I’ve been goofing off in my shed building both the walthers EAF & rolling mill kits. I mated both kits together for a much larger EMS.
Now I’m working on a Demag ladle turndish for the caster building. Being made from plans from the european patent office.Once completed will look right at home inside the caster building close to both the EAF & BOF.
The only track that I’ve layed has been through the BOF building. Have to jump on the track laying band wagon soon. Other than working on the EMS,I’ve been making DRSC wharf behind the BOF. Trying to use less money by painting the {water} and then polyurethane it. If it doesn’t work…well can always be ripped out.
Bob, my neighbor, and I took many excursions across the river to Granite City IL to get pictures of the steel mill there. Because of the limited space he had for the module, it was originally intended to be moved out of the way for his ex-wife’s car, it turned out as an 11’X30" module with a removable end measuring 36" square.
We didn’t have room for a high line for coke and taconite, so we improvised a conveyor system to deliver those items to the blast furnace.
At the time we built the mill, Walther’s hadn’t yet offered the coke oven, so Bob built one from scratch using plans from an old MR article by Dean Frietag.
Here are two shots of the mill, taken from opposite ends.
Of the structures on the module, only the blast furnace, office building, maintenance building and two rolling mill structures are kits.
There are two dump sheds for coal and taconite, The back walls of each is removable to allow taking the loads out during an operating session.
Here you can see a coal train pulling through the coal dump, the smaller building to the left is the taconite dump.
What appear to be vents on the aisle side walls are the handles for removing the wall. The loads have a cotter pin imbedded to allow removal with a magnet, you can see the tool on the facia.
don’t want to clog your thread with one post, I’ll post more pictures in another post.
Patrick, I’ve shared these shots of the hot metal cars before. I scratch built them because the only ones I’ve seen available in N scale are better seen in the dark.
Here a pair wait for a pour under the blast furnace.
And here another pair are pulled into the BOF as some scrape loads sit on the adjacent siding.
This is the building we laughingly refer to as the building we don’t know what it’s for. We took many pictures of the one adjacent to the BOF in Granite City. Not knowing intricacies of the process, we assume it preheats the oxygen charge.
The coke oven was a scratch build project. Bob spent about a month building this and the quencing tower.
In the background, you can see the other side of the coke oven.
The Walthers blast furnace kit, both HO and N scale, doesn’t include the stairs to get to the top platform. It took me eight and a half hours to build this set of stairs, using Plastruck stairs and railing and Evergreen styrene H and I beams.
Thanks, Ken. We employed some research and some imagineering during the construction of the module. They don’t allow cameras on the property at Granite City and we had to do some “best guess” construction, as well as selective compression. A shelf at the end provides for the rest of the mill complex as off scene staging. Our goal was to make it a believable scene in the available space.
We didn’t incorporate all the piping involved in the prototype. Our model railroad group is all HO scale, except for Bob and me. It can be very entertaining, watching the HO guys during an operating session.
I have to confess, I’m not familiar with Gary Lance’s layout, we used Dean Freitag’s steel mill as insiration for the module. We did, however, ballast all the track. As N scalers, we tend to pick nits when it comes to stuff like that.
Have you seen the pictures that Patrick has posted of his BOF? It’s huge! He’s going to have an awesome scene when he’s finished.
Here are some pics I snapped during an October 2005 tour of Gary Lance’s N-scale layout:
Definitely! I’m very familiar with Patrick’s BOF, and yes, it’ll be a masterpiece. A number of us over on the Yahoo STEEL group are trying to convince him to bring it to the 2008 Steel Mill Modelers’ Meet.
Once again you are far too kind.Heck I am building my layout to mimic yours,any chance of sharing the secrets of your super detailed scratch built ore bridge. Now that is a masterpiece!!!
Christ,when I first saw it my jaw dropped.Amazing detail and keep in mind folks, Ken scratch built his ore bridge crane way before walthers came out with theirs.
About the BOF…hmmmm. If I could shove it into the wifes toyota camery and drive it to the meet I would.Don’t think it would fit in her car. Told her I told her I needed a truck,but did she listen…nope,she won the battle.
Maybe I can come up with something before next years meet.
Heres a couple of pics of what exactly I’ve been goofing off with.The first one is a larger version of a EAF melt shop.The second picture is a barn…nah just kidding,it will be DRSC forge shop.Haven’t finished this one yet,still working on it.The third pic is DRSC wharf,with tugs,barges and the E-crane will be there too.
Worked on DRSC’s forge shop by adding a side building attached to the main structure.Two re-heat furnace pipes looming high above the structure.Then worked on the walthers blast furnace…folks I’ve heard that the blast furnace is a bear.Yup folks are right about it being a bear,very few parts line up as they should.
The furnace kit has been somewhat of a pain to build. Over 300 parts and like I said only a few parts fit right.All & all not a bad kit,I’ve seen worse.
Tonight while the blast furnace parts are drying,I’ll start work on the bethlehem 12,000 ton forge press . I got the drawings from a site I frequent,the library of congress HABS/HAER web-site. Here you can find all sorts of old school drawings and intel.
The forge press in HO scale stands more than three storys tall.Massive looking,nasty looking machine,can’t wait to build it.
