Continuing Saga …

Whew!   Thanks, Myles. 

The museum display looks great!  I am assuming they have it fastened tight to the barrel.  Fitting stand.

Myles, Nice progress on the chemical plant. Congratulations again on the distillery. The display looks great. 

Myles,

That is some fantastic craftsmanship. You did an outstanding job on this model.

Alan Graziano

Thanks all!

We have a Kenmore (Whirlpool) dishwasher where the wheels on the lower tray started falling off. They're held with a press-fit pin/axle and it just wore away and released a number of the wheels. One of them ended up falling on the drying coil and then melted and burned to it. At the same time the Whirlpool HE front-load washing machine starting giving an error code and shutting down. We got a twofer with one service call seeing both appliances. The dishwasher was an easy fix. The tech scraped the melted plastic off the coil and said run it a couple of times empty to remove any residual plastic and I ordered and installed a new set of wheel trollies. The washing machine needed a new water inlet valve and it was all installed today. Why am I telling you this... well... this plus getting my Acura serviced really cut into the shop time. But... I did get more done.

First I tied in the blue tank line that went to the demethanizer and ties into a line from the reflux drum. It's not a perfectly clean junction since the holes in the pipe T are not parallel. It's also a problem since I have a white line tying into a red one. And the white line comes from the blue tank. I'm not sure what I want to do about this.

I got most of the flare line installed until I ran out of elbows. In fact, I heat bent two pipes (poorly) for the medium-sized tubing which I had only two elbows left. I put them in the foreground and the bent tubes in the background. These four pipes come from the HP spheres' relief valves and tie into a long header that runs downstream.

The problem with the heat bending was it still kinked. If it was brass I would have used my K-S spring tube benders. I didn't want to start bending and soldering brass for this application. Brass is difficult and expensive. The big line runs the length of the site, turns 90 up a bit and makes a right turn towards the back. I then held the pipe sort of horizontal by taping it to a square. I also made two more tall "concrete" pipe supports to hold it all up. I've made a lot of pipe supports. I don't know if this is prototypically correct, but the pipes would sag a lot without them. Butyrate pipes isn't as stiff as steel...

I then set the length of the individual downcomers, and then marked this location on the big pipe. I didn't have 90 degree T's in this size so I drilled the pipe so the medium pipe could be inserted and glued.

And then I tied in the relief line from the distilling tower into this line, and finally measured and cut the pipe to join into the flare's knock out drum. Still remaining to be attached is the yellow relief line from the demethanizer. For some reason, I could find no relief valves from the tanks on the platform, nor is there any space for any. Furthermore, I am completely out of relief valves.  All these relief lines will be disassembled and painted yellow.

I ordered a ton of elbows from my LHS who is getting them from Walther's. It helps my hobby shop and I don't have to pay shipping. I don't need a ton to finish up. I'll have some left over pipe for other projects.

I also started running the last 1/8" line from the blue tank's pump to the heater. I installed a large diameter pipe into the heater's inlet so I'm going to make a tapered transition piece to put the 1/8" into the big line. There's another line from distillation that goes to the heater too... the bottoms. The last line to hook up will be the steam line from the heater to the flare. And that will end the piping exercise. The model's getting very busy looking which I like. I have two more light poles to install... one's going next to the un-built ops building. I have a lot of detail painting to do on all those un-painted pipe supports and some of the piping which I didn't airbrush. I could probably air brush some of it by selective masking of the surrounding stuff. Then there's ground cover which due to the complexity will not be as easy as it usually is, and then the fencing. Another month and it will be lit up. I also have to plug some holes that were made before the design changed.

It's really looking good, Myles. The pipes really make it interesting.

Thanks Pat... it's that old Chinese proverb, "May you live in interesting times." Sometimes "interesting" is good and sometimes it's not so good. I consider all the piping "good".

Continued working it all together today with the completion of the two pipes to and from the heater, painting the line from the blue tank and installing it, and finishing up with the steam line from the heater to the flare.

I had some interference with the bottoms line coming from the distillation column to the heater so instead of making everything askew I jumped the piping that was causing the problem. After fitting all this and making more pipe stands, I rattle-can sprayed the pipe with Tamiya Bare Metal. You can see the finished color in some later pictures.

I also laid in the last piece of the other line that went from the heater to the blue tank's pump. I did make a transition piece, but to go from the 3/16" tubing to the 1/8". I just chucked the piece in the lathe and tapered it with the compound set on a shallow angle. The tapered portion is at the lower left of the blue line. You can see the silver pipe now going from the still to the heater. I added another light pole here. I have one left for the ops building. The heater pipe will be painted light blue to match the piece coming out of the heater.

Here's the other end of the blue line.

Just for fun I placed my mobile crane into the scene. The cable isn't riding on the hook's pulley correctly so I couldn't extend the boom further. I bought this at York 2 years ago from DHS models. I'm a sucker for construction equipment models.

And another overhead shot showing current progress.

Believe it or not, there's only one more pipe to install which is being held up by waiting for the elbows to arrive. It's the flare pipe from the demethanizer to the flare manifold pipe and paint the whole deal yellow. I also have to create some kind of gas apparatus for the gas line to the flare. I'm thinking of a cabinet with the gas line coming from the ground into the cabinet and from the cabinet to the gas line on the flare. I'll have to cobble some gribblies to make it look technical. Lastly, I think the big red demethanizer needs a work platform next to it so workers can access those valves on top. I have stairs and railings left over and am getting some more H-beam to provide support. Onward and upward!

