Continuing Saga …

Myles,

Yes, went to the OKC downtown "Eclipse Event" and my wife had more excitement than some of the kids.  To say the resulting products of your modeling effort is very Fantastic, well, that is not near good enough a superlative.  Such excellent modeling is a joy to see and the step-by-step following of construction a real treat.

Thank you, Myles, from all so fortunate to follow your efforts..

Jesse

You're welcome Jesse! Feedback like that keeps me going.

Almost had a major catastrophe. As yesterday's pictures showed, I had the Flare sitting on its base... just sitting, not fastened in any way. I was picking up the distilling tower to paint its railings and something knocked the Flare over. Not just over, but onto the concrete and it took the heater with it. The Flare sustained mild damage with the vertical piping popping out of its pipe supports (CA'd) and the pilot light upper pieces separating. Easy fixes for both. But the heater broke apart at the seam at the base of the transition piece. It also broke the ladder in two at the same point. 

It was "almost as catastrophe" since I was able to refit the joint, apply CA and get it back together without any noticeable damage. Whew!

It was storming outside so no further rattle-can painting, but I had plenty to do inside. I started painting railings and ladders with the cooling tower. Painting yellow by hand is one of the worst covering colors in the model paint palate. I did the top rail by hand and started painting the caged ladder. It was a pain in the butt, so I made some paper masks to fit under the ladder to protect the corrugated skin and air brushed the yellow. Much, much better. I even was able to go back and lightly spray the railings to even out the coat. I also mixed up a custom batch of "concrete" color and painted the foundation. I don't know whether or not I will do any weathering on the CT. The picture I have shows a bright shiny new one, and I'd like it to look like that. But I'm sure it gets pretty crumby in service with air and water in close proximity.

Next up was the distilling tower. That was a different story. I really couldn't wrap my head around how to mask it to spray all those details so I hand-painted all the rails and ladders. It was a chore and I'm not totally satisfied. But that's that. I did get some yellow on the metallic, but I'll go back and back paint it with paint decanted from the spray can. The images make the paint look better than it does in the flesh. I want to paint the valve handles red to highlight them.

I painted the heater Tamiya Nato Black from the air brush. It was an easy paint job. I'll mask it and do the ladder with the air brush. Nato Black has a bit of white it in giving it a more natural weathered look.

But the Flare looked like it could be a masking candidate. I was NOT going to hand paint all that caged ladder. So I spent the rest of the afternoon wrapping and taping all the expose silver so I could air brush both the ladders and the rails at one go. It takes a lot longer to mask than to paint.

'

Weather tomorrow should be very nice and I'll be able to do more outdoor spraying. I have to do the loading rack and the white work. All the rest of the colors will be water-based paints so I can do them indoor with the airbrush.

Just like the substation, a customized locomotive, and a host of other models; the paint makes it look like the prototype.

Beautiful work!     Do you paint paint items white before painting silver?    i used to do that when I had to hand paint my tank model interiors.    also did a light grey or white base coat for yellow.   I have added detail to Lionel sand towers and coal towers with Plaststruct ladders, cages and valves with piping.

You did a wonderful job on your project.

I know diddly about petro-chemical plants, et al, but what you're doing looks mighty convincing, Myles.

Thanks for the very informative posts.

Cheers

You're welcome!

Yes, all of the models were primed with Tamiya gray primer from a rattle can. One usually reads that gloss black is the best undercoating for silver paint. In this case, I did not do that.

Yesterday's foul weather left this after the front went through. The iPhone 7's camera captures these kinds of colors and lighting much better than my iPhone 5 did. It doesn't over blow the reds. I locked the exposure in the clouds themselves and even with this you were able to make out features of the houses. First the eclipse and then this. Nature can be a blast when it wants to.

Today's weather was perfect for outdoor spraying so I finished the rest of the rattle can work with the last of the metallic finishes and then the white. I'm not a fan of spray can painting and usually will have runs where I don't want them. Can't control the flow like I can with an airbrush. If you catch the run quickly, you can smear it with a gloved finger and then re-spray gingerly and hope it levels out. It came out reasonably well.

I decided to paint the exposed steel Japanese Defense dark green. It's a pretty good color that's close to the green of Sinclair Oil which is the company that I'm having own this facility. It goes with my Sinclair gas station and I have some decals left from that project that will go onto the big tank.

Steel painting started with the load rack. I didn't mask this since the supports are going to be hand painted concrete and the angles that I was able to hold the air brush, I kept most of the overspray off the metallic-painted decking and any that got on the supports would be painted over. The tricky areas were around the drop-down loading platform and steel support structure for the loading tubes.

Any incidental overspray will be touched up by hand brushing. I'm painting the loading tubes themselves that same lighter green as my prototype photos. The nozzle on the end is coated with liquid mask and will be natural aluminum when the mask is removed. In the above picture you can see the other small tanks that were sprayed white.

The deck and all the exposed steel WILL need to be masked to prepare for painting the yellow railings. I'll do that tomorrow.

For the tank platform, again I didn't mask for the steel work since I'm going to touch up by hand AND will have to mask for the railings. Behind it is the masked flare tower waiting for its railings to be painted too.

Next up was the spheres. First I had to mask the entire sphere so I could paint the exposed steel. This took a lot longer to mask then paint. After shooting the green, I then started masking for the railings. This was painstaking and slow, but will be worth it. I spent almost an hour masking this tank and didn't finish. I'll finish up tomorrow and shoot all the remaining railings. 

I could have left all the steel gray like galvanized, but I wanted to add some contrast to up the interest and make things pop looking at it from a distance. After struggling hand painting the railings, air brush, even with the time consuming masking, is the only way to get a smooth and precise finish. It's really fun to be painting this stuff... the end is near.

It would be good to find one of those tank cars... or get some undecorated ones and do my own decals. That green looks a little light based on the decals from the Berkshire Valley kit.

Spent hours masking the rest of the apparatus and then additional hours spraying yellow... lots of yellow. Hopefully, inhaling Tamiya paint thinned with 91% rubbing alcohol isn't too toxic because I was in a lot of it.

