Today was productive. I got the refinery sub-base fully attached to the layout. I employed 7 riser/cleat sets and one angle brace. I used every 1 1/8" SPAX screws I had. Before fastening it down, I traced it's shape onto a large piece of 3/16" Masonite that was left over from mountain building. This will be the surface upon which the refinery will actually lie, and it enables me to build the refinery in the workshop and move it to layout which will give me access to parts that would be almost out of reach.
I used a combination of saber and circular saws to cut this out. The narrow strip between the track and the main part is where the loading rack will go, and that too will be fabricated in the shop and moved complete to the layout. I'll only have two pipes to connect the rack to the refinery proper.
Here's all the underneath stuff. I felt that the front left corner was a bit spongy so I installed a diagonal brace. If I need to I can run another and tie it into the wall brace which will really stabilize the cantilevered nature of this. I took the belt sander and smoothed the curves and matched the Masonite layer to the that below it. The fascia boards were also cut, but won't be installed until near the end since there's wiring that will go below and fascia boards make it a little less accessible.
I tried the plans on for size. I also added a trim end to fill that space on the left. I may not be able to get the Masonite to curve as tightly as I want it so I'll possibly approach the fascia.
I moved the Masonite piece into the workshop and cleared a table for it. I then carefully located the plans on the Masonite to correspond to the spacing that I measured on the layout. The plans extend out past the Masonite 6" to the center of the track. That will provide pretty good references for those two pipes that will merge with the loading rack's. I taped the plans in this position.
With this out of the way I got back to building pumps and assembled the last two. I ran out of check valves and faked a pair by using a modified gate valve. They're invisible when install on the base.
Here's all five pump sets in their final position. I finally figured out the piping to the reflux drum and had to add another nozzle in the bottom center. It appears that the pumps have two separate feed lines to the vessel's bottom right and left sides.
More vessels tomorrow. There's lots of pipe racks to make and I have major work to do on the HP Spheres. The legs are a challenge.
