Continuing Saga …

They look very convincing, Myles. 

What's OSB?

Thanks Max!

OSB is Oriented Strand Board. It's the cheap replacement for plywood consisting of flat wood chips squashed together into sheets under high pressure with adhesive. It's widely used in home construction in the USA in both sub-flooring and exterior sheathing. It's very strong.

It's about 1/3 the price of the same thickness of ply. I wasn't sure if it would be any good for model RR work, but my fears were without basis. There's a rough side and a really rough side. Best to build with the rough side out. But be aware that I call it "ISB" or Instant Splinter Board. If you handle it without leather work gloves you will get splinters...some quite large. Once I got the subroadbed in place, I painted it with my ground color to stabilize the grain and reduce the splintering. That worked well!

Al, if you're reading this... I was thinking... (dangerous... I know). All of these refinery units have just the piping detail. Has anyone simulated the power lines to all those motors with junction boxes for disconnects? How about instrument locations? On the substation model I included instrumentation wiring, switch boxes, and sensors. The same should be for a refinery only more so. Those pump stands just cry out for a switch box and some power leads going to the motors. I know, I know... AMS!

Thanks, Myles.

That OSB sounds like it would be very strong.

Well... here's the OSB in action.

With #1 out today, I had the perfect opportunity to make some sawdust and make lots of noise with the circular and saber saws, plus let's not forget the shop vac. I got the entire baseplate built and fitted.

The puzzle is made up of 8 pieces with lots of scrap OSB plates and screws (1 1/8" SPAX TORX Head). I swear by those screws, originally sold in Germany and now in selected Home Depots. They're the best self-threading wood screws I've used. The shank above the threads is narrower than the threads so once the screw penetrates the first piece, it's able to freewheel so it can pull the attached piece more tightly without having to strip the threads in the top piece. Even with that, I drill pilot holes since it's easier to drive them when you need a free hand to stabilize the drill/driver.

Here's the array of scrap OSB all screwed together to make a big sheet.

I added some cleats on the layout edge to support that side so I could try in on for size and see how it worked. I added another couple pieces in the forward edge (as in this image) to give enough space for a parking area, flare tower etc. I'm also leaving real estate in back for more stuff. At first I was going to trim that off closer to the drawing, but had second thoughts and realized that this extra space will come in handy.

I rounded the edges and will form a nice S-curve with the fascia on the far side so it will look more finished.

You can see in the above that I've added the extension joists. I cut them long enough to extend all the way into the layout to lie on the rear girder. They're pretty cantilevered, extending out about 2 feet. If this proves a problem, I might add a leg and some underpinnings to support the overhang. It only has to support a plastic model, not trains, but it may have to support a human (me) when I'm installing all the stuff or attempting to reach a train that's derailed. There is a switch back there that's hard to visualize from the control panel and I've had derailments there. The switch sometimes doesn't fully cycle. I've doubled the new joists next to the existing ones. If I need to, I can screw them together which greatly increases the holding power since these are all networked together through the large piece of OSB subroadbed above. There are at least 8 risers and cleats holding onto that OSB. As I write this, I'm probably going to do just that. I trimmed the joists so their ends are flush with the baseplate which greatly facilitates screwing on the fascia board.

This work really shows off the benefits of L-girder. Adding more benchwork is easy since everything is so open. Furthermore, there's nothing blocking getting wiring from one place to another. There will be lots of lights in this project since there are lights almost everywhere since it's a 24/7 operation (except in July when there's a 2 week turnaround). Monday, I'll get the risers made and installed. I don't think I'm going to mount the models directly on the OSB, since it will be unwieldy to attach all the stuff and get it to the layout. I may build the refinery on some Masonite or other thinner material and move it to the baseplate in sections. Just thinking out loud here. Perhaps Al, or other refinery builders can add to this discussion.

With this benchwork, there are now no open spaces on the layout. It was by design that a refinery was going there, and not knowing how wide it would be, I held off adding OSB until I had a plan to go by. I'm going to be very happy when the fascia is continuous from one end to the other.

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. 

Myles, The refinery is progressing nicely and will be a great addition to the layout when your finished.

I also cobbled together pieces of OSB I had saved in my cutoff box for use when filling in my open spaces between my sub roadbed. Once it's screwed together and covered with homasote or Sculptamold  you can't tell  it's not one solid piece.

Using the Masonite as The base for the refinery will also make it easier when adding all the piping and other details in you work shop.

Unless I'm confused, in the last picture showing the paper layout positioned on the masonite, it seems to be reversed from what you had shown on the layout.

Can't wait to see the finished complex when finally installed and operational on the layout.

Gerry

My last layout was a mix match of scraps of plywood; if OSB was available then, I wasn't aware of it.  I scabbed in a small section in the front like you did when my track plan didn't work out quite as I envisioned.  The L girder does make it easy to support.  I am curious as to what is the depth of the layout at that point now in case you need to do something on the high line by the wall right in the middle of the widest portion.  I know you are up to the challenge of the supports for the legs!

Gerry, the drawing is the same. In the shop pics I'm just looking at it from the wall side. All the piping will be running away from the viewer and therefore, mostly out of sight except for my pictures.

Mark, it's 4 feet and too far to reach. The high line has given me no trouble (famous last words), but the switch in front has been trouble and will be 42" away, again too far to reach. To make matters worse, there will be vertical things sticking up in the refinery to further block reaching in. I will be able to get onto the layout from the right side and lean into that switch. Because that switch sometimes doesn't cycle completely, I try and get a visual fix on its position. That will be harder with all of this stuff in front, but I'll manage. I may put a very visible block signal that will repeat the switch's aspect so I can see it from the control panel. The pushbutton on the panel also repeats the aspect, but it too is sometimes suspect.

Myles,

I knew you had a well thought out plan for every contingency.  ;-)

Myles, Unless I experiencing some sort of eye anomaly;

The shop picture shows the long straight side towards the track side with the "S" curve on the right (reversed from layout) with loading rack and horizontal piping on the aisle side with all the tanks behind, closest to the siding.

Gerry

Not you Gerry! I'm the one with the eye anomaly. In fact, my wife thinks I'm an idiot and shouldn't have answered you so quickly. Yes! I put the drawing on the Masonite upside down and yes, the curved portions are the outside and the flat side is the track side. Good pick up. Actually, this isn't the only thing where my wife has thought that I'm an idiot.

Here's the way it should look. It was important to get this right since I'm going to mark the panel through the drawing for all the equipment placement. I've left enough room on the right side to have a parking area. I need to find space for the building, cooling tower and flare.

I decided that all the ladders and rails on the vessel platform before painting since all those joints require good gluing surfaces. The bottom ladder seemed high enough for a ladder cage, but the upper was a little short and is uncaged. After looking at the isometric drawing I realized that the lower level platform did not completely cover the structure. There was a rectangular opening under the vessels... probably to make piping easier. That ship has left the dock. I followed Al's practice and put diagonal braces not the railing ends on the top rail since it was very insubstantial and needed some other support.

I then turned my attention to the large mechanizer horizontal vessel. I laid out center lines on top and bottom using the same technique as with the smaller vessels. I also decided to add the vessel supports before painting since it was necessary for support in subsequent operations. To further ensure that the two legs were parallel and in line with each other, I added some piping to tie the two together and ensure alignment. Drilling in the drill press on V-blocks ensured the two holes were perpendicular and in line.

The last thing I did was cut some "concrete" bases and epoxy them to the legs. This was necessary since the elbow at a bottom outlet wouldn't clear the ground with the extra height. I could have glued the elbow directly to the tank, but I'm trying to us nozzles at each pipe outlet. Gravity clamps keeps the tank down until it cures.

Tomorrow tank work continues.

Myles,

Your no idiot, I have violated the "Measure twice, cut once" rule many a time. My scrap box is quite full of that OSB I mentioned in my previous comment.

My concern was that you might start drilling holes to locate the tanks etc before applying the "measure twice" rule.

This refinery project is  going to be another in a long list of accomplishments for your layout when completed.

Gerry

Thanks. Ok... I'm not an idiot and I appreciate help from any quarter. Keep paying attention.

Interesting day today. I tackled two of the most daunting aspects of this build: the High Pressure Sphere legs and the curved stair up the liquids storage tank.

I first started by adding some piping for the relief valve line on the Mechanizer vessel. On some of the pictures they show this pipe going straight into the ground. I'm going to run the relief lines to the flare and they will be above ground. Again I added a small piece of styrene angle as a brace for this unwieldy line. This stabilizes it during all the handling that's to come. I also added the angle valves up top and finished up the man way. The angle valves were not included with this kit, but I'm trying to conserve by 1/8" 90° fittings. I had them left over from the boiler house project. Even with the elevated "concrete" bases, the bottom 90° fitting didn't clear the ground so I removed the nozzle and mounted the L directly into the vessel. 

Time for the big tank. There are four fitting on top: curved vent line, 2 valved fittings, and a man way. There's another at the bottom which appears to be an output since it connects directly to the pumps which feed the loading rack, and then there's the stairs, rails and platforms.

I used the drill press to put in all the openings so they were square to ground. I had to fill the gap below the nozzles with med CA since the tank curves away from them. Since the valves are "snap-on" fittings and don't have a pipe in them, you need to drill the vessel with 1/8" and insert that size tubing and clamp the valve onto these pipes. I trim the pipes flush and immediately install the 90°'s.

Next up, the ladder. The instructions say cut one side off the stair moldings and then glue it to the vessel. They don't say which side should be facing inward. Al seems to end up cutting bot stair side rails off and just has the treads extending from the tank. I chose to leave the stair side rail on the outside. I marked the start and stop points for the stair on the tank from the plans and taped the stair to the tank working to keep it perpendicular (which it didn't want to be in the worst way). It took a lot of fussing to get it in place and I resorted to gluing a part, then using CA to stabilize and not moving on until that part seemed to be holding. Eventually, I got it all glued and set it aside to dry.

While that was drying I started working on the HP legs. These need to be shaped to conform to the compound curve of the spheres. First I needed to cut 12, 3/16" ABS tubes for the legs. I took a quick measurement from the plans and cut the legs. I'm going to use 1/4" footings which the legs will actually enter so I measured from ground not from the footing top. I have a miter box screwed to my workbench. This is a god send since it frees up my left hand without it worrying about holding the miter box still. Further, it lets me install a bench stop to cut equal-sized pieces that extend out of the box. I used this a lot... really a lot! And the miter box is wearing out and will have to be replaced. The slots are getting oversized so square cuts are a crap shoot.

