Steel Mill update.

Roo keep up the great work. I will be watching what you accomplish as well as copying your ideas.

I'm lucky as my son is helping with the layout and he is building the blast furnace. i will do the rolling mill. we are lucky as we have 2 lasers as well as a 3d printer. he is also going to start working on the ingot mold as well as the flat cars to carry them.

Nice!  If it was easy, everybody would have one!

Dave

That's a good looking layout. It looks like the wait will be worth it for the rest of us.

Fantastic Roo! 

I will eagerly follow your progress.   Perhaps you can add dimensions?

thanks

Thanks everyone for their kind words. Sure I can add some dimensions BRADA, but not for a couple of days. Most of today was spent measuring the space, the track, the cars that will be using the furnace, MTH and Lionel Slag cars are both different sizes this is important to keep in mind, anyway, the whole pouring floor is now in the computer and my friend is working on a CAD drawing at the present time. to me the Pouring floor and the position of the pillars supporting it is one of the most important to get right as this is the basis for the whole thing. Now I must make this clear my friend and I are not Steel Mill experts and our mill is not based on any mill anywhere, it will look the same or similar but is strictly freelance. If anyone wanted to build a furnace in O scale the measurements that I will give is for a freelance blast furnace in O scale nothing more, just had to make that clear! A couple of things I wanted with the Blast furnace was five tracks starting from left to right, two on one side (One for storage) for slag cars, two underneath that are capable of holding two MTH bottle cars on each track, and one further track for slag on the other (Right) side this is important for me as the layout is an operating layout and we want to deal with four pours per session. Each Hot Metal train will have one locomotive a spacer car (Old AHM Gondola) and two MTH bottle cars OR three Lionel bottle cars. The Slag trains will have one locomotive either with six MTH slag cars OR four DOUBLE Lionel slag cars (I joined two Lionel slag cars together to make these) as I felt the MTH looked so much bigger or the Lionel looked so much smaller so a double Lionel filled the roster just nice. I could talk all night about cars I use for this project there are many but lets not get to carried away even though it's taken three years to get this far it's still early days. Keep in mind this is just one way of building a O scale Steel mill there are lots of good modellers that have built mills a lot better than mine will be Dave for instance has a beautiful Blast Furnace in O scale right here on the website with some great photos. 

Definition of an Operating session.

An operating session goes all day , five hours running trains, two hours eating drinking and talking every Friday. I spend the Thursday checking the paper work and printing it out, cleaning and checking Locos and staging the layout and maybe cleaning some track. I also provide the food and drinks.  No wonder I need to get away now and again!! It's still fun I love it and the operators do to. Hooroo from Roo.

Roo,

Have you installed Kadees on the slag and bottle cars?  Mario has an interesting setup.  I was curious how you might have tackled it.

Too bad we don't live closer!

Dave

I had a fella convert my mth slag and hot metal cars to 2r with Kadee.    The mth cars are too large, I may get the new Lionel and convert as their size is more accurate.

You are doing a beautiful job. Everything looks great.

I need an excuse to travel to WA. 

Dave. I have converted all my rolling stock myself the one thing I haven't converted yet is the Lionel bottle cars to Kadees the trucks I have two railed I would dearly love to get some Kadee spacers from Mario if he makes them.

The way I was going to approach the Lionel Bottle cars is similar to the way I converted the Atlas SW locomotives and that is making a plate with four holes two threaded for the couplings the other two using ordinary holes and the Atlas screws but with the Bottle cars I was going to drill and tap the metal car screw the spacer then drill and tap for the Kadee coupler. here is my adapter for the Kadees to SW locomotives and here is a eight wheeler bottle car fitted with Kadees I have not painted that yet it's still brand new. I would like to buy Mario's adapters but have trouble reading his website maybe I need more practice trying to do to many things at once! Thanks Roo.

Hey Max, if you ever come over make it a Friday! (operating day)

Lousy photos sorry. Should have checked them out first, the number on the plate disregard it's just something from my long ago engineering days when you numbered everything, old habits are hard to break but I'm trying!  Have to go out the wife is yelling at me to get off the computer!  Thanks everyone for the kind words now it's down to the Shopping centres for Christmas shopping which I detest (Not Christmas... shopping!) at this time of the year. Should just give her my wallet and stay home. Roo.

Friday it is. 

Roo

I studied books on steel mills for a long time before I was able to construct a steel mill. It is a massive project and there is a tremendous amount of equipment involved. A train layout has very limited space for a structure like this. Take your time so you capture the concept of a steel mill. 

Since there is not a construction deadline or a bonus/penalty clause for construction, take as much time as you like and enjoy every minute of constructing the mill.