Tomorrow's the St. James art fair here in Louisville so refinery work will continue on Monday. Have a nice weekend.

Well... happy day after Columbus Day. My parts came in yesterday so I was able finish the flare line thus completing 99% of all the pipe work. Left to do is the gas line to the flare. And that's a complete and fully functional petrochemical plant.

I had the relief line from the demethanizer turning downward and then outward not knowing how to install it when the plant was complete. At first I tried to adapt the rest of the piping to conform to this scheme, but quickly realized that it was much better to take it directly off the top of the tank to the header. So that's the way I did it.

To install the other end I drilled the header with the #30 drill so it was a nice tight fit with the 1/8" pipe, shaped the new line to conform to the header's curve, and held it together with the 1/8" pipe inserted into the larger diameter tube.

It came out strong and at the right orientation. I took all of the flare piping into the shop a painted it all yellow. After reinstallation and gluing it all down, I touch up the yellow where it scraped off in handling.

There was one more pipe to build; the connection from the knock out drum to the flare itself. This was a fun little pipe to assemble since I'm getting very good at measuring, cutting and fitting these things. It needed a valve, but I was all out of the largest diameter gate valves. I had a #6 valve which wouldn't fit over the #8 pipe without breaking so I ground it out so it would be a flush fit and then used a 1/16" piece of brass rod to securely fasten it to the pipe. I then painted this too yellow with detail painting on the valve. I also mixed up some light blue and finished up the steam line from the heater to the flare.

So all that's left is the control cabinet for the flare gas line which I'll build tomorrow or Thursday.

I measured the demethanizer for the work platform. It comes out to 38 scale feet long, 4 feet wide and 9 feet off the ground. I didn't have any heavy sheet stock that long so I spliced two pieces together. I then glued these to one of the new H-beams I received yesterday. I'm using some of the Plastruct 1/8" sheet for foot pads and H-beams for the vertical supports. I set the surface gauge at 2 1/4" stacked all the pieces up and scribed the vertical H-beams for the length, cut them off and glued it all together.

After fitting a piece of Plastruct railing to this length, I found that taking about 1/8" off each end will perfectly align the railings vertical stanchions with the platform and simplify the build. I'll have this build tomorrow with the stair on one end. Then the control box, and the ops building and it's chain link fence time.

So here's the complete piping from four views.

Fascia boards go on after all the wiring work is done. Should be before ground cover goes in. Speaking of ground cover. I'm trying to decide to put in the fencing before ground cover or after. I put the fence in after ground cover on the substation. It was a pain since the gravel got into all the holes that were pre-drilled for the fence posts. But... putting the fence in before makes it more difficult to get the ground cover one without doing any damage. I think I'm putting the fence in first.

These pictures were shot with the iPhone 7. When it's all done, I'll take better shots with the Canon Eos and photo stacking post production. At the telephoto setting on the iPhone you do lose focus. I didn't buy the iPhone 7Plus with a real telephoto lens, but it's too big for my pocket or my hands.

Took some pics with the better camera. Just used the 70-210mm long lens with full automatic and no flash, but the focus is definitely better.

That is another impressive industry for your railroad!!

It's nice to see some snippets of your layout, Myles. 

An iPhone camera is about all you need, as the losses from uploading to forum galleries mitigate against sharp shots.

The clarity in both posts looks the same from down here. 

Beautiful job, Myles. 

Myles,

you did an excellent job. I love looking at these pictures.

alan graziano

Thank you gentlemen! But work is not complete AND a milestone was reached today with the activation of the lighting and beginning installation of the fascia board. 

Here's a taste and then I'll provide some more details.

I used four ground bus bars to feed the 12vdc to the 16 LEDs. I had one more 12VDC converter in my electric junk box. I replaced its output cord with some red/white zip cord since I needed it longer to get from the power strip on the other side of the ravine over to the refinery. I brought the feeder leads to a pair of bus bars under the left side of the refinery base. I couldn't get the screws to work properly, but then realized that the terminal screws were square drive. With the correct bit in the power driver no problem. I hooked up all the lighting on the left side that could reach these two buses. I then added two more buses towards the right side, fed a feeder to the first two buses, and then hooked up all the right side lighting through that bus. All the lighting except two worked. The light post on the extreme right side next to the heater was not working. It needed an additional jumper to reach the second set of bus bars and I thought it may not be continuous. But I tried my one last unassigned light pole to it and it was hot, so something was wrong with the light pole itself. I pulled it out and installed the one that I had just tested.

The second light was the left end of the loading platform. If this pole was not functioning that would have been a BIG problem. But I noticed underneath that I drove a wire-clamping staple right through both conductors so it was a direct short. I pulled the staple and the light went on. Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one.

Took lots of pictures from all over the room and attempted to make a movie of the flare tower's lights blinking. I have to edit it and then I'll post it on YouTube.

I had some time left so I thought I start putting on the fascia since all the wiring is done. Starting at the left end I fastened the Masonite as close to the left end final curve as possible. I'll use a small piece to close up that space.

For the right side, I butted the next piece to the first and clamped the two together with a quick clamp and then drove the first screw. Before screwing anything I scribed the center line of the OSB layout base onto the Fascia and pre-drilled the holes with a countersink pilot drill on the drill press.