Fastening the box down is important for another reason. Most razors saws cut on the pull stroke which would pull the miter box off the edge of the workbench making it very unstable. The screws are countersunk below the miter's low point so they don't interfere.

I needed to create some footings. I'm using a left over piece of 1/4" scrap MDF left over from the 2nd distillery building. It was a wall that I had designed wrong and needed recutting. I laid out 12, 3/4" squares and pilot and final drilled them with 3/16", the tube size. Using the drill press insured that the holes were perpendicular to the face and would keep the legs facing north. The scroll saw kerf is very narrow so it doesn't change the layout very much.

I cut them all apart with the scroll saw and touched them up on the belt sander. The legs are a nice push-fit into the footings. I then set them up on the plans to decide how to go forward. The plans had a missing slice and were not accurate so I took the compass and completed the circle. I then marked out six equal spaces using the radius setting on the compass. Amazing that circumference doesn't go into the diameter equally, but the radius can perfectly define 6 equal parts. Isn't geometry wonderful!

I decided to make a base with holes spaced exactly the same as the plan, and put the legs in there. 

I guesstimated the leg junction angle and set up a guide on the belt sander and chopped them off. I then inserted them into the bases. They're not glued... just sitting there. I have two thoughts. One is to epoxy the legs into the bases so they're solid before using sand paper stuck to the spheres to put a final shaping to the legs. The other is to install all the cross-bracing (more about that in a moment) and see how stable it is. If it's rigid enough where I can shape the leg tops, I won't need the bases and can put them aside.

The plans call for 4" (scale) channel for the X-bracing on the HP legs. The outside braces are longer than the inner. I was able to cut 3 pieces from each length of channel included in the kit. There are 12 inner and 12 outer pieces needed equaling 8 pieces of channel. Unfortunately the kit included 6. I tried to glue scraps together, and got two more, but I'm still 2 pieces short. Annoying. I'm finding other shortages... check valves, Nozzles. I can order them, but their shipping costs are steep. I'm going to call and see if they'll replace parts since this is a kit. I glued the pieces together using scrap ABS as a spline.

I stopped work on the HP tanks and got back to the big tank.

The stair glued reasonably well and I fixed any loose ones with med CA. 

Again, I'm annoyed by the kit. It did not include any specific stair railings where the stanchions are perpendicular to the treads, not the ground. I installed the rails I have which are horizontal rails. I'm not happy with this. Naval "ladders" have this kind of railings, but I'm not so sure about refinery tankage. It also makes terminating the rail at the tops and bottoms more troublesome.

The tank stair starts and ends with platforms. I'm making them conform to the tanks curve by again sticking adhesive sand paper to the tank and sanding the final curve there. I'm putting an ABA angle frame underneath and holding them up with diagonal braces. There will be railings on both. I notched the ABS angle to get it to curve.

Here's the finished bottom platform waiting for the railing. I may need a step or two the platform bottom since that looks like a pretty steep first sep.

Tomorrow (after exercising) I'll finish the big tank and get back to putting legs under the HP spheres. I have to build a lot of pipe racks, add details to the heat, build the flare, figure out how to build a cooling tower and then design and build the ops building. For fencing, I'm going to use brass wire with bridal tulle, AND the jig that came with the Brennen Chain Link Fence model I bought and built for the substation. Brass wire is much easier to handle than the steel included with Brennen. But there's light at the end of this tunnel and it's not a headlight from on an onrushing 4-8-4.

Hi Myles

I've probably missed it, but have you a photo of the prototype?

The reason I ask is that the stanchions look like they should be vertical to me.

My prototype had angled stanchions and I changed them (modellers' licence  ), as I thought that they looked better.

Just a thought.

Yes... I believe that normal stairs have stanchions that are perpendicular to the ground. Naval stairs are not. Plus there are stair rails shown in Plastruct's catalog. So it should have been included in this kit. I'm calling them tomorrow.

Thanks, Myles.  I learn something new each day on this forum. 

In my ignorance I had a bob each way with this set . . .

See... Marine ladders are different. I still don't like that shape on my steps. I'm calling Plastruct today and see about getting the missing parts and the correct ladder railing. I try and learn something new every day. Yesterday I learned about how to get six legs under spheres.

Impressive work, full of details. Really nice,

jpv in France

Myles:

You are correct - you need the angled stair rails. I would suggest the white sytrene since these are easier to bend in a curve (SRS-8). You will need to reinforce the ends with cutoffs from the railing. A problem with curving the railing you will see is that it tends to bend in or out (not sit straight up and down). First see how the railing fits. You may need to sand the stairway ?ledger? a little.
Another method is to use Alan's procedure. Glue angles and Tees to the stairs. When dry glue railing. I am not sure what sizes Alan uses. I would guess:
A-1
T-1
MS-103

Joe

Well... wrote an eMail to Plastruct detailing what was shorted or missing and then followed up with a phone call. Talked to Customer Service, but she said that the eMail would go to the office manager who would just get the parts pulled and mailed out. She transferred me, but I got voicemail. So... no further input to that discussion.

Really got into the Hi-Pressure Spheres.

I needed to drill three 1/8" holes in the spheres. One on the very bottom. There's a injection mold lug there which facilitates finding that. I didn't file these off knowing that I would use them for the bottom outlet. It also has two, vertical, off-axis holes for the two relief valves. It's tough to drill vertical holes in a sphere, so after spotting them with the awl, I milled two flats that were horizontal with the ground line to give a purchase for the drilling that followed. I used a 0.032" carbide drill in a pin vise to start the hole, followed up with a #50 also in a pin vise, and then took it to the drill press. I put the sphere on a role of masking tape so it sat still and then maneuvered it so I could drill the two holes. Worked good and the drill did not slip.

I had enough braces to do one tank. After getting them all glued and set, I put a wire around the legs to prevent them from spreading outwards, stuck some coarse adhesive sand paper on the sphere, put on a nitrile glove so I could get a good grip and then swiveled the sphere back and forth until each leg shape conformed to the curve better. All of them didn't come in precisely, but as you'll see, gluing and CA solved that problem.

Here's the fit after shaping.

Since I had already drilled the sphere for the two relief valves on top and the bottom outlet, and mounted the valves, I had to make sure that the valves were vertical and this meant that the seam line would be horizontal prior to gluing. I set it all up on the surface plate and fussed around with the sphere until the surface gauge showed a level seam line. Judicious use of Tamiya tape held that position so I could apply glue to each leg, only removing the next piece of tape when the leg showed it was adhering.

After gluing I went back and added med CA to any obvious gaps. One needed some granular filler with the CA to close the gap. But they were all glued and strong. The bottom outlet has a nozzle, a #4 pipe and an elbow. The relief valves are attached using a piece of #4 pipe, but no nozzle since it would fit against the severe curve.

Here's what the glued leg looks like. I'm happy with the fit. Again, the instructions on this critical step were very skimpy. I don't know how to get the legs positioned without having an assembly jig.

I pulled the assembly jig off to see it was still all stable and it was. Therefore, I can mount the tanks directly on my baseboard, AND I can use the templates to drill holes in the baseboard to insert the legs and further stabilize the assembly. I forgot to mark leg 1 on the tank and template so I went back and kept turning it until all the legs lined up. On Tank #2 I marked leg 1's position for going further. Live and learn.

Oh... and one more thing. I dropped HP Sphere #2. It hit the concrete bounced twice and then on the third bounce blew apart into two hemispheres as the glue line let go. I had to re-glue, re-fill and file it all over again. I added more filler and will finish sand tomorrow after it all cures.

I took this pic this morning for inclusion in the Plastruct eMail. It shows current progress before the completion of HP #1. Question for Al (or other refinery experts). The overhead line from the distillation tower goes to the top drum on the platform (reflux drum?), but instead of the line going directly to it, the distilling tower line goes to the pipe rack, T-s into the a #8 pipe with the ends blocked. The line runs the entire length of the pipe rack, and the reflux line T-s off this same long line. It wastes a lot of #8 piping with I want to use for the relief valve lines going to a flare knock out drum. What is the reason for running this long line that's blocked at both ends? (See the arrows).

While waiting for Plastruct's response, tomorrow I start building pipe racks, mounting pumps and other stuff onto faux concrete bases, and then get started building lighting systems. I have the silicone mold used in making the lampposts for the distillery, but the mold's not great and I'm going to re-mold it before casting. There was a bubble in the area where the pole interfaced with the light housing and required handwork to remove the resin the filled the bubble. I also have to finish up the details on the heater, build the cooling tower and a flare, plus and ops building. So I have a lot to do. I think my LHS has the #4 Plastruct channel which I need to finish up HP #2 leg assembly.

Went to Scale Reproductions Inc. (LHS) and bought some of the Plastruct material that I've asked Plastruct for. If they send it to me, that's okay since I'm going to need more material for the flare and cooling tower. It will go to good use. I bought the needed C-4 channel so I can finish up the #2 Sphere's legs, the stair railings since I wanted to get that big tank done, and some more piping #4 and #8.

First I built the upper platform using the same routine as the lower. It also has a larger curved rail. In this case I attempted to heat the ABS with a hot air gun. It got a little distorted, but I'll take it. In some ways, I actually like making rails out of drilled brass angle and brass wire. I have much more control of shaping and how rails terminate to each other. If I was to do this again, I may fab them out of brass.

I was able to peel the old railing off the stairs and put the correct stair rail in place. I cobbled together a patchwork of pieces where the stairs meet the platform rails. It was this area specifically to which I was referring in the last paragraph where a brass rail would have come out much better (and stronger).

I added angle braces under the upper platform and and angle brace from the top right railing's edge to the tank body. After painting it will look okay.

I then added the rail to the bottom platform now that the correct railing was on the stairs. Again, bringing the straight and stair rails together was less than optimum.

Weekend means no shop work, so I'll see y'all on Monday.

After buying C-4 channel and trying to use it to complete Sphere #2 only to find out that even though the bill of materials called for C-4, the channel that was included in the kit AND what I used on the spheres up to this point was something larger. Probably a C-6. But I didn't feel like going back to the LHS and killing the rest of the day so I used them anyway. They were the inside braces, and again... and I know I sound like a broken record... it's so far from the viewer that no one other than me (and you dear readers) will know the difference.

Then I decided to actually look at the plans and found that the relief valve lie above the catwalk that extends from the top of one sphere to the other. I pulled them apart, drilled out the remains of the 1/8" pipe and glued in some extra long pieces that will be trimmed after the catwalk is installed.

