Took my own advice and cleared off the other table with the lathe and created a more stable support for the base board. I also added two more cross temp supports to further stabilize the Masonite. I then noticed that one of the screws I used to hold the middle stiffener in place is sitting right under the place where the cooling tower is going. That will be moved tomorrow. I can now get to work in earnest putting all this together.
I finished the Methanizer vessel by air brushing the yellow for the relief valve line. Even though it takes time to mask, the results are absolutely worth it. I painted its feet concrete color (a mixture of Tamiya medium gray, buff, and white) and dressed up the right angle valves on top. This baby's ready to go. Color of concrete is a little more tan in real life. The phone camera made it a bit more gray.
Added all the vessels to the production platform, but in retrospect, that may have been premature. I have to add two water lines from the condenser that aren't there and it will be more difficult doing that with these units fastened in. I was just downstairs reviewing the piping diagram and getting my bearing on what goes from what. I have some mismatched pipe sizes. On the heater I went with larger diameter (insulated) piping, but on the other end it's going into the 1/8" tubing. Too late to fix that so I'll have to transition from one to the other at some point in the run. No one will see it or know it, but I will. The two lines on top should probably be the larger diameter, but the plans show this as small. The reflux line is correctly sized large.
The last thing done today was applying the custom "Marley" and "SPX" decals to the cooling tower. I first coated the decals with Microsol Decal Coating solution. This stuff's very good and doesn't run the inkjet ink. You apply it and let it dry for 15 minutes and you're good to go. While that was drying I applying a brush coat of Tamiya clear gloss to the placards where the decals would go to give good adhesion. As I applied them, I also wet the surface with Microsol decal setting solution to snuggle them down. Results are good. The logo graphic was print screen from SPX's website.
Here's their logos applied to one of their products.
Next session I'm going to finish assembling the cooling tower, start mounting equipment to the base board, and begin piping fun. Whoopee! As George Peppard used to say on A-Team, "It's great to see a plan come together!" So far, this is the biggest modeling project on the layout, and probably the biggest modeling project in my life.