At the far right end, there was no way to bend the Masonite around that radius. I tried and it fractured. So I brought the fascia to a smoother angle and drove some long screws through the fascia into the layout. For a lower screw, I pre-drilled a backup block and held it behind the existing fascia so the lower screw had more material to bite other than 1/8" Masonite.

I'm going to fill that wedge-shaped space with some more OSB and I traced the shape onto a piece of scrap. (That's 3rd Rail J1-a sitting there. It was my first steam engine).

I'll cut this piece out tomorrow. I also will remove part of the existing fascia that lies behind the curve so I can add some splice blocks underneath to hold this patch. There will be some minor filling needed on the left end. The fascia will be painted green when the ground cover is finished.

The last thing I did today was place the Ops building plans onto the layout to determine its position. The best approach is facing directly outward which gives some clearance on the left side and some parking area in front. I have some more space in back in front of the tracks and I'll add a sliver of Masonite to bring that space up to the refinery's level. You can see that area on the left that needs filling.

And here's one more dramatic picture.

Yes, it all looks very dramatic with the night lighting!  

Myles,

The lighting is just incredible!  It has been so much fun following your work on such a challenging and extensive project. 

Tomlinson Run Railroad

Thanks guys (as always). I need to add some petrochemical smells...

Trainman2001 posted:

Thank you gentlemen! But work is not complete AND a milestone was reached today with the activation of the lighting and beginning installation of the fascia board. 

Here's a taste and then I'll provide some more details.

I used four ground bus bars to feed the 12vdc to the 16 LEDs. I had one more 12VDC converter in my electric junk box. I replaced its output cord with some red/white zip cord since I needed it longer to get from the power strip on the other side of the ravine over to the refinery. I brought the feeder leads to a pair of bus bars under the left side of the refinery base. I couldn't get the screws to work properly, but then realized that the terminal screws were square drive. With the correct bit in the power driver no problem. I hooked up all the lighting on the left side that could reach these two buses. I then added two more buses towards the right side, fed a feeder to the first two buses, and then hooked up all the right side lighting through that bus. All the lighting except two worked. The light post on the extreme right side next to the heater was not working. It needed an additional jumper to reach the second set of bus bars and I thought it may not be continuous. But I tried my one last unassigned light pole to it and it was hot, so something was wrong with the light pole itself. I pulled it out and installed the one that I had just tested.

The second light was the left end of the loading platform. If this pole was not functioning that would have been a BIG problem. But I noticed underneath that I drove a wire-clamping staple right through both conductors so it was a direct short. I pulled the staple and the light went on. Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one.

Took lots of pictures from all over the room and attempted to make a movie of the flare tower's lights blinking. I have to edit it and then I'll post it on YouTube.

I had some time left so I thought I start putting on the fascia since all the wiring is done. Starting at the left end I fastened the Masonite as close to the left end final curve as possible. I'll use a small piece to close up that space.

 

For the right side, I butted the next piece to the first and clamped the two together with a quick clamp and then drove the first screw. Before screwing anything I scribed the center line of the OSB layout base onto the Fascia and pre-drilled the holes with a countersink pilot drill on the drill press.

At the far right end, there was no way to bend the Masonite around that radius. I tried and it fractured. So I brought the fascia to a smoother angle and drove some long screws through the fascia into the layout. For a lower screw, I pre-drilled a backup block and held it behind the existing fascia so the lower screw had more material to bite other than 1/8" Masonite.

 

I'm going to fill that wedge-shaped space with some more OSB and I traced the shape onto a piece of scrap. (That's 3rd Rail J1-a sitting there. It was my first steam engine).

 

I'll cut this piece out tomorrow. I also will remove part of the existing fascia that lies behind the curve so I can add some splice blocks underneath to hold this patch. There will be some minor filling needed on the left end. The fascia will be painted green when the ground cover is finished.

The last thing I did today was place the Ops building plans onto the layout to determine its position. The best approach is facing directly outward which gives some clearance on the left side and some parking area in front. I have some more space in back in front of the tracks and I'll add a sliver of Masonite to bring that space up to the refinery's level. You can see that area on the left that needs filling.

 

And here's one more dramatic picture.

WOW!    Fantastic, Myles!

Trainman2001 posted:

Thanks guys (as always). I need to add some petrochemical smells...

Trainman2001 posted:

Thanks guys (as always). I need to add some petrochemical smells...

That would mean a leak, a mistake....

Trainman2001 posted:

Thanks guys (as always). I need to add some petrochemical smells...

....kinda like whatever is happening with the composer right now.

I never smelt much except the occasional filling spill around here. The "enternal flame"  of burn off stacks take care of most the normal fumes. I think the storage facilities had more regular fumes than processing.

Clean a few cars with some Naptha

There's actually enough organic chemical smells in my workshop all the time to provide the ambience.

Exercise day... finally getting back to routine since the Hawaii trip. What did get accomplished was finishing the assembly of the new work platform and started building the flare gas control cabinet.