Then I started building the catwalk itself. It's 11" long and 1" wide. It has a larger C-8 channel frame.

Only after building this frame late this afternoon, did I decide to check the plans again and see that the platform wides where the relief valves are. So I made it completely wrong. I assumed (you know how that works) that the upper walk was the same geometry as the lower and the that relief valves would penetrate the platform. They do penetrate, but everything else about the build was incorrect.

I'm going to try and modify what I've build so far without destroying the entire thing. Also, I'm orienting my tanks different than the kit's plans so it may or may not further affect the size and shape of the top platform. There's also an intermediate platform. There's a stair from ground to that platform and then a ladder (caged) from it to the top platform. The elevation drawing shows this mid platform being connected to each sphere and not supported by any independent means. This seems a bit troublesome since the sphere's mass is so much more than the small surface area to glue the platform. I may put some structure under it to support it and not just relay on the glue join. Only if I could have a base that connected both tanks to stabilize the bottom, I could glue the platform between the tanks.

Myles,

The Plastrruct Refinery is based on a petrochemical process and not a refinery process that uses crude oil. I did not look at the piping drawings for this kit but I have built one in the past and read the instructions . I think the plant is actually based on producing styrene.

For most people, it is easier following the directions of the kit but, I would not worry too much about modifying the piping configuration to your liking.

I think you have been doing a meticulous job on this project. You have also run into many of the problems that are encountered constructing craftsman-type kits.

Alan Graziano

Al, it seems that the kit implies that it's an ethanol plant (or some other light liquid). Having spent time in Styrene monomer plants, this doesn't seem to be one of them. There's more reactors with that process I believe.

Spent a lot of hours working today, but don't have as much to show for it as I'd like. I came to the conclusion that in order to fit and connect the platforms between the spheres I would have to stabilize their position vis a vis each other. To do that I decided it needed a foundation that would tie both together. A piece of 1/8" Masonite is serving that purpose. After determining the center-to-center spacing, I laid out the Masonite and and drilled a 1/8" hole in the center of each sphere's position. I did the same on the templates. A piece of 1/8" pipe served as the pin to hold them in center. I then rotated the templates so they were oriented properly and taped them into position. I drilled out the holes with the 3/16" drill in the drill press.

I tested the fit of the tanks into the foundation and it worked. Too well. The holes were such a snug fit that I had trouble removing them. Then tank #1 slipped out of my hands and ended up on the floor breaking 2 legs loose and all of the cross bracing holding one of them. After regluing the legs, I repositioned the little individual leg footings and re-installed the tanks into the new foundation.

I then spent about an hour adding additional catwalk to the top platform. I framed it with more of the large channel, and added more styrene reinforcements to all the joints. I located the holes for the relief valve piping and started fitting the legs that would tie this platform to the spheres. I mistakenly thought that all the support legs (made of some I-beam stock) were the same length. After gluing on many of them, it became clear that this was not true since the platform is not centered over the sphere's crown. I had to remove three of them and cut them shorter. I measured their length using the depth measuring feature of most digital calipers. I attempted to sand a better curve fit with another piece of adhesive sandpaper on the sphere. I used all the tools at my disposal to cut these parts: Chopper, Precision Sander, Dremel, etc.

With the top platform fitting correctly, I built the middle platform. Here I used a hermaphrodite caliper (a caliper with one pointy leg and one curved contact leg) to scribe the sphere's curve onto a piece of ABS cut to width. After sanding the curve, I used an inside caliper (two curved contact legs facing outwards) to measure the width right across the narrowest approach. I again scribed the curve with the Hermaphrodite.

I added I-beams underneath and added more styrene stock at the contact points. Pic shows where I fitted it up. I finished up the curves on the added thick stuff using the Dremel. I won't glue this in yet. I have to paint the foundation and footings, and then glue the tanks into the foundation. Then I add the railings to each platform. I will then glue them into and add the ladders and stairs. Fitting shapes to spheres is challenging.

I realized that the direction the tanks were facing was backwards from the plan so I popped off the little elbow on the bottom outlet to reverse the direction it faces. I also starting building the rest of the underneath piping. The outlet splits into two pipes and valves leading to the loading rack. It answers the question, "Why is the outlet pipe aiming directly into one of the legs?" It's because it splits into two pipes that exit on both sides of the leg.

Heading out of town for a short vacation... "Vacation? Are you serious? You're retired! Everyday is a vacation!" Right! So let's say, going to Nashville for a change of scenery. So work will resume after the 4th. Everyone have a fun and safe 4th!

Trainman2001 posted:

I tested the fit of the tanks into the foundation and it worked. Too well. The holes were such a snug fit that I had trouble removing them. Then tank #1 slipped out of my hands and ended up on the floor breaking 2 legs loose and all of the cross bracing holding one of them.

Myles,

I love reading this post; not only because I get to see a master modeler at work and all I can learn from said modeler but it also reminds me that even the best modelers have "Oh ----" moments like I do. Thanks for the candid description of your work.

Pat,

Totally agree with your comments. Although I don't consider myself a "master modeler", I  have  encountered lots of "Oh ----" moments" on my projects.

Gerry

Thanks Pat and Gerry. I try to do my best in reporting the good, bad, ugly and very ugly. 

I recently read a long thread on another site about building a 1:200 model of the USS Yorktown. Massive model with tons of aftermarket PE. The builder showed finished pictures of each subassembly, but never discussed any problems or techniques in getting there. I've built models with intricate PE and it's a real pain. I find that CA can be very difficult, and yet this guy shows assemblies that were entirely built with CA and doesn't say a word about how he did it. While I find those kinds of builds fun to look at, there is very little learning to be gained and it's more about praising the builder. While I like the praise like anyone else, I'm much more excited when I get feedback (like yours) that I imparted inspiration and skill to others. That's what advances the hobby. The fact that my finished projects are good in no way is proof that getting there is often very tedious and trying.

Miles, you are the poster child for what I consider the ONLY necessary skill for great modeling: the discipline to consistently tear down any work that isn't right. Anyone who can resist the often very strong temptation to think "not perfect, but good enough" can do great work. Most of us fail at this on a routine basis, but you almost never do. 

There are fifty different ways to do any project. Most of my models are one of a kind, i always see how I could do something different and always do a lot of starting over. It is the nature of construction. 

Alan graziano

Well gang, I'm back. We had a really nice three-day trip to Nashville. It's nice vibrant city that seems to be a boom town. There were tower cranes it seemed on every downtown block. According to the valet parking attendant at the Homewood Suites, the city is at full employment. So much for the bad economy. We visited (didn't stay at) Gaylord's Opryland Resort. We went there to check it out and have dinner there. It's remarkable. If you've never seen it, it's a hotel complex with 2,900 guest rooms. The property is essentially three atriums surrounded by the building. The atriums are covered in vast quantities of glass with almost 9 acres under glass. It's botanical wonderland with 13 restaurants. The food we had at The Cascade was very good and exceeded our expectations. We may stay there the next time we go to the Music City.

Got back to "work" today. Missed being in the shop.

Spent the entire full work session working on making the railing for the HP Sphere platform. I decided that due to the spacing and the difficulty of butt gluing those very thin rails on the Plastruct molded railings that I would make them from ABS angle and brass (0.032") rod. I cut the stanchions to be longer than the Plastruct ones since I wanted them to reach to the bottom of the I-beam frame.

I measured, marked with dividers and drilled 0.0315" with the micro carbide drill. The wire was a little bit of a tight fit. If I wanted to insert the wire into something (like a grab iron), this drill would be fine, but I needed to thread the wire through all these posts and if it was a tight fit, I'd have trouble. So before gluing them on I opened them up a bit with a 0.033" drill which worked perfectly. 

I also needed to add some more surface area to the glue locations since there's a strain on some of these posts and the top and bottom of the I-beam was an insufficient area to ensure a good joint. The first stanchions I dealt with were the two inner corners. Wire was approaching from two directions so it needed four holes and it had to be installed with the angles facing in which even made less gluing surface. In this case I packed out the angle so there was a solid gluing surface presented.

I didn't have the exact dimension styrene so I layered it in one direction and then sanded it in both directions to square it up with the angle.

Here's the post installed and you can see the packing.

I previously located all the rest of the stanchions using the same spacing as Plastruct to make it a little less obvious that I've changed railing types. I then added a piece of 0.040" styrene stock to fill the space between the I-beam flanges. The .040 stock was slightly thicker than the space so I sanded them all down flush with the flange.

Since terminating the rails at each corner at a stanchion seemed sub-optimal I elected to bend the wire 90° at the corners. This, of course, presented another set of challenges; you can't prebend the wire before installation or you can't get it assembled. Instead, You need to thread the stanchions ahead on both sides of the corner, fasten those on the fixed side and bend the wire in place.

My wire was not long enough to form the entire rail so I had to cheat by using some K-S brass tubing with an i.d. the same as the wire. These were CA'd with thin. I thought about soldering, but was worried about melting the stanchions. In the past I've done these kinds of rails with brass angle, but in this case didn't want to mess with getting the brass to hold onto the ABS. It would have required brass pins soldered to the stanchions and epoxied into the ABS. So the connectors are a small concession to going with the hybrid method.

By quitting time I got all the rails in place and held at each stanchion with a drop of thin CA.

All of the stanchions were first secured with solvent cement and then reinforced with medium CA and accelerator. Once the CA kicked I was able to thread the rails onto the next stanchion.

I'm going to put a styrene kick plate at the bottom inside of the rail all the way around and then I'll finish up the little bridge platform tomorrow. I actually like the way these rails look better than the Plastruct ones. They have more dimensionality. Notice that I had to leave a space for the ladder from the bridge platform. It would have been easy to forget this. I almost did.

Getting close to finishing this assembly. This was the most challenging unit op in the entire "kit". I think the channel that Plastruct instructed to use as cross bracing under these tanks are too big. Many pics I'm seeing of actual HP spheres show steel round bars and not channels. I may change them. Or... I may not. depends on my mood.

P.S. Plastruct has agreed to seen me all of the parts I requested.

I glad you had a good trip!  We only passed through Nashville on our way to Fort Smith, Arkansas where my father-in-law worked his last  10 years.  The last trip was in 1995, so I'm sure there is a lot more there now.  They even have an NHL ho key team that really gave our Penguins a run for their money!

The platform looks great!!  Your chemical workers will be safe up there once you put it in service!  Angle, round?  I would think there are ones out there of either variety!

Thanks Mark!