The units masked were: finishing the spheres, the heater, the load rack, the loose stairways and the ops platform. I also free-sprayed the stair wrapping the big tank. 

Platform masking was a chore due to some of the x-bracing. As you'll see I probably got side tracked since I didn't mask the whole deck... whoops. I first airbrushed flat aluminum on the decking before masking began.

Masking the heater was relatively easy.

The load rack offered its own challenges due to the length and amount of tape it required. I couldn't mask it all due to clearance problems so I will go back and re-touch by brush.

I also masked the stairways, on which, much to my surprise, I actually attached one of the railings upside down. I am not going to rip it off. It will have to work. I will fit this stair so the "funny" rail is facing the wall. With all the masking out of the way, it was time to spray. I had three partially full bottles of Tamiya flat yellow, all which were very thick. But thick Tamiya paint is instantly restorable with 91% alcohol. I used almost all I had. Yellow is notoriously difficult to cover, and when it's not well covered it looks kind of green. It took three coats to get it solid.

So here's all the masked parts ready to paint. The large tank will be finished as follows: Mask the railing, paint the tank overall blue, and then mask the tank and respray the aluminum stairs. I say respray since I already sprayed it with the metallic spray can paint, but then immediately destroyed it by doing the yellow rail. I really couldn't figure a good way to mask the curved stair, so it will be the last to paint after the blue is done. Masking the tank next to the stair should be easier.

The flare looked real nice. Where I had some yellow leakage (not an overactive bladder problem) I was able remove it with a little alcohol. The metallic paint underneath is lacquer-based so it doesn't come off with this solvent. I still have to remember to remove the liquid mask from the warning lights at the top platform.

Here's the completed platform. Notice that the decking now has a big swatch of yellow where I forgot to finish masking the deck. I will go back and respray the flat aluminum after re-masking some of the structure. Could have been eliminated if I was paying more attention. I was getting tired of masking and getting anxious to get to painting. As I've said many times in this saga, I am not a patient man, but I am persistent. There's a little green touch up that I'll need to do, but this is easy stuff.

I got everything painted, but only pulled tape on the above units. I'll strip the rest of the tape tomorrow. I still stand by the decision to mask and air brush. The results are worth it. Used up a ton of Tamiya masking tape and will have to replenish.

I have to check my fleet as I may have 1 or 2 Weaver Sinclair tankers I can sell if interested.   Let me know.

That would be interesting.

Murphy is alive and well in my shop. I was working like crazy to do all the touch up painting and added detail painting, plus pulling all that masking tape off everything. There was a lot of tape on the HP Spheres. I was almost done stripping it all off and noticed this.

Where the heck did the railing go??? The blue tape holds too well. Tamiya tape is much more precise for model work. So I had to dig in the trash can full of piles of newspaper and masking tape and find the railing. I guess I was a little too aggressive in pulling the tape. I had to unfold the pieces from that part of the job and found this.

The right hand stanchion was broken in two places and the middle piece was still stuck to the tape surrounding that railing. I first had to glue those pieces back together, then gingerly get the rest back together. I used solvent to set the two pieces together then used medium CA to hold it all together. IT CAN'T BE BUMPED! It will disassemble. This piece was taken before repainting the yellow break zone. Whew!

Here's how the spheres look now that they officially finished including the concrete footings. I painted the footings on all the pieces today.

I spent a lot of the overpainting and touching up the equipment platform and the results were worth it. I had to repaint the green, the concrete pedestals, and the decking. The railings only required a little bit of work.

The load rack is essentially complete except for the loading pipes. I also have to still add the lower pipe supports for the chemical feed pipes... can't forget this. The masking tape pulled some of the metallic paint off the decking. I decanted some of the spray lacquer into a cup and brush painted to touch it up. It was touch and go getting the colors into all those nooks and crannies around the drop-down platforms. It works from a distance.

The heater came out well and only needed the concrete pad painted. I have a couple of Nato black spots that need touch up and I have to detail paint all of the valves and handles on all the equipment including this one.

I was running out of time... I really wanted to get the big tank and methanizer airbrushed. I masked the railing on the big tank and did get it all sprayed blue. This was a very nominal undertaking and offered no surprises.

But then Murphy revealed its ugly side. Never ever do techie stuff late on a Friday afternoon. I wanted this tank red. I pulled out the bottle of Tamiya red, opened it, and it was completely empty and dry, so I turned to second best, Vallejo red. Vallejo paints are funny. Not funny "ha ha", they're funny peculiar. I thinned it with Testor's acrylic thinner and started shooting it. It immediately started plugging the Badger 150 airbrush. I shot cleaner through it, and tried again, did a bit more and plugged again. 

So this was the result. 1/4 of the tank barely covered. I spent the remaining 20 minute taking the entire gun apart and soaking the pieces in acetone, which is the only solvent that instantly dissolved Vallejo clumps. On Monday I'll go to Scale Reproductions, Inc., my LHS, and get some more Tamiya paints. Tamiya paints never clog. If you thin Vallejo acrylics with alcohol it immediately clumps. Tamiya thins beautifully with 91% isopropyl alcohol which I buy in quart bottles for very little cash. When I was done, the gun was spraying cleanly. Vallejo has paints pre-mixed for airbrush. If you're going to spray their paints, I'd recommend getting that variety.

And one more thing... I did remove the liquid mask from the flare warning flashers. I still have to get it off of ALL the rest of the LEDs. I tested the lights again and they look great since all the painting behind the LEDs blocks any stray light. All the light you see is from the LEDs themselves.

Myles

My expierience with an air brush was about what you just went through. That was about thirty years ago. I switched to spray cans and never looked back. Krylon was the best. It rately ran just like johnny bench showed me in the commercial. They have sonce changed the formula and now runs are common. Painters touch is now my choice but you can only use a can a few times before the spray nozzle clogs up. I just got used to it and will not try an airbrush again.

