Thansgiving accomplishments

The long weekend was not lost on my copper smelter module, as I continued work on the coal dock and started construction of both the warehouse and mineral house.

Coal is delivered by scow, hoisted to the upper deck, where it is loaded into carts and dumped into the coal bins beneath the two large openings. From here, it was shoveled manually into 18" gauge carts and pushed to fire the smelter, boiler and the cupola furnace. Still to come - stairs to the upper level, carts, railings around the upper deck and a pair of derricks.

 The privy on the lower level dumped directly down a pipe into the river. Unsanitary and environmentally inappropriate in today's world, but expediency was the name of the game in the early 1900's.

 A view with the upper deck removed showing the coal after being dumped into the storage bins.

The mineral house where ore was stored after being delivered by rail from the stamp mill. The ore was dumped from drop bottom gondolas into a pit beneath the rail and then transferred up into the storage bins by a bucket conveyor. From there, it was loaded via via the chutes into the 18" narrow gauge cars which were manually pushed to the furnace building. Still to come - the roof, ladder, platform and the loading conveyor.

The mineral house in the foreground with the original card mockup in the background. The 18" gauge manually powered rail system snaked throughout the complex, both on the ground and on spindly trestles between some of the buildings.I placed an unweathered car and a piece of track in front of the structure to provide a sense of scale.

The storage barn in which cast copper ingots and plates were stored prior to being loaded onto vessels for shipment to the industrial centers throughout the Great Lakes.

Bonehead

I swear I ordered a bunch of freight doors from Tichy about six months ago. Sure can't lay my hands on them if I did! So, while door building was nowhere on today's "to do list," I ended the day cobbling-up some doors in order to maintain some forward momentum! Shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff so late - I misplaced one of the cross braces! Of course, I couldn't have noticed BEFORE I painted them!

Sticking around

In the furniture making side of my life, I discovered these blue silicone glue trays and applicators at Rockler Woodworking a few years ago. They are great, and I use them all the time in the shop. When done, you just leave the glue in the tray and on the tools to dry, and then flex everything and the glue comes right off in sheets and chunks. leaving everything clean and ready for reuse. While too large for model making, it got me thinking. I found these silicone cup cake molds at Walmart for $5.99 for a pack of 12. As you will see from the photos, they work great! Now, if I could just find some tiny silicone brushes!

The Rockler silicone glue tray and applicators. The tray is about 3" by 6" and can be purchased with the two applicators for $14.99.

A Walmart silicone cup cake mold with dried carpenters glue on the bottom.

The same cup cake mold after being wrinkled-up with the dried carpenters glue which fell off to the right.

 Oh! .. and as a bonus ... I also found you can mix 5-minute epoxy in them, and it peels right off after it has hardened!

Cobbling-up

Well, my Chooch cobblestone sheet arrived in today's mail. In a fit of stupidity, I significantly underestimated how much I would need. Its pretty pricey and with the holiday upcoming I won't be able to get any in my hands until next week. Then I remembered the Smooth-On resin casting kit I purchased last spring for a non railroad project. It's a little past its shelf life, but what the heck - Its already paid for! .... I cut out a 31/2" square section of the sheet and poured a mold over it tonight. Should be well cured by the time I head get up in the morning and it is doubtful I will be able to resist pulling it apart before heading out to work! If all goes well, I should be able to cast sufficient sections over the next couple of days to keep me busy this coming holiday weekend.

The purple tinged stuff in the middle is the molding compound. The gray base is a piece of styrene plastic and the pine is lightly glued with epoxy to the base and each other to form the walls of the mold.

Upper level of the coal dock

The second deck is cut and painted, strip wood is stained, coal bunker walls are preassembled, stained and weathered, supports beams and posts are preassembled, stained and weathered. Now all I have to do is to put it all together!

A scow is launched

Well, my mind was just not into the coal dock this morning. I felt like building something I could more or less complete in one session. So this little scow took form on my bench over the day. Made of coffee stick lumber and card glued onto a pink foam block cut to shape on the table saw. Back to the coal dock tomorrow .... or maybe that's a small tug pulling the scow into place that I hear in the back of my mind ....

Work continues on the coal dock

I spent a little time working on the coal dock the past two evenings. The top is decked, and the pilings have been outfitted with braces and home made NBW's. The pilings are just sitting under the deck, as I will not glue them in place until the water base is sealed and painted. Again, everything has just been given a prime coat, and will be weathered with a combination of dry brush, airbrush and chalks as the project unfolds. Sadly, USPS tracking indicates the cobblestone sheets will not get here until Tuesday at the earliest, but at least I should have them to play with over the long weekend. 

Here's a photo of the prototype coal dock which is serving as inspiration for this part of my module. If life doesn't get in the way, I hope to begin building the upper structure this weekend. It is my plan to build it on the workbench, and not install it on the dock until much later in the build. Or then again - maybe I will build the barge this weekend. I'll see where my mind is when I head into the shop in the morning!