Today saw the completion of the HP Spheres. I woke this morning thinking about how to properly fasten the small mid-platform to the two tanks. Just having a butt joint concerned me and it needed reinforcement. I thought about putting diagonal bracing underneath, but settled on using 3/64" brass rod as pins on both sides. 

I also decided to scrap the Masonite foundation since I figured if the two platforms were properly fastened to the tanks it should be stable enough to sit directly on the refinery base without additional layers. Besides, the foundation was interfering with my use of the surface gauge to layout the hole locations on the tank.

I scribed the contact point at the same level on both tanks, the drew a vertical line from which I spaced the two holes with a divider. Using the same setting, I located the holes on the packing pieces on the mid-platform. Here was where I test fit the pins on both sides.

When it was fit correctly, I spotted the location of the stairway, and then installed stanchions in prep for a railing like the top platform's. I used the homemade variety here for the same reason as before; being able to customize the stanchion spacing.

I used epoxy to hold this piece in and it worked as it should. 

I measured and cut the stairway stock and only had stair railing for one side, but UPS said my package from Plastruct was arriving today. I got it a 4:45 p.m. and was able to quickly as the second railing thus finishing up the steps.

All the pieces I requested from Plastruct were shipped free-of-charge. Nice company with which to do business. They sent me a larger tubing from which to make man ways. I now have to decide if it's worth it to take the small ones off and re-make a more scale-looking larger set. Jury's still out...

While the epoxy was curing I went back to work finishing up the heater. It needed a ladder that conformed to the stepped design of this unit. I used the Plastruct ladder supports, but wised up and cut the clip tabs off any where there would ladder cages since the cages interfere with the clips. I notched the ladders where the bends would be and then filled the little notches with med. CA to reinforce them. There's a valve at the bottom which accepts feed and a damper valve at the top. I modified a valve for the top and drilled out the hand wheel to give it more shape. I added the last 12 NBWs at the base to dress it like the distilling tower's. The plans don't show any caged ladders since when it was created in the 90s, it may not have been as prevalent in industry, also it was HO scale so caged ladders are pretty tiny.

With the epoxy cured well enough to handle I attached the upper platform, first with solvent cement and then med CA to fill in the many gaps that still existed in the leg fit. It's Gorilla Glue 5 minute, but it doesn't reach full strength for much longer. 

The results were gratifying considering how many variables there are in this assembly. It's interesting that Plastruct gave no details whatsoever about how the upper platform was to be held onto the tanks. They were just sitting on the tanks' crowns. I don't believe this would have worked in practice.

Finally, here's the stair just sitting in position. It can't be fastened yet since it requires attachment at the bottom to the refinery base. I realize when looking at these pics that I forgot to install the kick plates at the railings' base. I will be able to do that tomorrow, but it will be a bit more awkward now that it's all glued up. 

I'm doing the working drawings for the cooling tower. It's all flat pieces so it doesn't need laser cutting or anything fancy. I'll need to go to a fabric store to get bridal tulle and other fine netting for the screens and the looonnng chain link fence that's going to surround this site. 

After situating the SketchUp drawing so it was non-perspective and square to the viewing surface and then after screen printing each view, imported them into Illustrator and scaled them to 1:48. Comes out to about 3.5" wide. I put the imported images on the bottom layer and then lock it. I draw the parts directly over the imports setting the color at half opacity so I can see the image underneath.

The Frame on the left is made of three layered parts that I will separate in another file before printing out.

I'm also thinking about the lighting. I had the molds for the ones I made for the substation, but I think I can do better. I'm going to need a lot of them. I also need more information about how the lights should be fastened to the units and how (or if) I should hide the wiring.

Exercise day so not as much time...

Started working on the flare tower. Tried to cut some alignment rings that were punched out of ABS using my hollow punches. I was not happy with the heater. I put an alignment ring on the top of the base, but did didn't align the upper stack with a lower hole. Therefore, it ain't square and it's annoying. For the flare tower I wanted alignment rings on the top and bottom of the wider base piece. The rings didn't work well so I went to plan B. This time I scribed the circles using dividers with styrene so the circles were highly concentric. The top ring works well. For the bottom, I decided to make a hexagonal "concrete" base out of the 1/4" MDF. I didn't have a 5/8" drill and wanted a perfectly square, nicely fitting hole in the center.

First I roughed out a circle on the scroll saw, trued it up a bit on the belt sander and then went to chuck it in the lathe to bore the 5/8" hole. But my lathe is too small to grab a 1.66" circular piece. What to do?

Then I remembered that my lathe has soft jaws in the chuck... meaning you can machine them for special jobs... like this one.

I reversed the jaws so I would mess up the normal gripping section. I then clamped a piece of the same material in the chuck to space it out properly and make the jaws rigid, and then carefully machined a step that would grip the O.D. of the MDF base. I drilled a starter hole in the drill press to fit the boring bar and then clamped the round stock in the chuck and bored out the hole to a perfect 5/8" inch hole.

After de-chucking I sanded off the 8 flats on the belt sander. I then made a styrene base flange that will receive the faux anchor bolts like the other units in the project. The base and upper rings are perfectly in line and the flare tower is plum. Each job I do I learn more about how to do it, but I only have one each to make.

I will make a transition piece between these two diameters. I had to do a little research in my very old Engineering Drawing text that I used at Michigan State to re-learn how to draw a cone in the flat that can be folded into a funnel shop. I'll lay that out tomorrow and make the transition piece.

It's a nice tall flare and will need to be supported with strategically placed guy wires... probably E-Z Line. I may have trouble finding enough room to run the 120 degree-separated guys without fouling the tracks or running off the edge of the table. Need to go to the LHS to get some more resin True Details NBWs.

I put this aside and got back to putting the kick plats on the HP platforms. I put them all on and then realized I made a mild booboo. I mounted the mid-plate wrong-way around. When I was fitting it I ignored that the vertical ladder needs to lead up on the side opposite to the stairway exit. I was looking at mounting the ladder and realized I had the platform reversed with no way of fixing it. I tested the epoxy joints and they're not coming apart. So I mounted the ladder at a slight angle with enough clearance for the stair exit. It works but it isn't right.

For some reason, I may or may not have actually posted yesterday's work. So it's now re-posted. Only had a short time today, but did get more done on the flare. First of all, real flares are ridiculously complicated. Like every other real-life prototype, there's always more complexity than we wish or need to model, but it's good to know what's going on. Here's a typical flare head that has upper and lower steam jets to produce a smokeless flame. 

There's no way I am going to attempt to model that! It looks like the rocket outlet of some sci-fi fusion powered rocket ship. You won't be able to look into the flare tip on my model. It will be way too tall, so I'm just going to have the exterior steam and pilot piping and that's it.

I bought some more NBWs at the LHS today along with more primer, Tamiya Bare Metal spray. I bought two kinds... the True Details ones that I've previously used and some new ones by Meng. The Meng seem to be easier to saw off with less clean up (and therefore less tiny parts entering the alternative universe.) There are 3 sizes on the sheet. I'm using the largest size for the flare anchor bolts.

After reviewing my engineering drafting text I re-learned how to do a conic projection of a truncated cone so I could lay out a transition piece for the Flare.

Using the same compass settings, I scribed the shape onto thin ABS and punched it out. I added a reinforcing tab to hold the seam together and used solvent cement and then CA held with some hemostats.

Here's the glued up cone.

After curing I glued it in place on the flare. As it did with the heater transition cone, the cone extends past the end which I filled with med. CA. Next session I'll grind away the excess. You can see the NBWs in this pic also.

For the flare top, I had some left over water pipe from the boiler house vessel project. I cut off a 2" piece and squared the ends. I chucked it in the lathe and thinned the walls for the upper end where the burner heads will be, and attempted to shape in in the lathe with my ball-turning attachment. Didn't work and piece was ejected from the chuck so I tapered it by hand on the belt sander and then sanded it to a curve in the lathe. I cut a styrene piece to fill the bottom. I'll bore the 5/8" hole for the flare pipe next session so the top will be nicely centered on the pipe. This is looking at the bottom.

Nice progress, Myles.  

For cone shapes, I use . . .

https://www.blocklayer.com/cone-patternseng.aspx

Cheers

Well... that certainly was easy. I never thought to search the web for a magic tool like that. I've saved the bookmark. I'm sure I will have use for that site again. Thanks Max!

Myles,         The level of work and detail in your vessel and structural fabrication is to be greatly admired.  I spent many of my younger years in heavy construction in chemical and petro-chemical plants, both new construction and plant maintenance.  As for your question of the top davits and pull line attachment/running:  The end of the davit would have a plate steel clip welded to the bottom, and a hole in the clip correct sized to accept a shackle or clevis.  From this you would hang a snatch block of proper capacity rating and your pull or hoist line runs through this.  Many times I would have to carry wire rope cable twice the length of the tower's height, along with rigging and the snatch block.  This allowed for the cable to be attached to a winch or air tugger on the ground level to assist the hoisting of materials.  Hope this is of some help.

Jesse      TCA 

Thanks Jesse!

Excellent information on the davits and life in the air at a refinery. While I spent quite a few days in pedro/chem installations working with ARCO Chemical and Henkel, I was always at ground level in the pump alleys. I did get up into some installations where some serious things like 50,000 psi hyper-compressors resided. That was at an old process low-density polyethylene plant. I would someday like to model those machines. They were driven by either 5,000 hp synchronous motors or uniflow steam engines.

Today was a rare Saturday session specifically because I had to clean the shop. I just got the word that Heaven Hill is sending a photographer next week to photograph me, the Bernheim 2 model and my railroad. They really are going forward with the publicity piece on what I've been doing.

So while cleaning up the mess, I also snuck in a little bit of work. I fitted another disk to the other end of the flare tip and then bored both ends out to a perfect sliding fit on the flare stack. I also cleaned up the transition piece first on the belt sander and then by hand sanding.

I slipped it onto the flare stack to take the picture. I didn't have time to glue it today. I will also have to run some steam and pilot gas piping up to the top. Theoretically, there should be a caged ladder and rest platforms going up the entire flare. I may or may not do this since I don't think I have enough ladder and cage stock. It would look cool though...

You can see how nice the fit is after the boring operation.

I'm probably not going to put guy wires on this since on of them is going to fall off the edge of the layout. They wouldn't be all that visible 10 feet away. So to help keep it upright (it will be glued to the base) I drilled a 1/2" hole in the base, plugged the bottom of the flare tube with some clay, and filled it with lead shot to weigh the base a bit. I then inserted a piece of 1/2" Plastruct tubing which will form the tube of a man way. I'll finish that up next week.f

Forgive the terrible exposure. This was the correctly size man way stock that Plastruct just sent me. Transition came out well.