I adjusted the platform length so it came out to an even number of Plastruct ABS railing spacing. I took about 1/8" off each end and it worked. I glued on the railing and then went about fitting the steps. Plastruct ABS stairs have a notch at the top that nestles into the platform to which you're gluing it. I cut a piece of 1/8" Masonite as the concrete bottom step and measured the staircase so it would work out reasonably well at the bottom. After cutting, I luckily found out that the Plastruct stair railing also fit with a an even number of rail sections. This too was glued onto the stair. Then this assembly was glued to the platform with some help from medium CA and Tamiya solvent cement.

Took this assembly to the refinery to see how it fit. The foot pads' width on the tank side kept it from closing in tight and the flare pipe ran right down the middle of the platform. Too bad I didn't think about this platform before I ran that pipe since I could have raised it above a O'scale plant operator's head. That train has left the station. I'm not touching that pipe! So I trimmed the foot pads to give me a bit more clearance. Our worker will still have to climb over that pipe to get to the other two valves. I won't tell OSHA if you don't. Plastruct should have included this platform on their plans since those valves would be unreachable without it.

I took the assembly outside and gave it a coat of Tamiya primer gray and left it to dry over the weekend. I did refit it back on the layout to see what it looked like. Now that I'm studying this picture, I may modify that pipe after all. I can move the vertical portion back to the relief valve. It would require and new pipe support. It's not too hard to break those pipe joints plus I now have a lot of large elbows and large pipe to make new stuff if I have to. It would make that platform much more sensible.

For the gas control cabinet, I'm just cobbling together some 0.040" styrene with some 1/8" square legs. I'll put on a pair of separate doors and hinges to provide some interest and will have a gas inlet and outlet. The inlet pipe will come out of the ground and the outlet will go to the gas line on the flare. This is a very early picture so the box looks pretty crude. It needed to dry overnight (or Monday) before I can finish sand it.

Myles, there are several ways you may produce a chemical smell for your plant.  Anything with fragrant hydrocarbons will do it, and that can range a lot, all depends what products/catalysts are utilized in that particular unit.  Looking at your lighting reminds me of operating cranes in the plants at night.  The main difficulty, at times, was being able to see the flagman due to the glare of the lights and their reflection off top glass of the cab in units where it was not permissible to have to top window open due to unit product and hazards.  Or, having to convince a flagman to not place his hand(s) in front of a light and post.  Their hand is immediately hidden in the brightness of the light, best they stand to the side, between light poles.

The electrical sub station in the foreground looks fantastic !  But, of course it would, knowing your skills and talent.

Jesse   TCA   12-68275

Well Jesse, I kind of added some smells today when I rattle-can sprayed the Tamiya bare metal onto the gas cabinet and new platform. Basement has a nice pleasant petrochem smell today. My basement is very dry and has no musty smell at all. I really dislike that smell. 

Took a day trip to Marysville, KY on Saturday. It's a neat river town about 55 miles southeast of Cincy on the Ohio River. It's kind of a place that time forgot and is a real diamond in the rough. There's two reasons why it isn't flourishing as a tourist destination that I think. First, the town council seems reluctant to really attract artists and the real food scene that a tourist attraction needs. I don't know why they're so. Second, there's an imposing concrete flood wall that blocks street level views of the river. There's a plan to put a walking/biking trail on the river side of this wall that could help, but to get a river view you have to be on an elevated floor. It's keeping this city from washing away when the Ohio frequently floods.

But the architecture is precious! Lots of late 1800s and early 1900s Victorian, and new empire/french. Turrets and fancy stone work typify this very American town.

I believe this is the Cox building.

How'd ya like to 3D print this iron work?

The problem is typified by the fact that all the businesses save a few were closed at 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays. We got there about 3:10. Even the museum was closed at 3:00. They have a noted miniatures collection there which I wanted to see. "Dollar short and a day late!" You can't bring a town back to life if everything shuts down at 3.

The town on my layout is too small to include all the neat architecture that I think I'm capable of building these days. I noticed something interesting (to me at least). The Nighthawks Cafe building is three and a half stories and the Bronx building is four, but towers over the Nighthawks. I got worried that there was something inherently wrong. It turns out that ceiling height really makes a difference. On Main Street in Marysville, there were three story buildings that were almost a complete story equivalent higher than an adjacent three story building. The difference? The obvious higher ceiling heights of the more regal looking building than its neighbor.

So... I'll have two buildings of differing heights based on their internal dimensions and both will be correct and consistent with the real world.

Back to the refinery: The piping is now officially 100% complete with the addition of the gas control cabinet next to the flare. I decided to not modify the relief line on the demethanizer. I started to wiggle it to see if it would come apart easily, and of course, it would not. I decided not to make a mess of a beautifully installed and painted pipe run so I left it alone.

I painted the new platform and the gas cabinet and installed both on the layout. I then cleaned up the work bench a bit and am getting ready to make the ops building. Here's the completed unpainted gas cabinet. The doors are 0.010" styrene overlays with some small round rod as piano hinges. For the latch, I cut out some plastic and scribed some lines. I took the cabinet to the layout to capture exactly where the gas line should tie into the cabinet to line up with its mating half on the flare tower. I then marked and drilled that location. Before painting I glued the bottom and side pipes in place.

I painted the new platform with the same scheme as the others, bare metal walkways and stairs, yellow railings and Japan IDF green for the structural steel. Bases were painted concrete color. Gas cabinet is also bare metal with orange piping. I still have to paint the vertical "concrete" pedestals holding up all those pipes.

Here's the new platform installed next to the demethanizer.

