifically treat large gun barrels, but from what I have read it also was used to treat propellor shafts and maybe other things.  The building houses two furnaces, an oil quenching tank, an assembly bay, and a transport bay.  The building is 155' tall, however, the furnaces, assembly bay, and quenching tank extend another 35' into the ground.  For all this height it is less than 50' wide.   There are two smaller bays on each of the short ends.  These are only 56' tall - one houses the hoist for the unique, 100 ton crane, and the other housed gas producers to fuel the two furnaces.    The proportions of the building work out well on a model railroad as the footprint is relatively small, for a steel mill, but the vertical effect is interesting.  

I will be modeling this structure pretty much to scale.  I have to reduce the size of the hoisting bay by half to fit the structure where I want it on the layout.  I had thought about reducing both bays equally but the hoist only used up the first half of that bay anyway (I'm not sure what the rest was used for)  and the other bay was filled by the gas producers, which I might model. (I'm pretty sure the building was eventually converted to use clean blast furnace or coke works gas.  By now I guess you can tell I plan on modeling the interior of the structure too.  I am locating the building on the edge of my layout and plan on leaving one wall completely off.  

The first two issues that have come up in my planing are - 1) there are no commercially made window castings that will match the prototype, and 2) the building framing is very unique.

You can see from the photo that I am experimenting with using Tichy parts to build up larger windows.  They match the prototype size very closely except for not having an arched top.  Many of the windows in the prototype building were actually replaced at one point with smaller units but I am trying to stick with the original design look.  

The framing issue is a bit more complicated.  The method used to build this building was only used in the construction of a half dozen buildings at Bethlehem Steel - that's it.  It consisted of unique columns (which are mostly buried in the brick walls and thus don't have to be modeled) and trusses made of built up angles and flat stock, and these unique stamped steel pieces.   In the picture you can see my first truss - The verticals and diagonals are .020x.125 strip with .100 half rod applied to each side.  These are sandwiched between two .020x.188 strips top and bottom, and then two .060 angles.  Finally, I added a top and bottom plate of .030x.188 strip.  So there are a total of 10 horizontal elements and probably around 60 vertical and diagonal.  This truss took at least 2 hours to build and probably $8 in plastic.  I will need to make 6 of these and then some much longer ones for the crane supports.  I have thought of spending another few hours adding rivet detail individually and then making resin castings of these, but the half round shape tapering off at the top and bottom of each structural cord will make a weak point and also a tough spot for the resin to pass thru while casting.   At this point I think I will just press ahead and spend the time building styrene versions, without the rivets.

PIG CASTER Part 11

Work last week focused on the upper building of the pig casting machine.  I've added some interior detailing - motor, transmission, electrical relay box, some electrical conduits and a control stand.  The motor is a Plastruct unit and the electric relay box is from Details West  The rest is styrene.  I'm not sure of what exactly the inside of one of these buildings look liked - just guessing.  I have some pictures of the machine and the transmission, but not much as to controls,..etc.  

The door is a Tichy product and the windows are f

rom SS Ltd.  They have tilting sashes, which I will add after painting and glazing them and the structure.   The chute for the finished product was added.  I'm working on the staircase and some additional detail items on the conveyor.

PIG CASTER Part 10

Just a quick update on the pig caster as it is late.  

I've done some more work on what I call the upper building.  I removed the heavy diagonal braces I put in originally - they just didn't look right.  They did square up the legs but instead I'll glue the finished model in place and that should keep everything square.   I am only loosely following Mike Rabbit's plans for the upper building as my trackwork is different than that of the caster in his drawings so I had to make the building longer, to bridge both tracks.  I did had some new angles as diagonal bracing.  Using .060 square stock and .100 channel I've built the framing for the roof over the conveyor section.  So far so good, except for constantly running out of Evergreen materials.   The angle formed by the roof over the conveyor simply extends above the upper building forming the same angled roof.   

You can also see that I've added the spout for pouring the hot iron - made of styrene and brick sheet scraps.  And I've framed and sheathed the roof over the conveyor in the lower building.    Getting close with this structure - I still need to:

Finish the upper building, stairs,..etc.

Finish the conveyor belt - details, roof, railings

Install the lime spray box

Control booth for lower building

Crane for lower building.