After the fun was over, I got down to some serious shop cleaning. Here's some evidence.

The cork-topped roll around table to the right was purchased at IKEA in Venlo, The Netherlands. It was some sort of artists work table and was perfect for model building. I bought it in early December 1999, and used it in our house in Germany when I was first building the layout. I put the cork tiles on it so I could pin plans to it and make a better cutting surface.

There's a funny story about this purchase.

My wife was in the USA visiting our daughter for the holidays since I had to work and Germans didn't celebrate Thanksgiving. It was a Sunday and all the German stores were closed, but Venlo stores were open one Sunday per month. Venlo was a small town just across the Dutch border. It was a 45 minute drive from Düsseldorf to Venlo. I got to the store at about 4:00 and the parking lot was so jammed it took me 45 minutes to get a spot. The store closed at 5:00. I had 15 minutes to find the flat-pack product in the warehouse and check out. I found it... it was heavy since it's all furniture grade plywood.

I got into a check out line and got to the cashier just about 5:00. I took out my credit card... "No! No! No credit cards!" Took out my debit card. "No! No! No debit cards!" Here was an IKEA that sells entire kitchens that only took cash. Dutch Guilders! There was a jewelry store in my German neighborhood that only took cash too. Imagine that, buying a diamond ring for cash!

I pushed my cart aside and asked if there was an ATM nearby. "Nope!" Was there any in the complex where this big box store was located. "Nope!" I got in the car and headed to the "Centro" of Venlo assuming there's got to be an ATM somewhere. I was not going to lose this purchase! It was a 45 minute drive. They weren't open again on the weekend, and I needed that bench. I found an ATM and took out the 250 Guilders. We didn't keep very much money in our German bank account since ATM's all over Europe could directly access our money from the USA and there was no exchange rate fee. Drove back to IKEA which was now closed, so I went to the loading area where mobs of people were still loading their cars, went back into the story, found my cart and ended up in the same line with the same checkout person, who had this look of disbelief when I reeled off the Guilders just 15 minutes after I had no cash. I got my bench! 

It was always an adventure buying stuff in Europe. As a tourist you never experience this level of fun.

Myles,        From 1975 on for 25 years I was a heavy rigger, iron worker, crane operator (up to 300 ton capacity).  In the years of working such, I was involved in building Exxon, Lyondale, Shell, Arco, Gulf, Texaco and Rohm & Haas facilities.  Also worked as foreman up to supervisor of crews in plant turn-arounds, some lasting as long as a month or more.  As such I "got up close" to every piece of equipment in all plants I worked in.  In the 17 yrs spent in Rohm & Haas plant maintenance/turnarounds, learned what all chemicals smell like and can do to you, particularly cyanide, as it is an acrylic acid/plexi polymers production plant, along with other products.

In time I would really enjoy the build of a petro-chemical plant for my layout.  It is "on the list".........

Jesse      TCA  

Jesse, there's lots of us guys who envy people like you.

As the training coordinator/director for chemical companies, I got to see a lot of the equipment and was directly involved with evaluating the capability of the people at those facilities to work safely and effectively, but I was always looking at it from a distance. I understood the processes well and wrote, delivered or coordinated programs on switchgear, bearings and seals, alignment, even locomotive operation. That last one was a hoot. At ARCO's Port Arthur, TX plant they were destroying the two Alco locomotives they had (an RS3 and a RS2). I was assigned to develop a training program on their operation. What I found was on night shift the "Certified" loco driver was letting warehousemen run the trains. They didn't hook up the air and were hauling way too many cars for the switcher to safely handle. The plant had Cholrine and Butane cars inbound and airflow hoppers with polyethylene pellets out bound. They blew the main generator up (literally), when they were unable to start a string of cars, had the engine on notch 8, burned a 1/2" deep crescent into the rails and then slammed the throttle shut. The back EMF generated blew apart the generator's windings. Lots of changes were made to how and who operates engines after the program was introduced.

In order to write the program, I spent a day at Contrail's yards in Morrisville, PA learning how to drive a locomotive. I was then actually piloting a GP-20 in the yard learning about starting and stopping distances. Without train brakes hooked up, those Alco's didn't stand a prayer to stop 20 loaded 100 ton hoppers. They also had derailments where a tank car sliced open one of the hoppers. If it would have been the reverse, the chlorine release would have been a national catastrophe. My boss couldn't believe, "That he was actually paying me to spend the day living out a boyhood fantasy... driving a real train."

I didn't directly train plant personnel. I supervised all the plant trainers throughout the company.

Myles,      When I got into management, starting with Fluor Daniel in 1997, it was in Safety and I, too, did a lot of Safety training on plant operating and working in hazardous environments.  My experience in the craft and hands on years of work were invaluable.  Recently retired from SAIC as Safety Manager after 15 yrs on many various sites all over our great nation, from Georgia to Nevada, Pennsylvania to Oklahoma, and all in between.  One advantage was the capability to find and purchase trains from all over the country as well as knowing the fine individuals everywhere.  This includes helping to establish an O Gauge Model RR Club out of Antioch, Illinois when working the Great Lakes Naval Center.  And, seeing different rail roads and train consists from various regions.

Jesse     TCA

Myles,       I am a little familiar with the Port Arthur plant, I worked many plants along the Texas Gulf coast from Monsanto on Chocolate Bayou to the Port Arthur and Orange areas.  The most time were at Exxon BOP in Baytown, Gulf (now Chevron) North of Baytown on I-10, ARCO/Lyondale in Channelview, Shell on Hwy 225 in Pasadena, DuPont in LaPorte, and Rohm&Haas in Deer Park.  Saw many events take place, such as when Phillips Petroleum on 225 in Pasadena blew up and burned on Oct. 30th, 1989.... 30 lives lost.  I could tell of many  events witnessed that did not have good outcomes.  Being in Safety gave me opportunity to learn many of the facts and chain of events behind events and what lead up to the end results.  The worst thing, besides loss of lives, is the fact all could have been prevented had procedures been followed and short cuts avoided.  Never a good thing when time and money take priority over Safety.  And, as many on the Forum can attest to, the same applies to all the careers we have or have retired from.

Jesse     TCA

Jesse, I'd love to be able to sit down over a couple of drinks and share war stories with you.

My last Petro/chem consulting gig was when I had my company (Marcus-Carr Group). I was employed as a sub-contractor to Pilko Assoc to do a plant capability study of BP's polypropylene plant in Bayport. It used to be an ARCO Chem plant. BP was planning on divesting this plant and wanted to know if they were capable to operate as a stand-alone. I spent two weeks at the site interviewing about 25% of the entire workforce (including shift workers). One of the questions I asked was "Have you ever been asked to do an unsafe act to save time/money?" The interesting answer to that question was that the hourly guys generally didn't since the supervisor would do the unsafe act. That really wasn't the right answer. I recommended lots of changes before they would be viable as a stand-alone.

 With limited time today I did get some more stuff done on the flare system. But first I had to take care of the track. I wanted the trains to be operable when the Heaven Hill folks arrive on Wednesday. I'm having misalignment problems again. The swing gate is changing size with the changing weather conditions (humidity) and I'm seeing a 1/16" misalignment on the tracks at the gate interface. 

It was at the hinge end this time. I had just replaced the track at the latch end a short while ago. It was a positive derailment area and needed to be fixed! What I did is temporary at best. I loosened the screws holding the subroadbed to the cleat under this section, took a soft hammer and gave it some strategic initiative which pushed the subroadbed into alignment. This is temporary since I can imagine in winter the gate will shrink and the alignment will go the other direction. This was on the outer loop.

On the latch end of the inner track was another problem with it's own derailment problems. In this case I also loosened the cleat screws and used a wedge to push the inner (loosened) subroadbed towards the layout's inside and got them back into alignment. I'm leaving that unsightly wedge in place until I figure out a better way.

A test run on both tracks proved the adjustments to be okay. There used to be much more play in the gate system before all the landscape and filler work was done. Now, the whole deal is solid as a rock and doesn't budge. When it's closed it closed with no play. I'm reluctant to re-lay the track since I know it will change back.

Onto the chem plant:

I added a man way cover to fit the enlarged opening, and then built the required surge tank that separates liquids from gases that go to the flare. I had two tank ends left over from the kit which I didn't use. Actually I didn't realize they were there and made my own, only to find them later. I also made my own foot pedestals out of some 1/8" ABS Plastruct included in the kit. I first tried cutting out the blanks in the scroll saw, but even at the slowest speed the ABS kept melting together behind the cut and the piece re-welded itself to the stock. So I finished cutting it out with a jewelers saw. The new man way looks much more prototypical. I can actually imagine a person fitting through it.

The surge tank has three nozzles: Input, gas out, and liquids out on the bottom.

Lastly, after re-examining the piping diagram, I realized that the heater had two nozzles: inlet cool and outlet hot. I'm out of the large size nozzles so I made my own with a piece of the large piping and a flat disc. The actual hole size for the smaller piping is not 1/8". It's actually a #30 drill (a few thou over 1/8"). You can't insert the piping in a 1/8" inch hole without breaking something. I'm boring out the large piping with this size drill so I can use the smaller pipe as a joining piece to extend the large pipe.

Here's the heater with the new piping.

I don't have any vertical ladders left to put one on the flare. Therefore, I'm probably going to leave that off.  The Plastruct ladder sets are expensive and it's a detail that will be lost on most viewers. I also realize that now that the bottom is filled with lead shot, I'm pretty much snookered trying to install a faux candle LED at the top. Again. no one will miss it.

With the photographer coming on Wednesday, I'll be able to do more work tomorrow. I'm going to start building the cooling tower and have to built all the pipe racks. Plus, let's not forget the tank car loading rack. There's still a lot to do on this huge project. AND tons of lighting!

Myles,     Have you considered making use of line-up pins/sockets on the swing gate ?   With them placed directly beneath the track alignment, and perhaps constructed of metal, perhaps it may be a considered solution.  Your model constructing is amazing, gives me something of a guideline and encouragement at same time to look into what I wish to have on my layout.

Jesse    TCA

Jesse, I'm not sure that the geometry of the gate permits the pins. It slides in at an angle so the pins can't just be straight in. I've looked at this interface for many hours and can't seem to come up with a fool proof system. If it was a vertical drop as I originally conceived it, pins would have been perfect, but the sliding sideways tangent the the door engages the jamb seems to defy making that kind of indexing.