Alan graziano

Alan:

I use the same spray paints and have the same issues. I keep spray nozzles that don't plug up in caps from cans I use up and toss. Storing them in the colored caps let's me know I am switching out the right size nozzle (hole diameter is sometimes different). The clogged nozzles go into a container with paint thinner (mineral spirits or acetone) for the night.

Joe

Happy Monday, and I'm very glad I'm not living in South Texas. Our thoughts go out to that entire region. It is a catastrophe of biblical proportions....literally.

I found out today at the LHS that Vallejo paints only really work well with their acrylic thinner. That being said, I used the same red to brush paint the valve handles and it worked very well... covering better than the Tamiya red.

So I did get the Methanizer and the reflux drum painted red, and spent the rest of the time touching up, detailing and just getting my head around the erection of all this stuff onto the base board. Number 2 grandson was here on Sunday and tonight working on a Sculpey model of the Old Man and the Sea. He's doing a nice job, is a very neat worker and follows instructions very well.... like his older brother. So I got to work on my stuff on a Sunday and tonight besides working this afternoon.

For all you airbrush averse folks, Tamiya paints airbrush flawlessly and don't give me any trouble. Nothing gives you the control that a double action airbrush gives you.

I'm still trying to figure out what colors to make what piping. I've settled on a few and painted the piping at the various pumps these colors. 

Reflux and water lines - Silver
Liquid Product Lines - Blue
Natural Gas line on Flare - Orange
Gaseous product lines - White
Lines to a from heater - Silver
Miscellaneous lines to condensers and other drums - Yellow
Flare lines from relief valves - Yellow
All valve handles - Red
Miscellaneous Methanizer Lines - Red

I don't know if this list is prototypical or not, but it will be colorful and make it more interesting from the viewing distance.

I did get the chromate green on the load rack loading pipes which (except for those lower pipe racks that I'm procrastinating about... which I really don't know why).

I brush painted all the pipes on the pumps which meant three coats of yellow and two of white. All the other piping is going to get airbrushed. I'm going to lay all the pipes on some waxed paper, paint one side and when dry turn them over and paint the other. Hopefully this will give me a smoother finish than brush painting them.

And I finished the big tank by hand painting the steps and picking out some details to make it pop a bit.

The masking sequence I used on this tank was the best one. It was easy to brush paint the steps once the tank and the rails were painted. They would have been very hard to mask if painted sooner.

I going to assemble the cooling tower and apply the decals, then I'm going to start on the ops building next, and drill all the holes in the base board. With the holes drilled I could set all the units in place and get a picture. Last thing I'll do is the chain link fence since I need the ops building in place to see how the gating will go.

Thanks for the likes!

Exercises day so just a bit over two hours, a half hour of which was on the phone with United Airlines.

Decided to stop model building and start getting the base plate ready. After drilling all the holes to pass the wires underneath, I went a bit further and prepared the Masonite for additional work.

After drilling the holes I place everything where it's going to go to understand a bit more about the arrangement. I first has to make sure that I didn't drill wiring holes throughs cleats and risers holding the table top in place. I had to re-position some units a bit here and there to ensure that the holes just went through OSB. Took some pictures of it all and it's pretty impressive.

I'm glad I spent the time to build the additional units (flare and cooling tower). The flare adds a lot of interest and looks great with the warning lights flashing. It really impressed my grandson. It's about as tall as it could be and still look in proportion to the rest of the model. Need to get some additional workman and populate the place...

I wasn't going to put fascia boards on the layout on the right side of this pic since it's not facing the viewer from the layout's front, but you do see it in this view from the layout's left end so someday I'll probably dress that off too.

The loading rack isn't shown since it's one a separate piece that needs trimming. I'll do that next session... tomorrow.

This shot shows why I have to do all the interconnecting pipe work off the lay and in the shop. I have no way of reaching over the unit ops, measuring and cutting all those pipes. All of the pipes run towards the wall.

There's not much room around the big tank for a dike, but I need the real estate on the left end for the ops building and some limited parking area. Otherwise I could move everything left and separate the units a bit.

I screwed the Masonite down to ensure it lies flat and then added two 1/4" dowels so I can exactly reposition the entire piece with all the equipment mounted and get all the wire and screws holes in immediate alignment. Close up of oriented stand board shows why I call it "instant splinter board". You have to be real careful around this stuff or you will be impaled. There were a few spots were the underlying screw points were sticking proud of the OSB's surface. I filed these off with a hand file so they wouldn't elevate the base board or prevent it from sliding into position.

I also countersunk and sanded the Masonite around all the holes as there was a lot of material sticking up around the holes preventing the equipment from settling in nicely.

The last thing I did was to add temporary stiffeners to try and keep the floppy Masonite from bending too much. It would make moving the finish refinery impossible to move onto the layout if it flexed. I put two longerons and one cross piece. It may need more. These will be removed as I slide the refinery into final position. It's going to take a bit of coordination and some extra helpers to get this done without wrecking anything. The chain link fence and much of the ground cover will go in after final placement since I'll need to remove or drive in a lot of screws and will need access to all of them. Ground cover immediately around and under equipment can be done off the layout.

You can see all those holes... The chop saw stand supports the outer end since I don't have a big enough table. I actually do since this work table has a twin, but my lathe and bench grinder are sitting on it. It might make sense to put it into use on this project.... hmmm. These are the kinds of things that I learn by writing these daily reports. You get to think about things a bit differently when you study the images.

Took my own advice and cleared off the other table with the lathe and created a more stable support for the base board. I also added two more cross temp supports to further stabilize the Masonite. I then noticed that one of the screws I used to hold the middle stiffener in place is sitting right under the place where the cooling tower is going. That will be moved tomorrow. I can now get to work in earnest putting all this together.

I finished the Methanizer vessel by air brushing the yellow for the relief valve line. Even though it takes time to mask, the results are absolutely worth it. I painted its feet concrete color (a mixture of Tamiya medium gray, buff, and white) and dressed up the right angle valves on top. This baby's ready to go. Color of concrete is a little more tan in real life. The phone camera made it a bit more gray.

