Block head

Well, I got the front wall of the briquetting building finished to the point that I was able to give it a coat of primer. Each lintel is made up of three pieces of laminated card to provide the appropriate design and thickness. In all, there are around 350 individual "blocks" making up the wall. Once the remaining three walls are complete, I will color the lintels and sills and weather the whole assembly. The windows and doors are just temporarily sitting in their openings. 

 

Here's a ro of the prototype at the Quincy Smelter in Ripley. I think these walls will be a cakewalk in constructing that trestle for the 18" gauge cars

Losing my block

I think that I may be going off the deep end!

The briquetting plant in the prototype that serves as the inspiration for my copper smelter module was built of concrete blocks as seen in (A.) While Clever Models has a nice concrete block texture I used in my mock-up for the building (B), I feel the paper ends up looking too flat and "one dimensional." Not one to wait until an online order for some plastic solution can make its way by pony express to northern Michigan, I have decided to scratch build the walls from card stock.

I drew up a template in Photoshop which I printed to serve as a guide for cutting the blocks (C) and a backer sheet (d) onto which to glue each of the blocks after they are cut. I put together a small prototype area this evening, gave it a shot of Rustoleum sand camo and a quick wash of alcohol and ink (E), and I think it will work pretty well. This prototype took about five minutes to cut and glue, and since the building is fairly small I think I should be able to get the walls done in a day over the weekend. A major benefit of this method is that it will also allow me to incorporate the proper window lintel and sills.

If you don't hear from me after this weekend, it will probably be because I am in my closet, drooling in my shoe!

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!