Some headway ....

Making some headway on my smelter module. The finished copper shipment wharf is planked. The supports are cut (but not glued) under the coal dock.Planking for the coal dock is cut, painted and weathered, and ready to begin gluing in place tonight. The luan base around the buildings will be covered with the Chooch vinyl cobblestone sheeting as soon as it arrives. The HOn30 track will not be the only thing to be integrated into the cobbles, as there will be a network of 18" gauge track for push carts which were used for moving materials among the buildings. Smelting copper was a very labor intensive process in the 1920's.

Pilings for the coal dock are cut, but not glued yet. Everything will be significantly weathered with drybrush, washes and chalk before the water surface is painted and the water poured.

The copper shipping wharf is sheathed and decked. The track is epoxied to the luan underlayment. All the wood is painted with Rustoleum Camouflage paint with an India ink wash. It will be fully weathered before the "water" is poured. Nut, bolt & washers (NBW's) will be installed in appropriate locations, and the wood has to be installed between the tracks. The track beyond the decking has not been fixed to the base. I am awaiting receipt of the cobblestone sheets with will cover the area around the buildings, so I can see how best to work it in around the track. the decking is a few thousandths below track level. I hooked up a power supply with alligator clips and all my current locos and rolling stock clear without a problem.

Close up of the copper wharf decking. Should look good when loaded with copper ingots, carts, people, bollards, etc. The buildings are just card mock-ups I built a couple of weeks ago in order to ensure that I could fit all the necessary structures into this small space. I am eagerly anticipating replacing them with "the real thing."

A piece of 1" foam with a couple of strips of double sded tape securing the Coffee stir stick lumber for painting and the prewash of India ink. I used two strips of 2" tape with the first batch for the smelter dock and paid Hell prying them loose, breaking a number in the process creating a sad camper! I cut smaller strips this time, and as you can see. the wood is already separating - Happy camper! The dowels will be cut into pilings to be roped together just off the corners of all the piers to protect them from incoming ships and barges.

Cobbles!

Work is progressing on the shipping dock for my smelter complex, and I hope to be able to share some photos in a couple of days. I ordered some Chooch flexible vinyl cobblestone for the area around the smelter. It apparently has a "permanent" peel and stick adhesive on the back. The base beneath the smelter area is 0.204 luan ply glued over foam. According to the Chooch website, it should adhere to plywood as long as it is sealed.

Materials can be found anywhere

There will be a large 36 foot wide dock running approximately 300 feet along the riverside in my copper smelter module. Planning to sheath the decking with 4" by 12's, about a week ago I priced the cost of scale lumber required at around $50.00. While I was in Duluth last weekend, I ordered a cup of coffee, and was given a wood stir stick. A light went off in my head! When I arrived home Monday, I checked Amazon and found a pack of 1,000 for $5.20, and ordered two packs. They arrived this afternoon and appear to be birch, are straight, consistently cut and scale out to approximately 4" by 13" by 36' 3" in length - perfect for my purposes! This huge supply will also work out great for numerous other projects as the build moves ahead.

A track and switch shipment transferred to USPS for delivery. Being on the road home from Duluth Monday, I was unavailable to sign for it, and the Post Office was closed today for Armistice Day. So I decided to give a first try at some furnace filter trees this evening. The trees are built using a cheap green furnace filter material from Walmart glued onto a wooden kebab stick, and covered with ground foam which is adhered with cheap hairspray. It was a good learning experience, and they should get better as my hand returns after a 30 year hiatus from any type of scenery making.

Playing with mock-ups

Well, I made a little headway on my smelter module this weekend. A couple of sheets of foam core and some printed textures, and I have most of the structure mock-ups sized and placed. Just a couple more left to fabricate and place, and then I will start working on the dock. Keeping me busy wile I am waiting for some flex track and a couple of turnouts to arrive. I hate to think how many times I built, and then rebuilt, some of them in order to get them to look right and to fit the cramped quarters!

The large building to the right of the tall chimney was known as the Cupola Building. I built it last winter as a "reintroduction" to model scratch building. I am not altogether pleased with it, and will probably remake it this winter. The small grayish building in the foreground is the power building - thus the large purchased chimney.

The hip-roofed building in the foreground is the warehouse where copper plates and ingots were stored before shipment. There will be a large dock in front. The building with the dual tapered chimneys is the furnace. The small grayish building with the ugly asphalt shingle roof is the assay office where the copper was tested. From right to left, the three buildings in the rear are: the mineral house, the limestone house and the briquetting plant where the refined copper ore was formed into briquettes prior to final smelting.

Here is the mock-up with the background removed. I only put windows and doors on three of the mock-ups. There was a series of 18" gauge hand-pushed carts which moved materials through the complex. It was a labor intensive operation, but will offer some interesting modelling challenges!