Added all the vessels to the production platform, but in retrospect, that may have been premature. I have to add two water lines from the condenser that aren't there and it will be more difficult doing that with these units fastened in. I was just downstairs reviewing the piping diagram and getting my bearing on what goes from what. I have some mismatched pipe sizes. On the heater I went with larger diameter (insulated) piping, but on the other end it's going into the 1/8" tubing. Too late to fix that so I'll have to transition from one to the other at some point in the run. No one will see it or know it, but I will. The two lines on top should probably be the larger diameter, but the plans show this as small. The reflux line is correctly sized large.

The last thing done today was applying the custom "Marley" and "SPX" decals to the cooling tower. I first coated the decals with Microsol Decal Coating solution. This stuff's very good and doesn't run the inkjet ink. You apply it and let it dry for 15 minutes and you're good to go. While that was drying I applying a brush coat of Tamiya clear gloss to the placards where the decals would go to give good adhesion. As I applied them, I also wet the surface with Microsol decal setting solution to snuggle them down. Results are good. The logo graphic was print screen from SPX's website.

Here's their logos applied to one of their products.

Next session I'm going to finish assembling the cooling tower, start mounting equipment to the base board, and begin piping fun. Whoopee! As George Peppard used to say on A-Team, "It's great to see a plan come together!" So far, this is the biggest modeling project on the layout, and probably the biggest modeling project in my life.

Myles,

Your project is moving along quite nicely. I was wondering why you couldn't just attach the masonite directly to the OSB and fasten the completed model to the supporting structure from below. That way when you move the model you wouldn't need to worry abut flexing. Just a thought, Can't wait to see the entire model completed with all the piping in place on the layout.

Gerry

The problem is the interconnecting piping. I won't be able to reach it to measure and install it when the models are mounted on the layout. It's all facing a wall and the units are in the way. Now that I'm thinking about it, I could have (and maybe still be able to) reverse the plan and have the pipe alley on the front side. The only pipe that would have to go to the back would be the two lines going to the loading rack.

I'm seriously going to think about this. It would mean drilling some new holes, but all the gear would be reachable from the aisle and I could do all the piping in its final position.

That's why I like the give and take of the forum. I would have never had this thought without your suggestion. There's no reason why I have to stick to Plastruct's design with the pipe alley lying between the units and the railroad. I will plan it out while the board is in the shop and then move it into the layout and fasten it all down, and then lay in all the units.

As Gene Wilder so vociferously stated in "Young Frankenstein", "It Could Work!"

Myles, your work here is fantastic.  I keep trying to get a video of the TBM Avenger or the B-25 that the museum here owns, but I keep failing in my efforts.  They have done quite a few flybys for the surrounding area lately, but I never notice it soon enough.  Every time they take off or land, it reminds me of that awesome model you did earlier.  Pretty awesome site and sound when they are flying.

Myles,

I didn't intend that you should rearrange any of the components. I was just suggesting attaching the masonite to OSB so that when moving the completed model, flexing would not be a problem. If you do move anything just be sure your satisfied with the final appearance.

Gerry

Gerry, I understand now exactly what you were saying. It was an option that I hadn't considered... taking the entire OSB panel into the shop and erecting the refinery on that. However, it would have been very heavy and unwieldy. But your question did spark my imagination and I redesigned the arrangement to bring the piping to the front. After moving the pieces around on the base board in the shop, I came up with a workable design and marked the new locations. They'll be some holes to be filled, but that's no big deal. I then took the base board back to the layout and fastened it down. I also made the adjustments to the smaller piece that sits under the load rack and fastened it down also.

Before I get into all the gory details of today's adventures, I thought I share a couple of pics of the finished cooling tower. I sent a picture off to SPX Cooling Technologies just for their edification. I doubt that any model railroader in the world has made a model of their products for a miniature refinery on a hobby railroad.

I really love making this stuff.

I also painted the steam and gas lines extending up the flare tower. Steam lines are light blue and gas is orange.

Here's the new design with the pipe alley in front. I rearranged the unit ops to be more aligned with their piping requirements.

Someone suggested that I needed an EPA dam around the big tank. I have room for it so I spent most of the afternoon building an octagonal structure that surrounds the tank. I had to add sufficient clearance for the stairway. I made it a scale 4-foot high out of 5mm German plywood. It's about a scale foot wide. The angle between each piece is 22.5° so I set my angle gauge and marked the angle on the belt sander table. I clamped a angle block to this angle and sanded all the ends.

To begin the dam process I made a paper pattern of the octagon testing to ensure that the tank had enough clearance. Using a compass, I attempted to lay out 8 equal segments, but it didn't work out as exact as I would have wanted it. I cut the pieces on the scroll saw and that was the first problem since there was significant piece-to-piece variation that I needed to correct going forward. Some pieces were a little longer or wider than nominal which is understandable since I was cutting the pieces apart from one another and if I erred on one side of the line that piece would be small by that amount and the adjacent piece big which made the error double.

I stacked all the pieces on the surface plate and clamped them. Then, after clamping the stack in the bench vise, I used the Skil belt sander to level them out.

Even with this, there was still variation that I corrected (or attempted to) when the dam was assembled. I laid out the dam on the base board and test fit the pieces there.

I decided that this assembly needed it's own base upon which to glue all the pieces so I traced the template and cut it out of 1/8" Masonite. Unfortunately, the sides were exactly equal since my layout was pretty crude. As a result, when I glued all the sides onto this base, I overhung on some segments and was deficient in others.  I used "gravity clamps" to set the tacky glue.

You can see the gap in the edge in the above pic. So I made some Masonite trim pieces and CA'd them into position after which I sanded and filled where necessary to create a consistent assembly. CA is terrific for this kind of stuff since it cured very fast and I could keep working.

I screwed the dam down on the base board once the board was mounted on the layout. I cut a access groove for the outlet line to pass through the dam. I suppose this isn't kosher and I could have raised the tank's foundation a bit to clear the wall, but what the heck... I'll paint it tomorrow and probably put some gravel in the pit ensuring that the tank area is masked off. In looking at this picture, I can bring a stair up to the edge and a platform to connect to the bottom stair landing on the tank. Once again, spending time documenting all this sparks my thinking.