Started work today on the cooling tower while I wait for some more supplies to arrive. I've ordered more LEDs including flashing red and white for the tops of the flare tower or any other tall objects that could interfere with imaginary air traffic. I've also ordered the brass materials to make the chain link fencing. I have to go to a fabric store and get bridal tulle for the fencing and some finer "screening" for the screens in the cooling tower.

I printed the Illustrator images out to use as templates/guides to cut the styrene. I bought some Evergreen "corrugated siding" for the body sides. I use the full suite of Northwest Shoreline styrene cutting tools which greatly simplifies this work and increase accuracy. All the parts were laid out on the surface plate using my Starrett Surface Guage. I had originally bought all these high class layout tools in the mid 90s to build live steam engines. That never happened, but I have used them all with great precision in all the scratch-build work I'm now doing. It's hard to believe that I didn't attempt scratch-building anything until I was in my mid-50s, and not really full-steam ahead until my mid to late 60s. It's never too late to learn new stuff.

The front and rear screen frames are built out of four layers of styrene parts. The two main parts are cut from flat stock and then styrene strip stock builds out the front frames and adds stiffening to the rear. 

Here's the front of the finished frame

And here's the rear

And finally, I just set it up for the picture. I will put corner reinforcements during the glue up. I also will need to cut a floor and roof. There's piping going to this unit with hot water in and cooled out. There would also be electric hookup like it would for all the pumping stations. I may or may not add that. I think (I hope) I have enough I-beam stock for the foundation framing. If not, I'll have to buy some. I believe I have enough Plastruct railing to build it, but I will have to buy more caged ladders... darn!

Myles,   Going back a few posts, to the davits on top of your tower......    As it is necessary for the davit to pivot on the vertical axis, the davit arms are set into a corresponding vertical pipe "sleeve".  For instance, a davit made of formed 3 inch pipe may be fitted down into a 4 inch schedule 80 vertical sleeve.   This would reduce the I.D. of the sleeve pipe for a better close tolerance fit with the 3 inch.  A collar ring would be at needed length from bottom of the 3 inch to sit on top of the opening of the 4 inch vertical.  On larger capacity davits a grease cert would allow for maintenance lubrication of the inner gap between the two sized pipes.  Naturally, all was engineered according to the required capacity of the davit, and on occasion an arm was affixed to the davit just above the sleeve pipe to assist with turning of the davit arm.  The size and weight of the top PRV and diameter of the column (center line of davit distance to O.D. of column) would most likely be the determining factor for size and capacity of the entire davit arm.   Just a few notes to assist with just how prototypical you wish to be in detailing.

Great work and anticipating the final completion, and what end product you plan to be shipping by rail.

Jesse   TCA   12-68275 

The photographer and Heaven Hills' communications people came today. The photographer represented a Louisville magazine Traditions Transitions, it's a quarterly publication for the over 50 age group. We spent a good half hour going through all the machinations that I go through to create this stuff. The article will appear (if it does) in the Fall.

While waiting for this to occur I continued working on the cooling tower. I got the box built and the "structural steel" support frame. The last thing I did was to create the faux concrete base and pedestals.

I use those corner clamps that are advertised in all the magazines to hold the mating pieces square. I then went back and added corner bracing both as mitered square pieces and some styrene bar stock. 

I added the floor using thin styrene sheeting. To give it more support I installed some angle x bracing.

The way these towers work is the hot water is cascaded down through the air flow and collected at the bottom where it is pumped back into the system. So the bottom would be the tank for this "water".

I then built the structural support frame. I didn't have a lot of Evergreen I beam stock so I built the minimum believable frame. The cross pieces have to be coped to nestle into the joint with another I- beam at 90 degrees. I use the digital calipers as a measurement transfer device (I've told you all this before many times) to measure the flange width, mark if off on the piece and then use the super-fine razor saw to cut away the flange on the the mating piece. 

Here is the array. I didn't have I-beam for the not-visible internal beams and used a piece of styrene H-beam.

The concrete base is a piece of European ply that I had laying around. It has a slight warp, but I'm hoping that it won't matter.

The pedestals are pieces of the same material cut on the scroll saw. In looking at the original photo they look pretty tall since the outgoing cold water comes off the bottom from an underneath feed. I'll need enough height to get the pipe out of there. Doesn't look like much now, but that's where I ended up today. Tomorrow I have a car repair appointment and a haircut so I may or may not get some work time. There's always Friday. I will probably have to make more of these since I think it's not enough height.

Still watching. 

Good! I'll keep writing.

Max, used that web site you suggested and quickly made the template for the venturi. It doesn't have a setting for less that 1" in height so I made it a bit taller. I transferred the template to PDF, but it positioned the image beyond the printer's margins, so i did a screen print and printed it out as a .png and it came out exactly the right size. Again, thanks for the link.

That's good news, Myles.  

Glad to be a small help.

Max, it's too bad you're so faaaaarrrrrrrrr away, but at least we have the forum.

Today was a car repair/haircut day so I had only minutes in the shop, but I got the concrete base put together.

I cleaned up the stacks before CAing them to the Masonite. As you can see, I exchanged the warped ply for some flat Masonite. 

I just dropped the housing on the base for this picture. The height will work. It will look so much better when painted.

During my errands I stopped at Jo-Ann Fabrics to look for Bridal tulle for the chain link fencing AND the screening in front of the cooling tower. This was the single, least expensive purchase I have ever made for my railroad. $0.70. Yes! That right! 70 cents! I'm going to layer the black tulle to make the cooling tower screening a bit more opaque. I was able to find the same size gauze as Brennen used in the original chain link fence kit. The lady could sell me as small a strip as 1" as long as it was the width of the fabric roll (54")

Tomorrow work will continue on this project and I'll have to order some vertical ladders or... perhaps I can build them as I did for the substation. It's not that hard. A bit painstaking, but it's a straight forward construction job. I will have to scale it carefully so it will fit the Plastruct ladder cage.

Got a lot done today and really got into the heart of the beast. I added the bottom cold outlet since I wanted to be sure it would go in with the footing heights that I chose. It works. I then built the roof, the fan opening, the support ring, the venturi and got most of the fan drive built. It's really coming together and is a nice, not-so-long project which is refreshing.

To install the outlet, I doubled the floor thickness so there'd be some more stock to hold onto the pipe fitting.

I used 0.020" styrene for the roof. It's quite thin and overly flexible so it needed some structural support and doublings to firm it up. I use ABA to do the doubling.

To cut the hole (which BTW: is not centered, since I made a mental math error when I divided the length in half) using my special dividers that have a point on one leg and the other sharpened to a chisel edge so it can scribe the styrene. After scribing the diameter, I open up the center with the skinny razor saw and scribed radial lines to facilitate breaking out the inside piece. You have to pay attention when using these modified dividers. The chisel edge can wander inwards. I find it best to hold the dividers still and rotate the workpiece under it.

I cut a similar hole in the ABS that I was using underneath. I then added some Evergreen I-Beam stock for further stiffening.

On top, goes a thicker ring which supports the venturi and adds rigidity to the fan housing. I scribed this onto the 1/8" ABS included in the kit and roughed it out with a coping saw and then worked closer to the line with a jewelers saw.

After sawing I final shaped it with the Dremel and sanding drum for the i.d. and the belt sander for the o.d. I made a little sawing booboo and got over the i.d. line in one spot. I thought about redoing it, but decided it would really not be noticed and it was a lot of work to get it this far.

I used spray glue to adhere the venturi template to some 0.020" styrene and cut it out with a scissors. I left a bunch of stock off the end since I wanted to final fit it on the model. I used a piece of the same stock to form the joint reinforcement, and glued it similarly as I did with the transition piece of the Flare. I got it to fit perfectly and it exceeded my expectations since I was worried about this particular step.

While the venturi was setting up, I built the fan support structure out of two pieces of 1/8" X 1/4" styrene stock that I did a cross-lap joint. It's a lot easier to make a cross-lap in wood than styrene. First it's laid out, then using the thin razor saw to start the cuts, finished up in the miter box to half the depth. Then make a bunch of in-between cuts to make it easier to chisel out the waste.

After gluing them in position, I added brass pins since this is a pretty critical part and if it were to break loose, it would be really hard to fix. You can also see all the extra reinforcement added to strengthen the roof.

I used the hermaphrodite calipers to re-locate the center of the opening onto the fan frame since I didn't measure their location accurately when gluing. I then drilled a pilot and a #31 drilled hole to pass the 1/8" Plastruct #4 tubing which I'm going to use as the fan axle.

With this stuff all glued in, I test fit the now-dry venturi. 

I have some Plastruct motors, but no fan pulleys, so I had to machine some. The piece of aluminum stock I used for the large fan pulley was a bit long to just hold in the chuck and it kept trying to pull out and do some major injury to me. So I hack sawed the part I was machining off the larger chunk and re-chucked it so I was cutting closer to the chuck and created a very passable 3-belt pulley. 

I used some smaller stock for the motor pulley and it was much easier to machine without as much drama.

I made a little block mount to hold the motor to the support structure and again, used brass to pin it in place. This was a test fitting. I'm going to paint everything before adding the pulleys and the E-Z Line belting.

The roof doubling will also serve as a secure base for the hot water inlet which comes in from above through the roof. Next up will be to create the fan. I'm noodling whether to build it from styrene, brass, or a combination. With brass I could solder it together so it would be very secure and I would be easier to bend an airfoil shape for the blades, but it's much more difficult to work. It's not going to rotate and no-one can touch it, so styrene would work okay too. I still have to plan for the lighting on top. The prototype shows two lights on each module, and I'll need to built reinforcement for this as I go forward. The roof won't go on until everything is painted and ready to go since I need to install the black screening AFTER painting and the roof needs to be off to do this. I'm also working on how to best install the screening. I'll let my subconscious work on this for a little while and see what it comes up with. I don't know if it's unique to me, or people like me, but I will actually build what I'm doing in my mind in many different ways until I arrive at a reasonable solution. I pre-visualize a build kind of like Jack Nicklaus would pre-visualize playing a specific golf course.

As a refresher, here's the prototype. Notice the switchgear and electric wiring which could be nice to add. I don't know what that array of tubes do that are going up the side.