Alan Graziano

I have some sizes, keep in mind this is to fit the space on the layout, the side elevation of the furnace is only to scale in height the width has been compressed because we don't have an A3 printer so we can only print on A4 size sheets if I had plenty of money I would buy an A3 printer instead of a loco! Please excuse the dreadful way I have posted the basic plans as I can't work out how to post PDF files here maybe you can't. Sizes are Metric sorry. Slag car ladle is MTH as it's bigger than the Lionel. Blast furnace is based on one from Beth steel works. Roo.

Alan.

You must have posted your message at the same time I posted the basic plans. Wise words indeed and thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to post that most helpful advice.

I have never built a Steel mill but so far I have been working on this project for three years and only in the last three months have been seriously thinking about the Blast furnace. I have built up an enormous amount of literature in that time including all the books from Morning Sun, I like to try and do as much research as possible myself first, then when I get stuck on something I have to call in the experts which is not yet I hope! I'm laughing. I don't like to annoy people or use them to get what I want it's just not the Aussie way of doing things we like to battle along and enjoy the ride but you can be sure if I do get stuck I will be asking questions in the mean time I am trying to finish the highline section for tomorrows running session and of course clean up the room where I have been working.

Thanks again Alan and everyone.

Roo.

Roo 

if in cm, how high, wide and long are these drawings?   I cannot tell on my device.

100mm = 10cm

High 87cm from railhead

Length 110cm

Width 47cm

These measurements are not set in stone and there are many other lengths, widths, heights, I haven't mentioned also don't forget there is a large blower house and other cylinders pipes etc involved. These measurements and plan are only for the blast furnace which includes the pouring floor. Please read what I said about 12 messages back about how this is a freelance project to suit our needs on the Yulan Valley Railroad.

If anyone is really honest about building a blast furnace similar to this you can email me offline and I will sent you the PDF files in an email to you I can't help you much more than that at the moment and if you do receive the files I will expect you to use them for your own use only and not to print them in any journal or forum I am hoping anyone will honour that if they don't I can't do much about it as they are not copyright I hope you will do the right thing. Thanks Roo.

neville-1234@bigpond.com

Friends. lets forget about the furnace for a moment and get back to the Highline.  A small crane (on rails) for shifting materials is next in line. Goodnight, Roo.

Another excellent build, Roo.

Had a lousy day yesterday but managed to put together some cardboard mock ups of the Furnace and the blower house so now I need the styrene sheet and I'm away! I'm feeling better today so I hope some progress will be made. Thanks for looking.  Roo.

Roo any more progress on the blast furnace?

Fantastic Roo AWESOME BUILD!

Steel mill Update.

I have just had one small part of my family who live in England living with us for the last three weeks included in the group was two mischievous young boys so yes you guessed it nothing was done in that time.

Before the family arrived four large sheets of styrene 2 of 2mm and 2 of 3mm 2400X1200 were delivered and I proceeded to cut them up to the sizes I wanted for the pouring floor walls the blast furnace walls and the blower house that is as far as I have got at the moment. If the weather remains cool (unusual for this time of the year!) over the next couple of weeks I have a walk planned for down south along the coast between Walpole and Denmark in West Australia look it up if your interested, that will take me away from home for maybe 10 days or more depending on how hot it gets and how far I want to go so if that happens modelling will come to a standstill I repeat this will only happen if the weather stays cool no fun walking in sand hills and low scrub with limited shade in high   temperatures, one thing you can be sure of I won't let this "last great project" slip away it will get done. I will keep you informed on the progress. Roo. Photo: No people, no houses, only snakes and kangaroos the way I like it!

Sounds good, Roo. 

Did that lamp turn up?

Cheers

Max.  Sorry didn't get back to you see above the first paragraph.

"Did that lamp turn up"? YES!! it did!! and a great job you made of it thank you very much now all I have to do is make another dozen or so and the layout will have some working lights for the first time ever. Margaret and myself are slowly getting the house back the way it was before the visitors, the train room was a storage facility for the last three weeks (under the layout) almost there maybe another day and we can relax a bit. I'm tired I want to go to bed but the neighbours are having a party and we are invited it's either go and have a few beers or stay home and put up with the noise. I'll go. Roo.

No worries, Roo.  Good on yer.

We've just got back from the fireworks and a pub dinner and are about to crash.

Happy New Year!

I made a sign today . Cyrus S Eaton would have been proud of it!

It lifts of so I can paint it and the roof...one day. Roo.

Looking Good Nev!

Simon

Thanks Simon It was sweltering today in the garage 39deg or 101deg, I think I got that right, it was hot anyway looks like a long, late, hot, summer for Perth.

