Hello all,
It seems that walthers is coming through to the few steel mill modelers.Along with the retooled kits there is also a Hullet ore unloader in HO & N. Walthers spread below. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for walthers new stuff.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/newproducts/cr/200810/Structure
Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp {DRSC}
Dang look at those prices. 
And the blast furnace…man I wonder what they changed?!?
I see they did the hullet after all. J.G. was right.
It will be interesting to see how they scale it down.
Don,
I laugh every time I see that eBay item. Give that seller a mask, and a gun, and he’s the perfect roadside bandit!
Problem is I already have 2 blast furnaces, 1 coke furnace, 1 crane, 2 car shops, 1 power plant, 1 electric furnace, 1 gas plant, two plastruct kits for backgrounds, 1 vulcan works, and 6 rolling mills (3 used at Open Hearths).
If these are upgraded kits, I have a delima. What to do with the kits I already built and put hundreds of hours into.
And I have my layout to redesign to boot!
Oh man, I’ve been waiting for this and even gone to the ltroubble of actually writing to Walthers and begging them to release it again.
Well, this is something that I will have to get. Along with the pier! I plan an expansion on my train room and in that expansion a steel mill is to be built. Finally I know what to get. This is great news.
Magnus
And maybe a different looking mill to boot. I have not yet seen the pictures. It will be good to bring down those prices some. Getting kinda hot on Ebay, recently watched a rolling mill kit go for several hundred dollars in a bidding war.
WHOOPI!!! Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z!!!
Gee, and only $200.00 ! Wait , didn’t the economy of the world just take a nose dive?? Iceland is gone, who’s next??
Here’s a pic of the new rolling mill. It’s 3x’s as long with an actual interior (rolling stands!)
It was unvieled at the steel modelers meet recently.
Hey Patrick,
Thanks for sharing this news! I just posted a message over on Rick Rowlands’ steel forum.
Don (DigitalGriffin) - did you go to the latest Maragac Steel-fest? I had to miss it because something was going on for families at my daughter’s college that same weekend.[sigh]
Ken,
Unfortunately I didn’t get to go. It seems every year, something pops up that keeps me from attending. It was even < 30 minutes from where I live. sigh
Oh well.
I’m making good progress on my own layout. I managed to put together every major steel mill building. The open hearth is turning out nicely and I’m starting to super detail the interior based on photos. Someone from the steel forum was kind enough to give me a photo of an open hearth his dad worked in.
Then I found this:
http://books.google.com/books?id=MqE7AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=open+hearth&lr=#PPA8,M1
So I kitbashed 3 rollings mills into an open hearth with some minor modification.
The other 3 kits, I’m using as an actual rolling mill 3 units long. I still have to put together the stands however.
And I’ve managed to start super detailing some of the furnaces. I’ve added prototypically correct sectionally welding piping for the downcomber (as opposed to curved pieces which don’t exist) I’ve also added walkways around the furnace tower.
I think I found a balance between realistic operations, and looking realistic as well. I’m hoping the new Walther’s kit’s doesn’t make me want to scrap everything I’ve done. I see the new coke plant now has the trolley car. tempting
I’m thinking Walther’s could make a reasonable open hearth kit using parts from the electric furnace and rolling mill.
So how’s your layout coming along?
<
Hmmm…I don’t remember where my layout was at during the last time we “talked”, but here’s a brief recap of the past 2 years:
Replaced the ingot stripping/soaking pit facility with a finished-coil shipment center, to generate some outbound loads (coil cars) for more meaningful operation.
Relocated my slag dump to an area near the ore dock, to make room for a small downtown street scene (using Merchants Row and other structures). The mill area needs a town.
Changed the source of my coking coal to somewhere off-layout [i.e. staging]. I plan to install a kitbashed Valley Cement complex where the coal mine was.
Corrected the “walthers error” on the blast furnace piping between the dust catcher and gas washer.
Finally installed my Digitrax loconet, after getting decoders into all my active locos.
Current projects: Finish adding structures to the loco servicing area, and install semi-operational B&O color position light signals
…and that’s about it! [:D]
Well if you are going to use that blast furnace you better model the 1920’s because one that small would have been phased out before WW2. All these buildings are a joke. I have never been in a rolling mill that had open sides except for one in Texas and it was certainly the exception. I’ve been to every coke oven in North America and never have seen a larry car like the one on the coke oven model. Next they will sell a 4 x8 boxed railroad and claim it is an entire major railroad in a box.