Conduit

Yup! I'm now realizing that this may be circuitry that goes down through all five units being fed from this end. I've looked more closely at Marley's Brochure, and instead of being a screen in the front it's actually a slanted (out at the top end) array of baffles where the water cascades down exposing tons of surface area for maximum heat transfer. While I'm not modeling the insides, I can slant the screening assembly to replicate this feature on both sides. I'm going to stack several layers of the black tulle to make it almost opaque with lots of texture simulating these arrays. I've also sketched a fan on Illustrator in preparation for building one. The blades are adjustable so they're held to the hub by single pivot rods which actually makes building the model easier in some respects. I noticed too that Marley uses a 90 degree gear box to drive the horizontal motor to the vertical fan. I'm going to stay with the belt drive since I've seen them also and I've already made those neat pulleys.

I see too that there's a flanged rim at the top edge of the venturi. I'm can add something there which will also stabilize the shape.

Nice job.     Thanks for the photos and step by step.

Well... today was fruitful. I've got a lot of images to share so bear with me.

I printed out the drawing I made of the fan and decided on a mixed-media approach with a brass hub and connectors and styrene blades. I had thought about making the hub thicker using a piece of the 5/8" pipe that I used for the flare, but I none of it left. I was going to drill the arm holes around the perimeter. Instead, I laid out a brass hub with 8 equally spaced lines where the arms will go. I drilled the #31 hole before cutting out the disc.

Cut it out with a jewelers saw and slightly missed on one line, but it doesn't matter in this instance. Dressed up the edges with the belt sander and then needle file.

I soldered the 8 arms onto the disk with the RSU. Again, this soldering job would have been ridiculous with a standard iron, but was a piece of cake with the RSU. I had to use heat sinks to keep other pieces from de-soldering since they were so close together and the disk had a lot of mass.

I soldered opposite sides so the heating wouldn't be too bad. At the start I used hemostats, but went to using heavy steel angle and v-blocks. I added some liquid rosin flux to help it along. I realize now that I could have used different temp solders which also reduces de-soldering, but this worked okay. Here's a pic showing the RSU's tweezers in the act.

After cleaning up the excess flux with alcohol I trimmed all the arms to a specific length. Later I trimmed them even shorter.

I applied a thin layer of spray glue onto my fan drawing and stuck it to a piece of styrene. I cut out all 8 blades from 0.020" sheet. After cutting I soaked the blades in Goo Gone to remove the patterns and then in alcohol to remove the Goo Gone. The blades were too thin to drill the holes for arm attachment, so I needed to add some stock to their backs. After this dried I shaped it a bit some it's not visible when looking down at the fan. 

I used the small carbide drill to put in a starter hole and then opened it with a #53 drill to match the fan arms. This is the back side.

After installing all the blades and adjusting their pitch I added a drop of thin CA to the joint and they were done.

I added a NBW casting on the hub to dress that up.

While the fan blade blocking was drying I added some Evergreen 1/2 round stock to the top edge of the venturi. This note only finished the edge, but also helped stiffen this thin plastic part. When it dried, I sanded the top edge some the thin stock coincided with the beading.

The last piece the fan needed was the trash screen. Ideally, it would be a circular screen that would have to be photo etched. Since I can't do that (yet) I decided to use the Bridal tulle I bought last week. I used the larger gauge (chain link fence) held in place with two ABS rings. In this case, I used the MicroMark pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) to hold the tulle to the rings. I made the lower ring a smaller size than the upper.

I trimmed the excess with a fresh, sharp #11 blade. After test fitting into the space, I realized it needed some stops to hold it in position. It took a couple of tries to get the height just right.

Here's the screen test fit in place. Starting to look pretty spiffy. I didn't glue it in since the fan needs to be painted. This will keep workers from being maimed if they fall into the fan housing. Safety first!

I cut the lower portion fan shaft to a length for the lower pulley. I cut it too short since the motor extends a little farther into the unit. I'm therefore thinking of changing from a belt drive to an angle drive (as Marley uses on the prototype). This should be an easy piece to cobble together.

Tomorrow I'm going to get the railings into place, and put the bracing on the box's outside. And then I'll build the water baffles which aren't vertical. They slope forward and are not flush with the front at their bottoms. These are going to be black so it's another reason why the roof will not be glued until after assembly and painting is finished.

My roll of 22 gauge red/black zip cord came today to make wiring up all these LEDs easier. I bought a 100 ft. roll. I also received the flashing white and red LEDs that I can use for aircraft warning lights on the flare tower (and others), and I got the K-S 3 foot lengths of brass tubing for the light poles and making the chain link fencing. Instead of using steel rod as Brennen included, I'm using small brass tubing. It will be easier to shape the cross-lap joints and much, much easier to solder securely. It all has to be painted anyway so whether it's brass or steel, it doesn't matter.

Miles, I know that you've heard it many times ,but it can't be said enough. You are a true master craftsman ! Your work is trully breathtaking and sets the bar for all others to follow. I learn from each of your projects and you are a true asset to the forums.I wait with baited breath for each new project! Keep up the good work !

Mike

Mike welkie posted:

Miles, I know that you've heard it many times ,but it can't be said enough. You are a true master craftsman ! Your work is trully breathtaking and sets the bar for all others to follow. I learn from each of your projects and you are a true asset to the forums.I wait with baited breath for each new project! Keep up the good work !

Mike

Ditto. Mike said it all. 

Even if I've heard it before, I don't mind hearing it again. Thanks guys! You make all this writing stuff worthwhile.

Exercise day limits my work shop time to around two hours. That being said, I did accomplish something.

I did change out the belt drive for a cobbled together angle gear drive. I loved those pulleys, but this was a simpler installation since it's almost out of sight anyway. I thought about putting a ring of bolts around the housing's top, but quickly disabused myself of that idea since it's facing downward into a completely closed space. AMS* is a bad disease and we must not give into it. I still may hook up some faux wiring to that motor though.

*AMS = Advanced Modeler's Syndrome.

Got back to work on the housing by building the frames which will hold the tulle representing the water baffles. I thought of this while waking this morning and realized that using structural shapes would give this assembly some needed depth. I had some small sized Plastruct ABS I-beam stock which worked well for this. It took a bit of massaging to get them to seat properly in the housing. I used the same PSA to adhere the tulle to the front and backs of these frames. I used solvent cement and CA to secure the frames and little corner braces.

I am going to fit these frames on the angle as in the prototype.

Next I added the cross-bracing, center brace and corner brackets to the housing openings. I used 0.030" Evergreen round styrene rod for the braces held with CA. I didn't trust using solvent cement here since the rod surface area was so small. I added little triangular brackets for the corners and added the center braces that are shown in the prototype.

So here's today's Cooling Tower status shot.

Next up: railings, outside bracings strips, tulle installation, and lighting. When I do the lighting for this unit, I'm also going to be designing it for all the rest. I still have to build a number of pipe racks and the loading platform. When I get into these scratch-builds, I really don't know at the start how it's going to turn out or exactly how I'm going to do it, but I've reached the point where if I can draw it in SketchUp, I can probably build it the real world. I usually build stuff in my head several different ways until I come up with one that I think will work. Then all I have to do is duplicate what I thought about. Simple! Eh?

Myles,      Really looking great, and coming together very well.  You have really gotten me to thinking, remembering, back to when I worked all those years in the petrochemical plants in the Houston/Baytown areas.  Yes, as you stated above, the cooling towers I ever worked on had a gearbox mounted in center of the fan shroud support steel.  The drive motors were located outside the shroud area, on reinforced pads towards the tower outer edge.  From the motors, a drive shaft (supported by a couple of carrier bearings along it's length) was flange mounted to the horizontal input of the gearbox, the blade assembly hub mounted to the vertical output shaft by means of a keyed through shaft.   The power supply conduit ran up from ground level to the tower top and along the length of the cooling tower, each appropriate conduit connecting to each drive motor.  One item I have been wondering about is what type retaining/containment walls you plan to have around the tanks and vessels... reinforced concrete or concrete topped earthen dikes?  I have seen both used, each depending upon the location and type of product to be retained in the event of a spillage or vessel loss of integrity.

Keep up the really superb work, sir.

Jesse      TCA

Jesse, thank you! I haven't decided on the dikes and barriers yet. In fact, I hadn't really thought about it much, but your question brings it to the front of my mind. I'll leaning towards concrete dikes since they're probably easier to model. I did see an image of the Marley gear drive on their website. The gear box is a casting, but I didn't want to fuss around trying to carve something to simulate it since, as I've mentioned before, it won't be seeable. If this was a shelf model that someone could pick up and turn around, all the interior stuff could matter. But it's going to sit quite a distance from the average viewer (unless they open the gate and go inside the layout), and from that view, they won't even see the fan, let alone the works inside.

Here's the pic from their brochure. I didn't include all that structural steel holding it all up, again for the reason given above. I mounted mine upside down on the roof supports. Notice too, the thickness of the water baffles. Mine are not going to be that thick.

Since I've gone with a corrugated steel siding, I'm wondering if I need the outside seams that this Marley unit has? I also have to model that access door.

And here's that gear drive. You can see why I didn't want to try and model it. I could have made it out of clay and cast it in resin... if I was nuts, that is.

I just had a third of a post finished, stopped for dinner, showed some other picks to my younger grandson, and lost the whole deal and am starting over. Oh well...

Found some good graphics for the Marley and SPX logos (SPX is Marley's parent company) and was able to first photo edit them and then bring them into Illustrator to make masters for future decals. I printed them out in several sizes to try them on the cooling tower. First I attempted to re-draw that arrow-shaped logo, but then found an excellent one on another part of Marley's website.

Since I'm using faux corrugated siding on the housing, decaling would be troublesome so I made some graphics panels and glued them on top of the siding. I will print the logos out on decal paper and put them on the model. These panels will be aluminum colored along with the rest of the model.

While on the housing I did several things. I made and installed the access door. Prepared the ladder and installed the ladder standoffs, and repaired/modified several details in preparation for the railings. I added a piece of round stock to simulate the piano hinge. Behind the door are strips that prevent it from falling through and I put a piece of thick stock in the area where the door handle is going so it will properly supported.

There were gap areas in the front corners that needed filling. I glued some styrene filler pieces and when dry cut and trimmed them flush. After priming I may go back and add some Tamiya filler to further dress it up.

I also added a doubler under the roof and installed the water inlet elbow. I added a disk underneath the elbow to dress it up a bit.

Again I chose to make my own railings since the Plastruct spacing didn't work for this structure. I had to make sure that there's not centrally located stanchion on the end since it would interfere with the water inlet. I also had to clear the ladder opening which further eliminated the Plastruct railings.

To get a good place to anchor the rails, I couldn't do it on the corrugated siding. The Marley pictures clearly show that the stanchions fasten to the outside edge. Therefore; I added a 0.040" X .188" strip all around the top. It dressed off the top edge and give as square and broad surface to glue the stanchions.