I'll need to produce an access bridge over the wall for staff to get to the tank. Perhaps a vertical ladder on both sides...

Here's the load rack in its final position. I won't fasten it down until I fit the feed pipes to it. The connect to the underside of the loading tubes and it will be easier to get to if I can work with it not fastened down. Still have to attach those access stairs. Notice that I had to cut the Masonite base around that Ross switch machine. I had to remove the ballast around that machine and was using a curved craft knife to scrape it off. It's amazing how solid well-glued ballast can be. And of course I hit the yellow wire to the machine with the knife and severed it. Luckily, there was enough slack that I could strip the end and re-connect. One of the feet on the rack was a wee bit short and it too two pieces of paper to shim it up so it was level with the other three. Since the concrete pads are masonite as is the base, I'm going to try and use PVA cement to glue it down. Simple is better. I'm happy how hiding the LED wiring has worked out.

Myles,

My jaw drops at your wonderful work when I get an update.   I am keeping a copy of the photos on my computer for future reference if I can figure out how to add some of this wonderful scene to our club layout.     

Randy, I glad that I impress you! Sometimes I even impress myself... heh.heh.

Today was a weird one... with lots of effort, but not so much to show for it. I woke up thinking about the steam and gas lines to the flare. You know your life is pretty stress free that the only thoughts on your mind are how to detail and imaginary refinery on a toy railroad. Life is good! I need to get some steam to the flare. The only logical place to get it without modeling another piece of equipment. I decided to have the heater also have a steam generator in it so there would be two sets of lines working from it: product and steam. It also needed some other enhancements. There was no way to generate any heat in that heater so I started crafting a blower and gas burner after looking at some internet sources. Again, it's highly simplified and it's more symbolic than prototypical.

The first thing I did was determine where the steam line would go from the heater to the flare. I used the surface gauge to determine the center height of the flare's steam inlet and scribe that point on the heater. I drilled and inserted a #4 Plastruct pipe and added a nozzle and valve. This picture shows the alignment, with a shorter pipe. The actual location will not be so close, but the pipe will be level. I trying to save as many elbows as I can so any direct runs will work for me.

While this was going on I attempted to put the Sinclair decals on the big tank. I didn't pre-coat the decals (at first) with Microsol Decal Film and here's what happened when the decal was ready to slide. 

Total disassembly... kind of like when you cross the streams (Ghostbusters reference). Plan B. Use the round Sinclair logo. This time I did coat the decal hoping for better results. Oh... and I had to respray blue since the clear gloss I applied by brush sort of dissolved the blue exposing some primer. I then used spray gloss which was less aggressive. This decal started out okay, but it too split in places, but I used it anyway. I used more MicroSet to get that crack to settle down a bit and then when dry touched it up with some white and red paint. It'll work, but I'm not happy.

To create the blower, I drew a quick sketch on paper, but realized it was a simple design and went directly to working on 0.020" styrene. After making the two sides I measured and cut some thick styrene spacers to hold the sides square and stiffen it a bit, then made a wrapper out of 0.010" thin styrene. Worked okay, but it was a bit sloppy until I sanded the sides smooth.

I have some Plastruct motors left over so that would be the power source. I needed to put a plenum into the heater with the gas line input and burner. I used the largest size tube I have left over from sphere legs. That tube's i.d. is too big for the #4 tube which was going to lock it into the heater, but too small for the next size I had so I chucked the medium-sized tube into the lathe and reduced it's .250" o.d. to .177" which is a slip fit into the bigger tube. This sandwich was then drilled out a tad with the #31 drill which is the a perfect fit for the #4 tubing. This was butt glued to the blower with a piece of .080" stock to strengthen the thin ends of the blower wrapper. The line coming out the side will be the gas line.

For a support I cobbled together some Evergreen H-beam that was left over and this sites on a Masonite "concrete" pad that's the same height as that holding up the heater. This all necessary to raise the apparatus to engage with the heater.

And here's the blower attached to the heater.

Still needed is a source of water into the heater and terminating the gas line somewhere. I may put a faux pressure reducer on the gas line (like I'm also going to add on the flare gas line) and run the line into the ground. When painted all this stuff will look sufficiently busy to be interesting.

The last thing I did was to paint the big tank dam with another concrete concoction. This picture shows the tank sitting in the dam and the touch up painting on the decal. I still have to craft the stair assembly to get over the dam. The tank's stairway starts a little below the dam I created. If I was really smart, I would have sized the dam to coincide with that height. I supposed I could cut the dam down, which as I think about it may work. Otherwise, I'll have to make the access stair go over the wall then come down about 1 step to meet the lower stair landing on the tank. Even though I attempted to mask the stair area when re-spraying the blue, the stairs now have a blue tinge that needs to be touched up. Like I said, lots of activity today, but not as much progress as I needed.

On another unrelated point. I took this picture of a very large raptor sitting on our neighbor's fence in the very heavy rain that was Harvey's remnants. It took off soon after I took this and its wing span was huge... at least 3 feet. One of my friends said it could be a young eagle. I shot this with my iPhone at max telephoto and then cropped so the resolution sucks. Any ideas about what kind of wonderful animal this is?

It's Friday so while I don't usually work on the weekends, #2 grandson isn't done his school project yet, so if he's working down there, so am I. Otherwise, see y'all on Monday. Stay safe and stay dry.

Myles, One random thought when it comes to decals unless you're 100% sure they're fresh (or not too thin - like Protocraft's), is spray them with 1 or 2 light coats of Dullcote before applying them. This technique has served me well on on some 30+ year old Champ decals.

Love your craftsmanship.

Myles,

the cooling tower is fabulous. Great job on that structure.

alan graziano

Thanks Jackson, that's another technique I'll try. I also had this logo scanned and used it to make the graphics for the old Revell gas delivery tanker. I could have made fresh decals since I have some inkjet decal paper left. 20/20 hindsight.

