Suggestions on making footers for coal tipple

 Go to Altoona Modelworks site.  Go to page 2 for O Scale details. They may work for you.

a very smart friend came up with these footings for my water tower, wood covered with a cement replica coating.

Thanks Dave and Ray.

The Altoona footers have a round hole, whereas my columns are rectangular.

Am wondering how they made the rectangular holes in the wood footers?

There is a drillpress tool... I'm brain farting on the name though... it has a bit and square chisel around it.   Give me a while

Hollow mortise chisel drill.

Yep, got the right thread this time

Or drill the four corners and use a scrolling blade or wire saw and/or drill out the center.  Clean up with a file.

Paul,  I recently raised my GGD Ogle Coaling tower and decided to fabricate footers for a group of support posts in a single line.   I did this partly because it was easier, partly because structurally, it would be stronger tying them all together on a common footer...   

I cut them at a slight angle, like 5 or 10 degrees on my table saw, then roughed up the soft white pine to create texture.  

Here's some photos if you think you might want to pursue this route.  

Chris, nice job

or glue 4 pieces of wood together leaving a square hole, use a thick coating and you wont see the seams.

If you have access to a 3D printer you can print them.

Chris, that looks great.

Adriatic, thanks for the tip.

I need to go to Lowes to get a new band saw blade, and will check out the bits, too.

golden gate depot with footers added. cut on a table saw from poplar wood. Also added a coal dump house.

Square tube, metal or plastic, filled with JB Weld.

You can mold it wrapped in plastic wrap too. Just don't let plastic folds get trapped in the JBW.   

JBW alone could even be textured right with some effort.

Somewhere I have a bunch of left over "footers" that I cast in resin for someone......

David, very nice work.

mwb: if you find and want to sell the footers kindly let me know.

Styrofoam or foam board.  Plenty strong enough for that, easy to cut and we know it makes decent rock; so why not man made rock?