After being unable to find a suitable size coal burning power plant model, I decided to scratch build a structure using Gatorboard and Walthers brick sheets. Since it was going to be the center piece of my layout, I wanted to make sure it was large enough to receive several loads of coal, possibly on a daily basis. The conveyors are Walthers. The transfer towers are scratch built with minor details to be finished (ladders). I also included a picture of my Atlas three stall and fueling station.
Welcome.
Some nice work there. Looks like you’ll get a lot of switching action.
Roadman,
Welcome to the forum! [#welcome]
Your scratchbuilding looks great! Very effective use of the Walthers brick sheets for modeling the flat structure against the background. [tup] [tup]
Thanks for sharing,
Ryan
Welcome to the forum. Those are really great pictures. Thanks for sharing. There are a lot of us learning as we go, and as we share, we all learn from each other. My scratch building era starts this summer, I hope. There is so much for me to learn.
Thank you for the compliments. I still have to purchase a Walthers Substation kit and more details. The track is presently “T” pinned to the foam board until I am sure it is the way I want it. I am still deciding if I want to put roadbed under the main (closest track to the edge). The plant spur extends beyond both the left and right corners of the picture, so there is plenty of storage for both loaded and unload cars.
The coal pile is coming together from stacked 2" foam board that has been wedding caked. I decided to use plaster wrap over the top and paint it black. While the paint is still wet I will sprinkle on the black ballast. Most coals piles from plants don’t seem to be super high and this one will be about four inches. It will be setting in the coved right corner.
Larry
Could you tell me what parts you used for the Diesel Servicing facility? It looks perfect!
Impressive! Particularly the concrete bases under each stack. That really helps “Bulk out” the big plant without totally going through the wall into the next room.
You are probably going to need 2 hopper cars per boiler per hour with two more for reserve coal pile. That is how I would handle the coal to that plant.
Love the buildings and the sky. How did you do your clouds?
JaRRell
The sanding tower and Snyder fuel cranes are American Limited Models from Walthers but they can be found through other hobby outlets. The red diesel fuel pump and stand with barrels are from Woodland Scenics. It is one of their diecast metal pieces. I can remember where the horizontal 55 gallon drums came from but if you look up 55 gallon drums on Walthers, it should do a search for you.
The background paint is a sky blue from Sherwin Williams and the clouds are Krylon Flat White, just sprayed about six inches away. If anyone needs the sky paint number, I can get it.
What was the paint numbers? Was it custom mixed at Lowes or Home Depot type stores?
The color was Sherwin Williams flat “Universe Blue”. Code:BM-33-04.
Classic 99 EW
The color formula is:
BAC Colorant OZ: 32 64 120
B1 Black 3
L1 Blue 59
R3 Magenta 9 1
This was blended in one gallon of Extra White A27W51
If this not enough information for getting the blue, I can fax the remainder of the information to you. It came from a Sherwin Williams store.
Hope this helps
Larry
Very nicely done! It’s good to see how many of us MR’S are getting into the “scratch-building” mode. Hopefully, MR will bring back some of those great scratch-building articles that they used to run back in the 60’s and 70’s.
What are the measurements of that plant?
Roadman, looks like you have made an excellent model. I have a couple of questions about the Walthers brick sheet. What is it made of? I used styrene brick sheet for a project, but have not used the Walthers product. Can it be painted and weathered easily? It looks like it has plenty of texture in the brick pattern. What glue did you use to attach it to the Gator-board?
Simon 1966,
The brick sheets are styrene and similar to those manufactured by Plastruct. They are 5" X 9" and are approximate .020 in thickness. I initially painted the structure with a Krylon flat white and then airbrushed a lighter boxcar red over the top. This way I can control how much white I wanted to show through. On close inspection you can see the base white coming through on the morter lines. The structure has not really been weathered other than airbrushing some grimy black and fine grays into the brick to simular soot. I used a general contact cement to attach the sheets to the Gatorboard. I decided to go with a external skeleton on the building so I could hide some of the seams where the brick sheets come together. Seams that are butted to one another are filled with spackeling compound. I started this project about two years ago, but I only work on the layout during the fall, winter and spring.
The entire structure is about 48-50 inches long.
Larry
[:-^]
Very nice job Roadman,
Please tell us about the chimminies, how did you fabricate them?? They look great.
James:1 Verse:5
Johnboy out…
The four large stacks are Walthers. Each stack sets on a block of wood I believe 2x2 by 3.5 or 4 inches tall that has been covered with a Plastruct block or brick sheet. I noticed when I was in Florida that a large power plant in Fort Lauderdale had the red and white striping. The smaller stacks are plastic tubing with with thin hobby shop wire used as support cables.
Larry
NICE JOB. Could you provide an overall overhead shot of the power plant? I am looking to build something similar to this on a layout I am working on.
Did we approach a new level of completion on this very wonderful power plant?