As predicted, #2 grandson came this afternoon after tennis lessons and worked on his wonderful project so I was able to do some more work on the monster. Got the tank dam access stair cobbled together and went back to the heater's burner assembly. Got the air intake built and the gas feed system.

I did spray the tank with Dullcoat to seal the decal and normalize the surface a bit. I then touched up the aluminum on the stairs so it's ship shape.

I'm definitely getting better building stairs with Plastruct. This was a tiny little project. I made a double layer of the thin ABS sheet, fit it so it would go inside the tank stair railing. It was a good decision to make the stair and not attempt to chop off a scale foot of the dam. That would have been a mess.

I reinforced the undersides with some Plastruct ABS angle and to add more surface to which to glue the railings. That piece of I-beam holds up the inside end.

Back to the heater. I found just the right size thin wall brass tube to make an intake horn. I then glued some of my fine mesh black tulle onto the tube end using thin CA. I dipped the tube in a little CA puddle then pressed it down onto the tulle. Trimmed it with a sharp #11 blade.

Then I realize that I didn't paint the inside, so I popped it off and painted the inside of the horn and the blower with Nato Black.

All that was left was to create some kind of gas flow system. I saw a picture of a large gas regulator and made a facsimile using some plastic discs stamped out of styrene sheet with my hollow punches. I added a control valve and behind the regulator and a stop valve in front of it. I started painting it when grandson finished his project and we went upstairs to dinner.

All that's left on the heater is a water inlet pipe and valve. Can't make steam without water. I don't know if plant process heaters are ever used to produce steam, but it was the only heat source in this project so I had to get creative. Tomorrow's Sunday and I'm pretty sure I won't be in the shop... although, tennis will be on all day (my wife's favorite sport) so I might get some time after all.

I need to make a similar gas apparatus for the gas line going into the flare stack. 

Thanks Al! I eMailed the pictures to SPX Cooling Technologies to see if I could get a reaction from them. So far, no response. I you ever get the urge to build one, I can send you my drawings.

We're heading to Hawaii on Thursday so I've been running around doing errands, but still got an hour to work today and got the detail work on the heater painted. I used Tamiya, Vallejo and some Liquitex tube acrylic. For the orange I used the Vallejo (red and yellow), for the steel, electric motor and the burner box I used Tamiya, and for the light blue steam line I used the artist acrylics. That was an experiment. I thinned it with Liquitex extender/flow enhancer to make more like model paint. It worked... sort of. It was the perfect hue of light blue I wanted and I didn't feel like fussing with Tamiya blue and white to make it. It took several coats, but it kind of works, although I wouldn't recommend it.

Still have to install a water inlet pipe and then this baby can go into service.

May get some work done tomorrow, but maybe not. I just found out that I was riding around with an expired driver's license. In fact it expired on my birthday and the was July 30. I went with my wife when she renewed hers in April and looked at mine and noted that I had 3 months left and then time flew by. I need it to get onto the plane on Thursday when we go to Hawaii so I know what I'll be doing for part of the day tomorrow.

Thank you again for going thru all the extra work to share this. Very inspiring!

Someday I will start making scenery on my layout.

Thanks Joe... I aim to inspire.

Tomorrow we leave for 11 days in Hawaii so I got in one last shot in the shop before the hiatus.

I started installing equipment on the site, starting with getting the loading rack nailed down since it's the farthest away from the front and needed to be finalized before anything went in front. I then installed the HP Spheres and it's attendant ladder. During this I knocked the flare of the base (it was just sitting there, not finally glued) and I caught it falling towards the concrete in mid-air. My death grip broke the lower caged ladder off the tower. At the end of the session I fixed it, but that wasn't so easy.

First up was adding the pipe supports for the final product piping that feeds the filling pipes. I used some Plastruct I-beam glued to the vertical supports, and then made some individual pipe supports to glue to the beams. This was all done with the loading rack in the shop. I then added the two pipes feeding the fillers. Then I moved it to the layout and glued it to the base with Aleen's PVA. I put weights on top to hold it down while the glue set.

The stairs sit on "concrete" pads which I cut from some Masonite. I glued these to the base with PVA and then CA'd the ladders in place. I then painted the base with "aged concrete" paint. It took several coats to cover since the paint is absorbed by the Masonite. I've left these pipes white. This pic was before the painting.

I located the product feed pumps so they lined up with each other and then so they each fed one of the product pipes. There was a slight altitude difference which I matched with some elbows and short pipe pieces. For pipe supports here I used Plastruct H-beam (which I have very little left) and again some pipe supports made by drilling the correct sized hole in some plastic bar stock and then splitting it down the middle to make two pipe supports. After this picture I painted the supports the dark green I'm using for structural steel.

I put the Spheres in spacing them so there was clearance for the product piping. Again, I'm holding it down with PVA since it's Masonite to Masonite (the foot pads are Masonite).

The last thing I did on the layout today was install the first light pole. Again, held in place with PVA. This may not work and I may resort to epoxy. 

So now back to the bench to reinstall that ladder. I first drilled with the 0.021" carbide drill and then used the same size brass wire to pin the ladder supports back together. Great!  Then I used too much force trying to get the last ladder holder's pin in deep enough and the whole deal blew off re-breaking the remaining ladder holders at their base. Time for Plan C. Having no more Plastruct ladder holders I had to make them from scratch. I did this using the 1/16" brass rod. I drilled out the places where I could for the larger rod, but the top one I had to drill a new spot a little below the original since I also broke off a small carbide drill when drilling the pilot and you can drill onto a chuck of carbide. I got the ladder re-attached, but ran out of time to get it repainted. When I had that tall flare just sitting there near where I was working that little voice in my head mentioned how unstable it was and that it could fall. I'm 72, you'd think that I'd learn to pay attention to that voice!

That gouge is where the previous ladder holder with the piece of brass wire sticking out of it went into the ether. Frankly, using the 1/16" brass to support

Aloha... see y'all in a little over a week.

