So,still working on my slag pot gantry crane. Thanks to gmpullman/Ed, I managed to complete the cab last night. Foolishly thought the hard stuff was over. Nope.
The nightmare started this morning when starting the stairs to the long climb to the cab. According to the R P Anderson patent and helpful Wife. The stairs go on the outside opposite side of the cab. There is nothing but air to hold the stairs…
What’s the trick to building stairs on a structure ?
I always settle for a ready made product that is close, tried building my own and did but in the end I was not impressed with the difference.
Thank you for the speedy reply.
Using Tichy stairs for this build & making platforms for the stairs. Is there a kit built stair set ? If so who makes them ?
Sure would be easier than scratch building.
How tall is Your structure, 2-stories, 3…taller? Sometimes I’ve been known to buy a kit, just for the spare parts. Unfortunately what I needed was not available…So I built My own. Using Plastruct stairs, railings when I could. It takes a whole bunch of patience,some skill, non-shaking hands and small alligator clips are very handy.
I needed a side porch for a cut down Walthers cornerstone and the one that came with the kit, would not work due to Me cutting off 2 1/2’’ off the width. I made one out of Mt Albert scale lumber, a cut down floor that had wood scribed planking on it and the stairs from the kit. The stairs are Grey in the photo, the styrene Green planking, the white raiings are ABS plastic from Evergreen strips…all the wood is real. Assembled with, Northeastern Flamigo glue for the wood,(drys in 5 minutes) all the rest I used Zap Medium CA.
This shot is of it where it will go on the building.
The next shots are from My scratch and bash bridge project. All the parts for the tower were all built using Plastruct stairs, railings, diamond plate for the landing and main floor. The tower is equivilant to a 3-story building.
All photos may be clicked on for a larger view.
Take Care![:D]
Frank
Frank,
Your bridge tenders house stairs are more along the lines if my needs. A fantastic job on that bridge build btw. Scratch from plans ? Wow !
Static model or operational ? Either way WOW . I can only dream of that type of craftsmenship.
Thank you for the help. Figured out it’s easier to build in sections (on work bench)than trying to build vertical on gantry crane. Duh…
Central Valley and Tichy both offer ready-made stairs and railings, and I believe Tichy also offers fire escape kits, in two different styles.
Here’s the stairs which come with Tichy’s coaling tower…
This is an example of the Central Valley stairs (not the style you need, but they do offer closed-sided ones, too)…
EDIT: Oops! I just checked, and the CV closed-sided stairs have solid risers, not open ones like the Tichy steps. Incidentally, Tichy also offers nicely rendered open grating, which is useful for platforms…
Wayne
Thank You for Your kind words…The bridge was made from actual plans I found on-line. I had to vertically compress it so it would fit where I wanted it. The bridge as it stands can be lifted 1/2 way by hand to it’s full vertical position, but without a Truunion at the main girder, it would bind. There is no room where it sits,
to lift it all the way up anyway, (sloped ceiling) but I wanted it to look like it could.
I designed it after a Scherzer Rolling double track lift bridge:
Good Luck on Your project…measure, measure, measure, take Your time. Let critical parts sit overnite when gluing, before adding more.!
Frank
Edit: A photo of the Bridge open and where it was:
Here’s a look at some of the Central Valley and Tichy stair/platform/railing material. I keep lots of it on hand for projects.
CV_Tichy1 by Edmund, on Flickr
The Tichy is the closest to scale so I use it for “Front-and-center” model work, the Central Valley is a great value and I use it for many interior applications or background exterior models.
The black piece is a section of the C-V open stringer stairway compared to the finer section Tichy offering.
Sometimes you can find what you need by scouring through various Google searches. I needed an industrial fireproof staircase and found exactly what I needed in this Walthers “Fermentation Tank Detail Set”
https://www.walthers.com/fermentation-tank-detail-north-american-ethanol-kit
It doesn’t show well in their photo but the staircase is exactly what I needed for a certain area. At the time it was $15. which was about as economical as I could find even sourcing material for scratchbuilding it.
Here’s a better photo of the Fermentation tank stairway. Come to think of it, the main reason I bought it was for the same reason you have, to access the craneway for the operator.
Walthers_stairs by Edmund, on Flickr
This is only a temporary placement. I have to place the door yet. Walthers also offers a blast furnace detail kit which has a bunch of stairways, too. Nothing says you have to use them on a blast furnace! (Again, I show the tall one out-of-place, it belongs alo
Here are the stairs to the top of my Coker unit in the refinery. They are made up of 4 parts that I cut on a cnc router. There are treads (the stair itself), the riser, the footboard and the railiings. The risers and footboard were cut on the CNC router and the treads were cut from 0.010 x 0.080 styrene flat stock about 32" scale inches wide. Th railings are all brass soldered together. that by far was the most difficult part to make. Below is an overall shot of the unit.
THAT is a work of art, Renegade [bow]
Thanks for providing those photos! Ed
Last week in Atlanta I bought 4 staircase kits from Grandt Line from Riverdale Station. I opened one up, and it a great looking kit of detail.
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I have stairs from Ticky and Central Valley also, and these appear to be even better.
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-Kevin
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