To me, walkways, stairs and ladders really jazz up and industrial installation. You can't have too many of them.

Talked to Andre Garcia recently and we're going to probably cut the Bronx building sometime in December. Now that I've invested in the 3D printed parts, I really need to get it built. I finished up the laser-cutting drawings today. Andre is out of pocket for at least another month so I'm holding onto the drawings until he's ready to act on them.

Ops Building construction has begun.

I'm using Evergreen styrene corrugated metal siding for this building. The patten runs horizontally on the sheet, but it needs to be vertical on the building. This meant cutting the sheet to the wall height and then splicing pieces together to generate the width I need.

I started cutting and gluing on the ends. Of course I had to design a "simple" rectangular building that has two different roof heights AND both roofs are slanted. This complicates splicing and cutting since I'm no longer cutting square edges. Just as a reminder he's my design. I've changed the front windows due to availability of some Grandt Line products at Scale Reproductions, Inc. It's an "as built" versus "as designed" decision.

One side was made with two pieces, the other with three so I could use up some smaller pieces. I added a styrene strip on the seam to reinforce it. When painted the seams will be very hard to see. 

The front and back are two different heights, so of course I made them the same side... at first. As you'll see in the next picture, my front is too tall. I had set the caliper to the rear height and cut the front pieces to that height. I didn't realize it was wrong until I was test fitting the front to one of the ends and the front was WAY TOO TALL. It was not too big a problem to cut it down to the correct size.

I laid out the window heights using a surface gauge on the granite surface plate, but laid out their widths using the digital calipers as a marking gauge. I transferred the window measurements from the windows using the same calipers. I went for a slip fit only to maintain a nice alignment. I cut the openings using a #11 bladed knife and then my MicroMark corner cutter. I don't use this tool much, but when needed it's very neat having razor sharp edges at a perfect 90°. I chuck in the drill press so I can provide controlled pressure and keep it well aligned.

After notching the corners I would go back and scribe on side a bit deeper until it breaks free and then pop out the scrap piece. Some careful scraping and sanding opened any holes that were too tight. This is the too tall front.

\

The back only gets a door which I'll cut tomorrow. After cutting the front to the proper height I needed to reinforce the width so I glued on a piece of 1/8" square stock. The bits of scrap in this image reinforce the splice.

The windows seem a little big now that I look at this, but I'm going to stay with it. If I want to put an interior inside you'll be able to see in better. I'm thinking of mocking up a control panel and instrument board. I'll see how I feel. For the upper level windows into the garage I have some windows left over from the distilleries that could serve nicely.

A while ago I broke my piece of plate glass that I used as an assembly surface. I hadn't replaced it and was working on the cork surface of my auxiliary work bench. A couple of weeks ago I found a piece of Corian that was stored under the cellar steps. It was the blank that remained when they cut out the sink opening out of counter top in the kitchen. This was done by the previous owner. Well... this stuff is terrific. It's dead flat and tough. I tested it with solvent cement and it had no reaction. I then put some CA on it and after curing popped right off, so CA doesn't affect it either. It's now my new work surface. And like our kitchen counters, it doesn't show dirt at all.

Myles:

From past experience no matter how closely I match the corrugated panels the seams are always apparent after paint (at least to me).  Fortunately for 'metal' siding there are two methods I use to hide the seams. One is if the seam is located strategically to allow a drain pipe to cover it. The other method I use a lot is to cut a thin strip of corrugated sheet (two or three grooves wide) and place over the seam. To me it looks better than the bare seam.

Myles,

Don't forget to "red line" your drawings and mark them as "as built" for future records and references.

Jesse

645, that's a great idea. I also thought that every countertop has a sink cutout that scrap somewhere. And to think that piece was sitting under the steps for over 8 years and I didn't even know it until a couple of weeks ago. It's working well in its new application.

Joe, I'll be using some small styrene angle on all the corners and trim boards where the roofs meet the sides. I'm not too worried about the seams showing up they're not to obvious and I tried to shape the cut so the corrugations didn't appear disrupted.

Jesse, I should mark those drawings, but then I'm only building one of these. The distillery, on the other hand, could be built by others so getting those drawings right is critical especially when cutting with a laser.

I finished cutting the opening out of the end and back walls and added edge and other reinforcement to stiffen the flimsy sides. I then added corner posts to all four ends of the sides in preparation of joining them to the front and back. Using the angle block on the surface plate, I glued the first end to the back, and the other side piece to the front, and then combined the two halves into a complete building. I took the building to the layout to try it out for size and it will work well. As I noted before, I will add some more Masonite between the refinery base board and the track to support the rear of the ops building.

I needed to make a floor (although I may end up not using one) and decided to attempt to use scrap pieces cobbled together. After squaring them up and cutting to size, I spliced two pieces together with an additional piece of Masonite scrap and then used "gravity clamps" to hold them until the Aleen's set up. I then moved it and use spring clamps so it can dry overnight.

The floor is necessary if I'm going to put in any interior partitions or detailing.

For the clerestory wall and windows, I spliced together five pieces of scrap all cut to the correct height on the Duplicutter. While drying I installed two pieces of Plastruct I-beam to provide support for the upper works and a place to which to glue the clerestory wall.