Really taking shape, Myles. Enjoy your vacation and have a safe trip. 

Well fans, I'm back! We did have a fantastic time in Hawaii. My son in law's been bugging us for years to go and we finally did. 11 days split between Maui and Kaua'i. We stayed at Hyatt properties both places which were spectacular. We had great food at every place we ate whether it was a fancy 4-star restaurant or a local fish house. It just didn't matter. We saw as many sites as we could in the time allowed and even got some pool/beach time in. Here's just a little taste for those of you who've never been. This was a "typical" sunset on Maui's south coast, taken from the porch at Merriman's restaurant.

We got home yesterday afternoon and today I got back to "work" on the trains. Made some progress on piping and installing refinery equipment.

I made a slightly different pipe support driven mainly by having so little of the Plastruct H-beam left. In this case I used some 5/16" square "concrete" Plastruct tube as the support and then a piece of H-beam drilled and split to actually support the pipes. Works! These are glued to both the pipe and the base using CA.

I installed the output line from the HP spheres that come out of one side of the bottom feed and join to a single pump leading to the load rack. 

The other output pump line comes from one of the top two outlets on the top of the big tank so I was fix'n to install that, when I realized that the small stair wasn't painted so I took a few moments to prime it, spray the yellow rails and then mask them for the bare metal spray. Of course I broke off the small rail and had to CA it back on.

I screwed the barrier dam down with a single screw, but later went back and added one more since the Masonite base was not laying down flat. I also enlarged the past-through hole for the LED wiring since the tank was not positioning where I wanted it and the wire was preventing sliding it sideways enough. I then glued the tank to the barrier dam using contact cement dots. I first tried PVA, but it wasn't going to hold on the ABS tank bottom well enough. The contact dots worked well once I got it settled in.

I piped the overhead line to the pump.

Measuring for the pipe runs isn't hard, but you have to remember to allow for about 1 pipe diameter less for each place that has a "T" or elbow. You just back the measurement about 1/8" per elbow and it fits nicely.

The rest of the pipes from these two installations go to the pipe rack and back into the bowels of the refinery which meant I had to install the pipe rack supports to continue working. I glued these down with PVA enhanced with medium CA. I used a convenient long straight edge that has measurements on it; a 4' level. I spaced it off the front of the platform with a small combination square and clamped it to the table. I used the same square to square up the glued posts. I placed them 15 cm apart. Why centimeters you ask? It was the scale on the bottom of the level so it was convenient.

The last thing I did was glue the blue pump in place in front of and to the left of the big tank which will connect to the horizontal output on the left bottom of the tank. It will be dry and ready to connect tomorrow. I need to add to valves to the HP lines before they get to the pumps and decided to paint them before hand since these are snap-on Plastruct fittings and I don't have to break the line to install. So I'll finish painting and install them tomorrow also.nComing up are the most confusing pieces with the tank platform and the distillation tower. Both have many interfaces with the rest and will take some doing. As I'm doing this it's coming clear that building it off the layout would have been troublesome. The re-design was the way to go.                                                                                    

Welcome back!  I'm glad you had a great trip!  Thank you for thinking of us who have never been there!  I in fact, have never been anywhere that palm trees grow!!  Thank you!

Mark, I would put Hawaii as a "Bucket List" item. We had to wait a long time to go, but we're very glad we did. You walk around a admire that it's part of the good old USA with Costco's, Walgreen's and Target along with canyons, active volcanos, jungles and rain forests and the best surfing in the world.

I bought a book on the geology of Kaua'i. It's the oldest of the main island at around 7.5 to 8 million years. It takes between 150,000 and a million years to create a workable island from the 16,000 foot depth of the Pacific over the Hawaiian hot spot. It then took another 4-5 million years for the island to go from being a single-coned shield volcano to the interesting, lumpy island we see today, and then another million or so for the waves and rain to weather those mountains and make it the lush, green paradise that we see today. Much of the 25,000 foot early mountain slumped off into the sea bottom due to the immense weight of the mountain. The Waimea Canyon was actually created by half the island slipping down 3,000 feet leaving a big gash. It was then eroded by the river running  at the bottom unlike the Grand Canyon which is entirely formed by the Colorado cutting through the limestone and sandstone as the Colorado Plateau was rising to it's present 5,000 feet above sea level.

The islands are on a geological conveyor belt that's carrying the entire island chain northwestwardly at the rate of 3 to 4 inches per year. Since it's formation, Kaua'i had moved 350 miles. In 70 to 80 million years, the island will keep moving on the Pacific tectonic plate and sinking as it goes along eventually disappearing into the subduction zone up near Alaska. So if you have property on the islands, be aware that they're all going to disappear before 100 million years expire.

The Big Island is being created now and there's another one off it's Southern shore called Loihi that's 3.000 feet below the surface and will be a new island in about 100,000 years. Sort of puts a hole in the "Earth is 6,000 years old" theory, doesn't it. It takes a lot more time to create a land than 6,000 years.

Miles, Welcome back. Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip. This little tease that you posted today makes me anxious to see the completion of the project. The piping work you have to do will be tedious but will make the plant really stand out.  

So I don't need to worry about getting to Hawaii fast before it gets sucked into the Alaska zone!  Good, I was worried about that!  LOL  This would be a great trip after we retire.  I'll save my pennies!  Thank you, I found the information very interesting.

On to the model at hand.  I am interested like Pat to see all that piping!  You remember me when you were building the substation. I like the structure supporting the bus work.

I thought it would put your mind at ease knowing how much time you have until the island disappear below the waves. Some things in nature move very slowly. Others (earthquakes, landslides, hurricanes, etc.) seem to happen much faster.

Spent yesterday and today piping the refinery. It's a slow and mildly tedious process, since I'm taking time to measure distances, building the piping array and then taking it into the shop and air brushing the correct color. When dry, bringing it back to the layout and installing it. Then measuring and doing another. I'm getting about three runs done in each session. Here're some examples:

This run was particularly delicate since the CA joints hold the butyrate pipe sort-of. Any sudden moves caused them come apart. The solvent cement were worse.