Details

Paint and weather

A week away from Modeling

I've been away from the model railroad for the past four days or so but should be back at work tomorrow night and hopefully have something to post.   

I was on a four day backpacking trip with my son's Boy Scout troop to the Adirondack Mountains. Had a great time.  Still snow on the ground in the woods, but the temperatures and weather was mild for the trip, except for some rain on saturday.   The photo is a view from the top of Treadway Mountain 

B-FURNACE Part 10

Short night in the basement tonight.  I wanted to attach the elevator structure permanently to the foundation but first I needed to add the doors and platform while I could work on things flat.  Let me preface the following by saying that I don't have any real prototype information on these elevator structures.  Some are round and others are square and that is about the extent of my knowledge.  I assume the outer structure just houses a basic construction type elevator.  So basically what I am getting at is that if you see this and my door placement is wrong,...etc., I'd be interested in learning more, but I probably won't go back and correct things.  I am trying to maintain a balance between adhering to the prototype exactly and getting my blast furnaces built.  I could spend another year or two researching things and gathering every detail, but short of actually walking through the prototype (which is gone) and taking a million photos and measurements, Ill never be 100% accurate anyway.  I want a believable, interesting, and well modeled structure when I'm finished, but I also want to finish and run trains.  

On my elevator I've installed four doors - three elevator doors, each one a double door totaling 4'x7' and then a single 3'x7' door for accessing the hoist equipment, near the roof.  The first 4' door is on the ground and the other two are on each of the two platforms on the small stove.  The 3' door is located on a platform reached by a caged ladder from the highest elevator door level.   The doors were made of .020 styrene, with scale 2x4 styrene trim and a piece of styrene rod to represent the door handles.  For caged ladders I like the Plastruct units.  There are others that have a bit finer lines but are difficult to assemble.  The Plastruct ladders are easy to build and durable.  For platforms I usually use at least .030 styrene but sometimes .040, both with .040 square strips under for reinforcing.   For railings I scratchbuild them entirely.  I have used Plastruct or Tichy railings in the past with good affect, however, I always had to compromise when it came to the spacing of the verticals, unless by dumb luck, things worked out perfect.  I saw Jeff Bourne building his own railings and at first thought it was crazy to try that, but, I've found it to be easy and fast.   I use .030 square stock for the verticals, which in real-size  would be around 2-3 scale inches.  For the horizontals I use .020x.040  - this will bend into a tight circle, something impossible to do with manufactured railings.   The picture shows some of the doors and rails on the elevator. You can also see the scribe lines simulating panels in the corrugated siding.

PIG CASTER Part 9

It's late and I'm running out of blogging steam so I'll just post a picture of the pig casting machine - I've added some more steel framework to the lower buildings and I started building the upper structure which is shown in the picture.

B-FURNACE Part 9

The stove tops vac-formed in the previous blog were attached to the top of the Rix water tank stove bodies.  For the most part they fit well but a little filler and sanding was needed to smooth the transition.   The shape looked very close to the prototype, however, they were of course, too smooth looking, lacking in rivet detail.   Some people have taken to scribing lines in the tops to represent panel lines, however, I thought rivets were needed given all the rivet detail on the stove bodies.  I thought of using Tichy individual rivets, but that would have taken many many hours.  Instead I used strips of styrene, .010x.080 with rivets embossed with a pounce wheel to represent the riveted panel seams.  It is not perfect, but I like the overall look of it.  The grey primer was to check the look of the rivet strips.  

You will also notice that I sided the elevator using Evergreen corrugated siding - .040 thick with .040 spacing.  You will see me go through a lot of this material in the coming months.  Unfortunately for me it isn't cheap - about $5 for a small single sheet.  The elevator, which is a smaller structure used two and a half sheets.    I still

 need to add - four doors for the elevator - the door at the base, doors at both of the stove upper walkways, and a maintenance door near the top of the shaft.  I am waiting on these until I get all the walkway heights set.  Oh - I attached the sheets of corrugated material with Walthers Goo and then used liquid solvent glue to adhere the corners to each other, incase the Goo ever were to fail.   I also scribed horizontal panel lines about every 10'.  Since a full sheet of corrugated material wasn't enough to do one side in one piece, I made sure to line up the seams, and start measuring for the scribed lines from that.