I temporarily clamped the clerestory wall to the to the supports for a trial fit. Once the splices dry completely, I have to cut all the upper window openings. This will be a bit tricky since it could all fall apart. The laser cut windows fit nicely and are actually the lower sash portions of the distillery windows. I had Andre cut two lower sashes for each window mainly because it was easy to balance out the drawing and give me some spares. Now they're going to come to good use. I didn't throw out any extra laser-cut parts since they can find other uses.

Since I have these sashes as drawings, I can bring them into the ops drawings and do a good layout and fitting BEFORE I actually cut any styrene. Tomorrow will be a good long work session and I should get a lot of this building done. I may also draw up a control panel diagram that could be used to mock up a small control room for the plant.

More work today on the ops building. Got the clerestory constructed and installed along with the overhead garage doors. Prepared the building for roofing and realized I'm out of Evergreen Standing Seam Roofing and will have to buy it tomorrow. Came up with a better way to mount the building with a larger Masonite base which solves a couple of problems while creating a few more of its own.

I drew the clerestory design in Adobe Illustrator to get the window spacing and hole sizes. Since I already had an Illustrator version of the clerestory wall AND an accurate set of the laser-cut windows I was able to combine both in one drawing. I tried two ways to do it and chose the top drawing.

I then cut this pattern out and with a little spray glue attached to the clerestory wall. The butt joints in the wall were very weak since the surface area was almost non-existent. I cut out the entire window opening including the material between the windows since I felt it would be next to impossible to just punch out the window spaces without having the in-between pieces fall apart.

I glued the windows with a couple of drops of medium CA starting at the left end, and then added back the in-between pieces until I got to the other end. It needed just a very small amount of material removed to get the last window set in. The window sets were also glued to each other using Medium CA. This assembly was glued with solvent cement to the Plastruct cross-pieces. When set I added some 1/8" Evergreen styrene angle to trim off the corners.

I also added the same angle to all the corners.

For the overhead doors I'm using some Evergreen 1/2" spaced Standing Seam Roofing leaving out the thin plastic strips that simulate the seams. These look like very convincing overhead doors. Before installing I trimmed out the opening with angle. The doors themselves needed some internal adjustments to clear some of the reinforcing material inside the walls.

To better support the roofing I made some I-beam rafters (on their side) to fill out the inner portions. This is when I realized that the roofing material was absent. To keep the beams from interfering with the roof, I coped out the ends so they just sit on the 1/8" square wall reinforcement. It took solvent and CA to get these pieces to stay put.

I didn't like the floor idea I made yesterday. Instead I'm going to use a larger piece of Masonite under the whole deal and running back to the track. I'll fair this into the rest of the site with Sculptamold when I'm ready to install it. This will give me a better surface upon which to do roadways and landscaping. I'll cut this piece to shape when I do the filler piece for the fascia when #1 isn't home since the saber saw makes a terrible racket. In looking at the picture below, I'm realizing that the roof supports might be better if they're attached to the roof not the building since they're now going to get in the way putting in interior details and lighting. I would also need the same thing on the rear roof. I'll pop them out and do it differently stiffening the roof from its bottom.

During today's work I received an unhappy phone call that we were expecting. A very old and dear friend from Pennsylvania passed away last night after a terrible fight with metastatic pancreatic cancer. He was under treatment for over a year and half, which by itself is remarkable since from its detection it had already spread to the liver. As it was he had survived lymphoma for over 12 years. The two cancers were unrelated. So... we're heading back East on Sunday to attend the funeral and spend time with family and friends. I may get some work done tomorrow, but if I don't I be back is a while.

Very short work session today and then we're on the trip. 

Last night I drew a scale model control panel and graphic based on the piping of my plant. I did it in Adobe Illustrator and printed it out on glossy photo paper. I then coated it with Grumbacher Final Fixative to protect it. 

The base was cobbled together from some left over 0.040" thick styrene (Standing Seam Roofing) with some 1/8" square corner reinforcements. The graphics were attached using MicroMark Pressure Sensitive Adhesive applied to the styrene backing. The bottom was painted Tamiya Sky Gray. The instruments are basically controllers with needle readouts and switches. 

This will be viewed from 15 feet away behind some windows. No one's going to see it, but it will make for some interesting photography. At the angle the instruments are displayed, you won't know they're there either. Crazy, eh?

I made a partition wall between the shop and control room using some 3/16" foam core. And then cut a hole in it for the shop doorway. The wall needed some strategic notching to clear the reinforcements.

Before cutting the door opening I placed the control panel in its future position to see how it works.

Lastly, I cut partition walls for the future restroom. This will be a black box and just be a door visible through the front windows. It will not be lit, nor will it have any bathroom appliances, even though they're available from Plastruct. Walls are glued together using Aleen's PVA.

I wiped down the exterior with alcohol in preparation for priming and metallic paint, but ran out of time. Doubtful I will do anything on it tomorrow (Saturday) as we'll be preparing for the trip and we're leaving early Sunday.

The building is shaping up nicely, Myles. Condolences on your loss. Have a safe trip.

Myles,

You have my sympathy for the loss of your friend!  

The building is becoming more interesting than I first thought.  Why would I expect anything less from you than such great attention to detail?