These yellow pipes were a pain since they kept coming apart from the previous stubs that were added before the tanks were installed. There are at least three more pipe runs that emirate from this platform.

The clothes pins are use to weigh the pipe down into the pipe support grooves when measuring and while the CA cures.

In this instance, the lower red pipe in the background was harder to install than it looks since it's in the back of the layout and I'm reaching around a lot of stuff in between. I've already broken the glue joints on four out of the five pipe racks. I knew when I installed them that I'd be reaching through them all the time and I WILL HIT THEM.

I made the pipe stanchion to hold the pipe level so I could get the vertical measurement component made. This is a long run since it goes to the input side of the yellow pump seen in the pictures above. I ran out of the Plastruct .312" square concrete-colored tubing that I was using for the pipe stanchions. I'm now using 3/8" square basswood. Use whatever works. I'm hoping I don't run out of pipe fittings. I'm running quite low on the larger diameter elbows and don't have any T's. I'm going to need this for the flare relief valve piping.

Leaving again tomorrow for a long weekend back East due to several family events. Will be back in the shop on Wednesday. I'm not even over jet lag and we're out again. Whew! Being retired is hard work. Whenever I complain about some task on the railroad being difficult, my wife doesn't want to hear about it. "It's your hobby! It's not work and no one's telling you to do it! You're doing it for your own enjoyment, so don't complain." Sometimes, she has a point.

Those pics are great! I'll probably have to built a big bill board sign like the last picture. 

Got back from the trip back East and it was a doozy. Five hotels in 6 days. When my wife got up this morning I reminded her that the bathroom was "That way". After being in so many different rooms and beds I could have been running for election. It's no wonder that rock stars have those big buses so they're waking up in the same bed even though they're in a different city.

So, finally back in the shop putting in some more refinery piping. 

But first, I want to share this. I worked with Walt Gillespie at Rusty Stumps Models to 3d Print the Victorian details for the elegant Bronx corner structure that I drew earlier this year on SketchUp. I was planning on just having one each of each detail and then resin casting the rest, but after the sample was printed I asked Walt to print all the parts I would need. The good news: they came out amazingly. The printer he has produces very high resolution acceptable for O'scale with little or no graininess. Just a little touch-up and they'll be perfect. The bad news: Walt isn't going to produce any more custom work since he needs all his time to produce his own products.

Here'a close up of the cornice details which would have been a real bear to scratch build.

And here are the large window eyebrows.

As a reminder, here's the building they're eventually going to become part of. There are little doodads under each cornice that I wanted to print, but they're too small so I'll do them by hand.

I didn't do the first floor window tops since their straight parts and I can build them out of styrene strips. It was all the fancy curved stuff that presented the biggest challenges. Having those cornice assemblies. I had him also make those difficult oval windows in the mansard roof. I still have the rest of this building to figure out, namely, do I use brick sheet or have it all laser cut like the distillery. I have time to make that call since I still have a lot of work to do on the refinery. 

So with no further ado, here's today's refinery progress.

Finished the second and third pipe sets for the methanizer, and figured out where I'm going to pierce the reflux drum for the heat exchanger water lines. I was only working for about 1.5 hours today. Tomorrow more will be accomplished. I'm leaving the newest line white. I have one more support to install, plus the picture doesn't show the support holding up the left end near the curve. Water lines will go into the right side of the red reflux drum.

Piping work continues... got the water lines installed to the cooling tower, finished the piping from the major platform, got most of the pipes to the distillation column in, piped in the big blue tank, and ran out of large size pipe elbows which is going to stall the project since the flare lines are going to be big pipe with some scratch-built manifolds.

Plastruct small diameter piping is frustrating. The elbows seem to be push fit and they do offer resistance when you insert the pin into the pipe, but then it falls apart. This makes pipe fitting very challenging since I don't want to CA the  joints before I get the sizes measured. If you look at it the wrong way, the piping system falls apart and you spend lots of time putting it all back together until you reach the point where you can glue it all together.

First up was the cooling water piping. I laid out the position for the nozzles using a surface gauge, and then drilled parallel to the tank's axis so the nozzles would point straight out even though the tank end was domed. They were a bit loose and wanted to turn facing along the curve, so some medium CA froze them facing straight ahead. I still need to paint them.

Piping runs weren't too difficult except getting the water outlet fitted on the cooling tower bottom. It's pretty far back and I had to reach around a lot of complicated stuff to trial fit and measure. I didn't break anything.

Here are the two pipes fastened in place. I sprayed them Tamiya base metal rattle can in the shop before installation. I'm going to install a valve on the outlet line. The Plastruct valves snap over the pipe so I don't have to break the pipe to install. I have to paint the support posts concrete color.

For the remaining piping to the platform and distillation column I used the Plastruct scheme of running a long pipe across many racks using pipe T's to tap into them. This stabilized the run and made it a little easier to get it together... note that I said a "little easier". The falling-apart-piping was still happening. I did this both for the distillation column piping that went to the platform and the long run from the big blue tank.

And here is an overhead shot showing the current status. Should have piping done sometime next week and will start working on the ops building and the chain link fencing. There is still all the flare piping to run, and there's two more pipe stubs that don't have anything on them coming out of the sphere bottoms. Lastly, there's two lines running to the heater that has to be installed, and that would be that.

AAAaaaagghhhh!  I've gone blind! 

Max, I've restored your sight... I fixed the missing pictures. I am assuming that's what you were referring to.

While we were in Hawaii, I got the word from Heaven Hill Brands that the Bernheim Distillery was now on permanent display at their Bourbon Experience Center in Bardstown, KY. It was finished just in time for the yearly Bourbon Festival that takes over the region. Unfortunately, due to our relaxing in Hawaii, I was unable to attend. Here's what the display looks like. I don't know from this image if they hooked up the power for the lights.

I also don't know from this image what, if any, descriptive material was on display with the model. I will be seeing the Heaven Hill folks this evening and I'll find out more.