I am starting construction on a steel mill for one of my customers. The base board is 24 inches by 30 inches. The mill will incorporate some of the details of a mill located in Weirton, West Virginia.
Here is the basic sketch and a couple of pictures of early construction of the stoves.
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Alan, You're off the a great start. it will be exciting to watch the progress!
Ooh, ooh, Alan. Tell us more. What part of Weirton Steel are you modeling?
George
Alan,
I will be following along on this one. This is the area I grew up in.
Dave
George,
I was provided a picture of one of the rolling mills. I plan to try to match some of the details of the building on the blast furnace building.
In my real job, we worked on the storage tanks next to the river that were owned by Weirton after that section of the mill was closed. The storage tank portion was sold off to one of our customers.
David,
Were you on the Weirton side of the river ?
@Alan Graziano posted:George,
I was provided a picture of one of the rolling mills. I plan to try to match some of the details of the building on the blast furnace building.
In my real job, we worked on the storage tanks next to the river that were owned by Weirton after that section of the mill was closed. The storage tank portion was sold off to one of our customers.
David,
Were you on the Weirton side of the river ?
Hi Alan,
Are you referring to the Strip Steel building? That structure is on my list for the layout. It will sit to the right of the Open Hearth (as you face the mills). That is a brick faced structure which still stands (actually is still in use, I think). Here are a few of the photos I took back in 2010. The building was originally a cream / tan / yellow brick color.
There is a lot of cool piping detail along its face. I plan to open up one of these bays for a spur into the building.
The roof detail is also very interesting. Let me know if you need some photos (e-mail). I've taken a bunch.
George
It may be that building in the prior colors. There are some big roof vents I have to incorporate.
@Alan Graziano posted:George,
I was provided a picture of one of the rolling mills. I plan to try to match some of the details of the building on the blast furnace building.
In my real job, we worked on the storage tanks next to the river that were owned by Weirton after that section of the mill was closed. The storage tank portion was sold off to one of our customers.
David,
Were you on the Weirton side of the river ?
Nope, across the river in Ohio but with family and friends in WV, was frequently there.
Dave
@Alan Graziano posted:It may be that building in the prior colors. There are some big roof vents I have to incorporate.
Like these?
George
Alan, what are you using for the base? Is it aluminum or steel sheet?
Looking forward to this build!!
Mike
Here are some pictures of the progress on the stoves and the stack. I have to complete the handrails on the spiral stairway on the stack and add some lights.
@Alan Graziano the start of the project looks amazing!
It's coming along nicely Alan. Remember to mark this one as the first one in your new shop.
Dave
How do you make your spiral stair case? It looks super precise!
David,
I wrote that part under the board already. I hope it makes the model ten times more valuable.
Billy,
I use a template made of .015” styrene that is cut as a stringer that allows me to draw the stair on the round surface. I glue the treads on the pipe and then add angle posts and a flat strip as the handrail. The diameter is so small that there will be large gaps between the stairs. It does not look as good as on a bigger diameter but it still provides a great detail.
@Alan Graziano spiral stairs always felt awkward to me to walk up anyway haha but yours look really well done.
I have walked up and down many of them in my career.
Alan, your pumps and header piping looks great! I could have used a pipefitter like you back in the day!!
Here you go Billy, the intricacies of putting on the stair handrail. I have a syringe in my hand that is hidden in the photo.
The stove section of the mill is complete.
Alan, this is so exciting to watch! Looks amazing!
Mike
Thank you Mike. My big hurdle here is painting. I found a place on the property and it went well.
Alan,
Your work is amazing!! It looks so true to life!! Hey....wondering if you can put something in the picture for a sense of scale. Maybe a box car, or even a can of **coke**. Steel mills do you use coke, after all....LOL
Endless tracks,
Here are a couple of pictures of the stoves to a rail car for comparison. I do not have any track here to put the car on right now.
You never fail to impress us with your skills! Thanks for sharing all of the progress and even disclosing your techniques.
Your Allis Chalmers car was only sold in a set. The set was pulled by a TP & W engine. A lot of dealers broke that set up selling the engine, cars and crane seperate.
Alan, It looks so big and so amazing! Especially with a car there for scale.
That begs the next question: I know Allis Chalmers was a very diverse manufacturer, but what is on that car?? Almost looks like a scrubber of some sort.
Do you plan to make it smoke? I used a smoke generator in my boiler house, sold for a remote controlled tank cheap $$$ on A**zon
No smoke for this mill Mr. Tracks. I will leave that to my customer. I think the car is carrying a generator. I am not sure.
Jim,
This car is from my first set purchased some time in 1962 I think. It had a Lionel Lines steam engine with coal car, a maintenance car, a cities service green tank car, the Allis Chamers car and a brown Lionel lines caboose. I remember it was in a yellow box and it was purchased in Union New Jersey at a store that was pretty close to the factory in Irvington.
@jim sutter posted:Your Allis Chalmers car was only sold in a set. The set was pulled by a TP & W engine. A lot of dealers broke that set up selling the engine, cars and crane seperate.
I have that set. It's what got me started in 3-rail O scale as a little one.
Dave
Hey Alan, looks great. You do such awesome work. I've followed your stuff in the past. Alan, I spent my entire career at Weirton Steel working in about every dept. In case you have any questions about the mill give me a yell. I'll be glad to help. George has some great pictures and there is a lot of pics of the entire mill at the weirton historical society. They have most copies of the weirton steel bulletin which features different parts of the plant. FYI - the green building color that you see in George's pictures is "National" Steel Green. This is the color that National steel adopted for it's plants. Prior to that the Weirton Steel Green paint color was a darker green (leaning towards a forest green). The majority of the buildings that had sheet metal sides and roofs were jet black - to hide the graphite and the red open hearth dust.
Tom
So Alan, you had the post war version. I was talking about the MPC set.
Yes. Mine was all plastic.
Tom,
Thank you for the information on the mill.
@endless tracks posted:Alan, It looks so big and so amazing! Especially with a car there for scale.
That begs the next question: I know Allis Chalmers was a very diverse manufacturer, but what is on that car?? Almost looks like a scrubber of some sort.
Do you plan to make it smoke? I used a smoke generator in my boiler house, sold for a remote controlled tank cheap $$$ on A**zon
It's a condenser.
@Alan Graziano posted:No smoke for this mill Mr. Tracks. I will leave that to my customer. I think the car is carrying a generator. I am not sure.
Jim,
This car is from my first set purchased some time in 1962 I think. It had a Lionel Lines steam engine with coal car, a maintenance car, a cities service green tank car, the Allis Chamers car and a brown Lionel lines caboose. I remember it was in a yellow box and it was purchased in Union New Jersey at a store that was pretty close to the factory in Irvington.
Alan, Like you and Dave that was the childhood set in our house.
I'm the little one. Christmas 1962.
First rate work, Alan, as always!
Joe,
I can’t believe we had the same set.
John,
Great info on the car. Now I know why I was always amazed with nuclear stuff. That car must have planted the idea in my head.
Alan, Kinda nifty that you chose that particular car to set in the photo. It defiantly became it's own curiosity! Was that intentional, or just a random pick of the litter?
CoachJoe, thanks for pointing out the proper terminology! And also pretty cool that you had your childhood photo to post with that A-C car in it!!
jwtex, Your link was very enlightening! I grew up in the 70s plowing snow and chopping corn on an Allis-Chalmers WD-45, which was an amazing tractor. In 1987, I was installing big Allis-Chalmers pumps in a creosote recovery plant built on the 100 acre site of polluted former railroad tie plant. May have been some of the last pumps they made...
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