  Sounds like he was a real fighter 

I think they would have used a sub-platform along the pipe, or footings to access the valves. I'm drawing from an "interesting" hydronics setup I encountered. The old platform was near useless unless you were skinny, and a new V, skinny treadway & rail, was added above the pipe. Big guys had to climb to pass by. (6 ft)

  The control panel area needs a chair against the wall, a small 3x3' table in between, lower to prevent spills, etc. but tall enough to encorage random items to be placed safely away from the panel.....and a stool by the window to daydream from

  The trip near Cinnci would have had me in the valley eating Skyline or Gold Star Mini-Coneys. Cincinnati Chili is very different tasting. Instead of being spicy/ hot, or beany,  it is meaty rich and savory, but differs from other "Coney Chilis" because it has cinnamon in it       ...and topped with grated cheddar slices   .....and it's wet and cold here right now; sure would hit the spot......and now I'm hungry 

  We had White Castle sliders; a mini-slider. They had mini-coneys. So we used to visit WC, buy sacs full, and swap the leftovers with local pals during our travels....and high up in the valley is an awesome spot to take a lunch. 

   I even pulled a spontanious road trip from Detroit to The Valley just for a dinner there once.

Next time your around the Cinnci Valley you should try one of the two. (akin to "Chevy vs Ford", but I like the Gold Star dogs, but Skyline beats "no chili" )

"Safe travels"

I'm back and thank you for the kind thoughts. It was very sad since this was a very special person. There were literally hundreds of people at the memorial service. He was one of those people who never had a friend leave him. There were friends from elementary school, high school, Army reserve, and the places he worked. We were friends for 45 years, but didn't give a eulogy since only those folks that knew him longer than 50 years were asked to contribute. Otherwise, we would have never ended.

It was fun getting back in the basement today. My wife was out for a while so I was able to turn on some saws, make some noise and sawdust, and cut the remaining pieces needed for the refinery site.

The wedge-shaped piece fit nicely and I was able to get the fascia to fit tightly. I removed the bit of fascia behind the new piece so I could fasten some supports to the underside of the existing platform.

And I added a piece to fill the other end of the refinery space. In this case the curve was too tight to bring the Masonite in totally, so I brought it in as far as I could without breaking the piece. I know since I already broke one trying to do just that. I'll fill the unsightly spaces with landscaping. A little wadded paper and some Sculptamold can do wonders.

I cut the new base plate for the ops building area and another filler piece behind and joining the Masonite under the loading rack. The elevation transitions will be softened with Scupltamold also.

After the heavy work, it was time to get back to the ops building. I glued in the partition wall using Walther's Goo. I don't know about you, but I find removing the cap very challenging after the tube's been in use for a while. When this was in place, I decided to add a floor to the entire building to reinforce the shape and keep it nice and square. I used 0.040" styrene butt glued together to get enough depth and reinforced with another piece of the same material. 

I wanted to spray the bare metal paint outside, but it was too cold today. It should warm up a bit more this week so I'll be able to do it. Still really want a spray booth, and my 40 year-old Badger air compressor is finally starting to make some funny noises so I'm in the market for a new one. I want to get one with a reservoir that has a pressure regulating valve so I can vary the pressure for different paints. Instead, I started making the two entry doors. I'm going to make all "Glass" commercial doors that neither Tichy or Grandt Line seems to have in their catalog. They're crafted from 0.040" X .100" and 0.020" X 0.060" laminated together and then some slightly wider stock for the bottom. I had to do a bit of final fitting to get the doors to fit the openings. I'll add a center mullion and a metal push bar tomorrow and this will be painted before adding the glazing.

Till tomorrow...

Welcome back!  It sounds like your friend was a very special person!!

He was. I have never met anyone like him, and based on what people testified to at the service, no one else had either. Each of us should have the blessing of the friendship of a person like Bob Yellin.

Today, I tried to figure out why 1/2 of the LEDs lighting the substation suddenly stopped working. I couldn't find out why and don't want to remove the model from the layout to do so. I do it, but someday when I want a real challenge.

I glued a small backing piece behind the center seam of the refinery's fascia boards to tie them together, and then got to work on the building.

Finished the two entry doors and started on the roofs.

After fitting the doors to their respective spaces, I added some trim framing to the perimeter, added a center piece and then bent and installed a 0.032" brass wire as the push/pull handle. Finally I glued the doors into the building since they will all be painted aluminum and then glazed.

Looks kind of grimy, but primer and finish coat will make it look good.

The roofs are Evergreen "metal roofing" which is a piece of 0.040" styrene with thin grooves cut in, plus very thin styrene strips that are glued into these grooves. The grooves run lengthwise so the roof is pieced together with two pieces butt glued with a reinforcing strip behind.

After measuring the width, I set the duplicutter to this dimension and cut the two pieces making up the lower roof. Since the lower roof butts up against the clerestory wall, it only overhangs on the building's front. I then set the cutter about a 3/16" wider and cut the two pieces for the rear roof which does overhang on front and back. I then added a piece of angle glued to the clerestory wall which trims the roof joint and provides a bit of faux flashing. I carefully glued it to the walls and not the roof since I'm not ready, by a long shot, to put the roofs on.

Note that the roof is notched to fit over the corner trim so it snugs up against the clerestory wall.

I've made these roofs before and didn't have any difficulty getting the thin strips into the grooves. Today that didn't happen. I was having a terrible time getting the strips to settle in so I could glue them. After spending close to an hour to put in five strips, I took a razor saw and opened them up a bit and the problem seemed to be solved. The grooves appeared to be just a hair too tight. With the slightly enlarged grooves the rest of this gluing job should be easier.

