Lately I’ve been kitbashing and scratchbuilding structures for my layout. First is an ingot mold foundry kitbashed from the Walthers American Millwork kit.
Here’s the interior so far.
I started scratchbuilding a gas producer house last night. Plans for this structure are in this book: The Open Hearth
Here’s an overall shot so far.
The general coal bin and gas main are the two parts nearest completion. The coal bin took a while to build because of all of the bracing. Here it is.
And here is the gas main. Since this pipe will most likely lead off layout I did it as sort of a cutaway. Instead of just capping the end I left it open and interior detailled the pipe. The interior detail consists of a refractory lining made from plastruct brick sheet. I’m also thinking of adding orange lights to the producer offtakes to represent the over 1000 degree heat inside.
Thanks for looking! All comments, criticism, and suggestions are welcome!
Looking very good,keep up the work. I myself can’t wait to see the entire layout when completed. I might be over the top as a fellow steel mill modeler,but always looking at other folks work.
I’ve been working on my huge slag works lately. Should be quite a sight when done. I’m attending a train show next weekend in Savannah,GA. Have to buy about 22 switches for my track-work.Then & only then can I finaly start to lay the track.
One thing I’ve learned modeling steel is…you have to build the structures first before laying track-work.
Here’s an update on layout progress. Back in November I started building my original plan for an open hearth based layout. After shaping some foam I realized several flaws with the plan so I tore everything back down to benchwork. Some problems were too steep grades and too much parrallel track and buildings. I also couldn’t fit the Walthers rolling mill kit I had built on the layout so I took it apart and kitbashed it into 3 smaller building which can be seen in this picture of an early mock up of the new plan.
This worked out well and led to my new plan which I’ll try to draw on XtrkCAD in a minute. Unfortunately the open hearth got squeezed off of the layout in the new plan but I guess it’s a good thing because when I finally do build it the selective compression won’t be as severe. I also found some open hearth plans in a book and Figured that I would need at least a 40" wide space. The old plan would have smashed it into a 15" wide space.
I got a couple Walthers kits for Christmas including the a bottle car three slag cars and the coke retort, which won’t fit on the layout now but will be used once I get more layout space.
I also started building a small extension for the layout. No track will run on it but it will alleviate a problem the old plan had. Track on the edge of the table doesn’t look right because your focus is on the trains so when looking at them on the edge of the table you seee the edge ruining the illusion of realism. The extension will be a drainage canal so when looking at the trains the edge of the table isn’t so apparent. I have started carving pink foam for it. Here’s a pic.
I did some more work on the producer house tonight. Now you can see what the finished building will look like.
The building will be raised about 2" and the gas producers will go under it. There will be six in total. The hole on the right end of the roof is for the ash bin. It will look like the coal bin at the other end only smaller. I included the SW-1 to give you a sense of scale. The building will be painted oxide red when finished with the producers, bins, and structural steel in black. The finished building will give me a nice industry for the layout with coal in and ash out. I’ll keep working on this so keep checking back!