Here are three pics of the blast furnace, stoves, and dust collector on the test layout. I used to use black filament when I was printing other items and I had to use some up to make space for the grey filament I started buying. That's why the colors are mismatched. I also plan on painting these pieces anyway. I just like to get the color close if I can.
There are still a ton of details I need to add. The downcomer to the dust collector, the skip hoist, stacks, steps, the cast house itself, etc, etc, etc. But! I wanted to get an idea on the basic foot print to see if I can squeak a 4th furnace into the layout. More furnaces mean more raw material demand. I decided to model an early blast furnace because the ore yards were significantly smaller and the ore cranes didn't exist. Originally, the hoppers dumped their contents through the tracks and workers carted the coke/limestone/ore to an elevator that took it to the top of the furnace where workers carted the material to the furnace opening. I didn't want to model that because I wanted to animate the skip hoist. I didn't find explicit reference to hand loaded skip hoists but I'm inferring they existed because ore cranes evolved into what we know now. And if this setup didn't exist, then I'm claiming artistic license in my fictitious town of Norgeville haha Anyway, adding a fourth furnace adds demand to the incoming freight to supply the furnace and adds traffic to the mill moving liquid iron to the open hearth/bessemer converter. That adds traffic to the ingot trains and the outgoing freight. It only took me about a year to decide but this is the kind of model railroading I enjoy.
So now I'll be starting to model the remaining structures. I thought for sure I would need to shrink the stoves and dust collector but I think I'm going to leave them. The dust collector (picture ending in 333) will have tracks going under it for covered hoppers to be filled. Likewise, the cast house will have trains going under it for slag and torpedo cars to be filled. The top of the blast furnace needs more design work. The white platform might need to be moved downwards some. I think I have it too high now that I looked at more pictures. Then I'll need to add stacks and figure out how to get the skip hoist to move up and down.
That silver hose is part of a fume hood I have over the work bench so I can smoke a cigar/pipe without stinking up the entire basement. It will probably double to remove smoke from the trains too. Having multiple locomotives running at once will probably choke me out. I also wanted to have smoke from the mill. I'm veeeery much second guessing that now haha