I think I'm painting the roofs green. Hopefully the weather will warm up a bit so I can paint the metal spray since it's Tamiya solvent-based paint.

I took the premiered building inside and force-dried the paint, then went outside again to spray the silver. I sprayed the interior primer gray, and then masked the windows, covered the roof with construction paper and then sprayed the top coat. I wanted the interior to remain gray.

Exercise day... I've started watching Stranger Things 2 on my iPhone while using the bike. I have the Bose sound cancelling headphones that have amazing bass response and the sound effects in this Netflix series are amazing. In fact, nothing can be happening at all, but the sounds and music make you feel the suspense directly.

It was much warmer today so I sprayed the building with Tamiya Primer and Natural Metal. I had some runs on the back wall with the primer and tried to smooth it out with a gloved hand, but as you all know, once you have a run (and in corrugated styrene yet) it's nearly impossible to get it right. I should have stripped off the paint and re-shot it. But it's the face facing the back of the layout and will be invisible to all except for an occasional train with the GoPro camera mounted on it.

While the exterior was drying I went back to work on putting the seams into the metal roofing. The idea of re-cutting the grooves with a razor saw worked perfectly and I was able to lay in all the remaining strips in half the time it took to the first batch.

When the strips were sufficiently dry I trimmed the excess using a sharp pair of flush-cut pliers. I lightly sanded the remaining edges so they were flush with the roof edge.

I held the roofs in their final position and marked the wall edge on the outside. Then I took the calipers and measured the various wall thicknesses between the outer wall edge and the inside edge. This varied depending on the thickness of the material I was using as a wall stiffener. In some cases it was 1/4", 1/8" or none. I then added this distance to the wall edge mark on the bottom of the roof and scribed a line denoting where I needed to glue cleats so the roofs would stay aligned without being glued in place. Here they are in final position.

With the roofs fitted I could paint them. I used Tamiya Flat green. When I first sprayed the green I was getting a lot of spatter... large drops. It turns out that the air brush really wasn't clean so I stopped, disassembled it and cleaned it all in acetone. It's the only thing that will dissolve old acrylic paints. The gun then worked perfectly and I was able to spray the roofs. I then attached the windows to some masking tape looped back on itself and painted them the deeper Japan IDF Force green that I used for the refinery's structural steel components.

I put the windows in and shot another status pic. I can't help myself. While it's all drying at least it can sit on the layout.

Tomorrow I'll finish the interior, do the lighting, mount the windows and do the glazing. I'm going to frost the clerestory windows so you can't see anything in the bare workshop. I need to add some more furniture to the insides and then start working on fairing all that Masonite into the rest of the base. And then it's onto the chain link fence.

Paul Harvey always said Bose was the best!  Who would argue with Paul!! 

I'm glad we had a warming trend too, though it rained until late afternoon here.  You had the right chance to get the painting in.  I think your choice of colors is perfect!  That green looks great!

Glad I did the painting yesterday since it rained again last night and was a bit damp out today.

Spent the whole day getting into the details. Added stack and vent to the roofs, glazed all the windows and installed them, added some more interior details, made some gooseneck lights for over the garage doors, and painted said doors semi-gloss white.

For the heater flue I used one of my extra resin castings I made for the distilleries. I painted it Tamiya Dark Iron and added some gloss black at the base to simulate some pitch caulking. For the plumbing vent stack I used a piece of brass tubing that I aged with some chemicals to blacken and then patina it, and again used some gloss black for caulk.

All the main windows were glazed with 0.010" clear styrene. I measure the space with calipers and cut using the Duplicutter. I glue the glazing in with a very judicious use of solvent cement so it just wicks under the plastic edges and onto the window frame. I was able to do all seven with only one tiny glue smear and that window is on the left side (restroom) where I've blacked out that room so no light will come from that window. I also added an empty bookcase (Berkshire Valley resin) a table and chair, the control panel and two interior doors. These doors were printed on manilla file folder stock, cut and laminated to another piece and some strip wood around the perimeter to frame it in. I didn't bother with door knobs... enough is enough.

The black out area is black construction paper held in place with pressure sensitive adhesive. It was easier than slopping flat black paint into that space.

The clerestory windows were glazed with a single piece of styrene held with some strategic glops of Walther's Goo. But before I glued it in I sprayed the inner side with Testor's Dullcoat to frost the windows. This work really well.

Here's the frosting. It will just glow showing no details.

For the gooseneck lights I went the old school route.  I bought some case lamp shades, drilled them large enough to accept the butt end of a grain of rice bulb, twisted the leads and then coated them in CA (thin first and then medium all accelerated).

I decided to paint the garage doors after all and did so by masking the frame with narrow Tamiya masking tape and then cutting a larger mask out of heavy paper and held with regular blue tape.

Two light coats of white did the trick.

And another status shot. I went over the main part of the entry door with a brighter silver paint since it would be stainless steel or a more shiny aluminum. Almost ready to do some weathering once I finish the electrical stuff. The main light will be a blue-white LED in the control room to make it look more like florescent. The outdoor lights will be incandescent. White LED light in the shop will add the glow coming out of the clerestory.

Myles,

you did a great job on that building. I really like it.

alan graziano

Great looking building, Myles.