I was only working out there because I wanted to make up three brass (easy to bend) brackets to hold the sign on the roof. At least when I paint everything  they will be dry in an hour! Here is a new photo of the Wharf at waterside.Nev.

Nice steel mill work! For plans of steel mill rolling stock, see my articles in the current issues of O Scale Trains. Several scrap gons, flats, ingot cars and soon a hopper and a scale test car. All are from Kaiser Steel in Fontana, California. That was one of my favorite places to haunt when I lived out there.

Tom

Thanks Tom.

I have been keeping up with your articles and find them very interesting well done mate!

The Blast Furnace building is missing at the moment It's sitting on the bench I have actually made a start on the Blast Furnace, for how long I don't know I have not been well lately and it's a struggle to get things done, I just can't settle down on any one project and I have lots of them anyway at least a start is better than a stop so I will keep going and try not to look back you can't change the past but you can the present. The photo shows the space left where the Blast furnace goes it also shows some of the specialised rolling stock that is needed for a Steel Mill. Roo.

Roo,

I am fascinated by your work and I love following along. I can only imagine how much planning and construction is involved, I look forward to the next edition !

Eliot "Scrapiron" Scher

Thanks Scrapiron! (Eliot)

We needed some more hoppers for next Friday's session I found some basket case one's in the garage just fitting them up with trucks and couplers right now. (having a break on the computer) More photos soon.

Roo.

Hi Everybody.

This Friday we are having our weekly operating day if you can make it your welcome.

If your thinking of dropping in here are the Steel Mill train orders read carefully across the top line to see what goes where and when. I admit we don't always use American terminology sometimes a few English/Australian words creep in.

I am going to change the Highline approach tracks and replace a turnout with a double slip to give more flexibility to the Highline traffic this will probably not happen for about a month but it will happen.

The Blast furnace is still moving along slowly I have modified the building itself and added a few windows the actual barrel part of the furnace I have come up with an idea how to build it but not saying anything more about it till I see if it will work so far I have not seen anyone use this method having said that there are probably lots of O scale mills builders that have used the method of building that I am going to try so no bragging. I hope that modellers gain something from my methods of building as I am just an average modeller with no real skills just an eye for what I want and a passion to do it so if I can build something anyone can I don't include a lot of detail in my models maybe I'm lazy but the truth is I don't like spending endless hours on building, I'm more an operator than a modeller I just like switching trains always have since I was 5 years old when I first had blocks of wood with "Nugget" shoe polish tins for wheels and pushing them into sidings marked in the dirt of course living almost next to a railway Station watching the trains switch cars helped, see you on Friday be there or be square. Roo.

Here is the double slip sitting on top of the original tracks which when in place any of the curved yard tracks in the background will be able to serve any of the highline tracks. The weed covered track on the left will become a useful storage track. AAAHH, hingsight is a wonderful thing! Roo. (disregard everything else in the photo we were planning!)

Sign me UP! Ill be There.....     

OK we start at 10-00 AM seing you haven't run a train before on the yulan valley I will work with you you can have a locomotive and be the engineer I will be the switchman. We will be working the yard at Bay Ridge together at times you are flat out then comes periods of inaction where you can check out what the other blokes are doing but don't distract them from their jobs. To put you into the picture here are three pictures I just snapped to study, so you will be right for Friday. The first is the engine house, the second is the yard, and the third is the yard panel. the push buttons work the turnouts the switches the isolating sections as it's all DC. Any Questions?

 Roo.

Well... Not much happening here about layouts all the talk seems to be about new and old O scale maybe I should have started with three rail track those Hi Rail blokes seem to enjoy themselves more than us elderly "Serious Rivet Counting" 2 railers! 

So after that if anyone is interested here are a couple of photos I snapped this morning after yesterday's operation session which went very well even had Apple pie and ice cream for lunch dessert!

Those Atlas SW switchers continue to give great service and I like them so Much I bought another two off ebay in the last week since I have been home probably won't be able to afford any food for a couple of weeks but it will be worth it, I will paint them blue modify the cab roofs put some flashing lights on them and they will be hauling all kinds of cars at the Mill soon. My work is not all Steel Mill work I still work on the short line adding details here and there as a break from the heavy stuff. I also bought a new book about Steel mills if the photo on the front cover is anything to go by this book will be a winner Ghost Railroads Vol X.

The photos are from around the Steel mill section which is all in various stages of construction one day it will all come together the important part is it's all working, the scenery is secondary, it brings a lot of joy to the four blokes that run it and that's what it's all about trying to make our life better and being happy we have accomplished that if nothing else. Take care. Roo.