I made the stanchions as before with the sphere tank platform, but this time, I'm using corner posts. In order to fasten the stanchions in such a way that the holes faced in the right direction, I had to add corner blocks that were flush with one side to stand the corner posts off the corner in line with the side stanchions. It's easier to see than to write about.

The last thing I did today was apply the "Fill" which is the term for the water baffling system that expands the surface area exposed to the air flow. This is an induced counter-flow cooling tower. The fan creates negative pressure on outside of the fill panels. Meanwhile, the water fills a tray on top that has many opening where the water cascades down through the fill while the air passes through it. Cooling towers work by cooling created by evaporation. They're much more technical than one would think, but then almost everything is. They're affected by ambient temperature, barometric pressure, wind velocity and direction, and relative humidity. We all know that water doesn't evaporate well in high humidity. There are different designs for areas that experience this.

I used the black tulle for the front faces. In real life, the front face can take the form of a honeycomb that steers the air flow into the fill. The fill consists of many tiers of baffles that let the water cascade down exposing the most area. The first layer was held to the frame with the PSA, but the second layer didn't respond well to this. I needed at least two layers to give it more visual density. I resorted to medium CA. It was messy and not fun, but I got it stuck. I then PSA'd the back and adhered black construction paper to opaque the whole affair. In real life, you cannot see through the fill, so blacking it all out works. I tried it in to see what it looked like.

Works! I also fitted the ladder. I put it in place where you can see the SPX logo.

The last work to complete is the lighting. Then it will be ready for painting. I'm thinking that I'll prime everything with the Tamiya grey primer, then gloss black for anything that's going to get the metallic surface. Apparently, silver paint shows up better over black. I should try this on a test piece before screwing anything up. It's getting near the end on this sub-unit. 

Still to do: all those pipe racks and the loading rack. The loading rack is probably going to get the Plastruct railings since there's so much of it. And let's not forget about all the lighting. But we're still getting pretty close. I want the refinery on the layout before August 12. Lots of family is coming to L'ville for my younger grandson's Bar Mitzvah and I want something cool to show them.

Myles, you have something cool to show them right now. I understand the desire to have it all painted and finished though.

Myles,

I agree with Pat, that you already have something cool, but given your current pace, you will probably have it completed.

While working for Virginia Power, on days I worked at the power station switchyard, I often moved the van down to the point where the cooling towers were.  The point being Possum Point, on the north shore of the Quantico Creek meets the Potomac River.  I mainly parked there for an excellent view of the water, but also the RF&P bridge over to the town of Quantico and the Quantico Marine base.  There were lots of Tropicana juice trains and Amtrak made stops at the Quantico station.  

Back to the cooling towers; I'm sure everyone will be impressed with yours!!!

Guys, I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm going to press on. I have about three weeks and should get a lot done. I'd at least like to have it all moved over to the layout. Some folks are better than other in visualizing incomplete things in their future state.

Speaking of getting stuff done, I did get some more stuff done today. Boy! Being retired is sure great for model railroading. I'm literally in heaven having the opportunity to work on my favorite things each day. I enjoyed my professional life. It was interesting, enriching, had impact, and I made a decent living, but this is so much more enjoyable.

Got the railing on the cooling tower and built the two light poles for this particular unit. The carbide drill I'm using for the rail holes in the stanchions is 0.0315", not quite 0.032" of the wire, so it's a tight fit. Since I don't want to stress the stanchions while threading the rod, I used a actual 0.032" drill to relieve the holes a bit. This rod slid through nicely without breaking any stanchions. I like using the carbide drill for this size rod in normal circumstances since it offers a very snug fit when using brass pins for mechanical assembly.

I used my existing silicone mold to cast another light head and refined my building process a bit. I'm using new wire that I just got from Bulk Wire .com. It's 22 gauge red/black zip cord. While the conductors inside are 22 AWG, the insulation's a bit thick and I was afraid that it would pass down the 1/8" brass tubing I'm using for the poles. It just makes it, but I was worried about insulating the + lead. I was able to use a small piece shrink tubing to protect the little bit of exposed lead to not let it touch the pole which is serving as the negative pole.

I put the u-bend into the LED so it snugs up into the fixture housing. I carefully hold the leads at the LED end when bending them so they PUT NO BENDING LOAD inside the LED. They will be ruined if you overstress the leads. The red lead is pulled back down inside the pole, the LED negative lead is cut a bit shorter and then soldered to the outside of the pole. I used a combination of regular Weller iron and the American Beauty RSU.

Here're the two poles before painting. Right now I'm planning on running them down the outside of the unit to the base instead of mounting them on the roof and running the wires down inside. I may change my mind on this. A bit of masking tape on the LED lens is all that's needed before painting. The resin heads are held to the poles with med CA.

That's about all the Cooling Tower stuff I can do without painting so I got started on the loading rack. The plans call for using Plastruct I-beams, but I had none of this left. But I had the same size I-beam in brass. Working with brass is kind of fun. The micro saw cuts brass almost as easily as ABS... really! I had to cope notch the brass cross pieces.

I measured the plans vis a vis how the Plastruct railing material fits and adjusted the length a tad shorter so the stanchions come out evenly at the ends. On the inside they already come out evenly.

I tried soldering this with the RSU, but my unit seems a little too low wattage to handle the mass, so I turned to my mini-butane. This is one of the pencil-shaped ones that I found very useful, but it does require re-filling frequently. I applied so excess rosin flux, but it probably would have been a quicker job if I used acid-based flux and solder, instead of rosin-core.

I marked the locations of the cross pieces and then clamped them together using a combination of quick clamps and twisted black iron wire.

There are little extensions of the frame that support the outrigger platforms. These needed soldering too. In this case I used t-pins on the ceramic soldering pad.

To get the exact platform height to a tank car, I took the Masonite base and a combination square onto the layout and aligned it with the loading platform of the tank car. I then took this measurement and made space blocks to use in erecting the platform.

I tried these blocks out back on the railroad and it came out too high.

It was because I forgot to subtract the thickness of the brass frame and the walkway material. So I trimmed the blocks by this much on the chop saw and retested the height.

The height is now correct and I can continue building the four upright supports. These will be ABS columns that will have bearing pads under the brass cross members. All of this will be epoxied together since it's a multi-media assembly. There's a short pipe rack that runs along the bottom that carries the liquid and gaseous feeds to the rack. There will be 3 light poles on the rack. I can count about 2 more on the distillation tower, 2 for the HP spheres, maybe one on the big liquids tank, 1 at the heater, and some others lighting the ground areas. So I'm probably going to have to make about 10 more lights. I also have to build some environmental dams around some of the units. Details, details...

Great work as always, Miles. As for the loading rack and tank cars, is there an AAR standard relating to the height of the platform on the tank cars themselves? Also for the stationary platforms ? Also if so,are these standards that have been maintained through various eras? If it seems like a dumb question,please forgive me. Btw, what is the main era that you primarily model?

  If the exposed wire is a worry, try liquid elecetrical tape. It's great stuff imo. Kinda dries like rubber. Slightly inconsistant in viscosity, I'd use a thicker glob as a filler if overall dia./ gauge is a concern; and dress with a swap or cheap-o watercolor brush. Come to think of it, there is/was a "liquid rubber" at one time to, that I am pretty sure was the same basic product. I never used "Dip it" coating but imagine that's similar too.

 Silicone (household or "gasket maker") can be used, but imo Lq.E. Tape grips wire insulation and metal better, and has a bit more flex/pull before losing its grip. 

   It's also nice to have for the times that you forget to slip the shrink tube onto the wire before you attach THAT terminal.

..... You know THAT terminal. The one you have no extras of  

Thanks folks!

As to the tank car height. I only have four of such cars so if the platform height works for them I think I'm good to go.

I have Liquid Electrical Tape and have used it for just those kinds of issues. I have to get some more since my bottle is getting too thick. I may revert to using it if the shrink tubes don't do the job.

Speaking of shrink tubing, I have a neat tool that I bought at Radio Shack (you remember those...). It's a hot air gun specifically designed to heat shrink tubing and it's a terrific time and finger saver. It has a metal shield that wraps around the wire so it heats all around and keeps the hot air from blowing on you.

I may have a problem with this thicker cable when I run out of the very thin wall tubing and use the more normal thicker wall K-S tubing. If it doesn't work, I have some finer gauge red wire that I can run down the tube and tie the zip cord to the bottom. I have to add the resistor and that could be a convenient place to splice the two leads together.

Thanks Miles. I figured since you are always into the technical things, you might know the actual prototype specs. If not, maybe someone else may know. Anyway, do you model any specific era or time frame?

Thanks;

Mike

You see... that's the problem. I generally have late steam and early diesels, but I do have some 2nd generation diesels, and some modern structures, the substation being a good example. I modeled that with state of the art ABB equipment. And the distillery, although the main building dates back to the late 1800s, has a modern silo system connected to it. The refinery too is not going to be old. So anything goes. My autos on the layout date from the 40s to the 80s (or later), with most from the 50s. I am not a purist. I buy/build what I like and find interesting. My engines are basically what was imprinted on me when I read my George Zaffo train books when I was 5.

Moving right along. Exercise day, but had an earlier start so I was down in the shop by 1:30. 

Got a lot done on the load rack with the platform surface and the four posts built and glued. Cast another lamp post head and wired one up.

I measured the platform shape off the print. The length required two pieces with a seam so I made sure the seam would split one of the brass cross-members to ensure glue surface on the edge. ABS to brass means epoxy. I'm using the 5 minute Gorilla epoxy which has nice holding power and sets up reasonably fast. It does not really cure for a good 24 hours, but you can de-clamp in a short while as long as you don't disturb it.

I used the measuring blocks to set the leg height. I wanted to put a concrete pad at the bottom, used Plastruct H-beam to transition the leg post to the brass structure and added a thin "steel" pad with some NBWs. I stacked them up and marked the post height, set up a fixture on my bench miter box and cut four legs. I squared up the ends with the Precision Sander.

I also used the sander to ensure that the H-beam faces were true and flat. They look okay, but when you use the sander you can quickly see that they weren't flat.

Since I'm gluing ABS to ABS I used solvent cement to joint the head to the post. The base plates are very thin and weren't in the equation when I measured the post height. I also used solvent cement for these plates and used CA for the NBWs. 

I also took a larger file to the bottom of the brass frame to true the gluing surface and match the flatness of the H-beams. Again, ABS to brass = Epoxy. I used some square edges to hold things square if they showed any out of square behavior.

And here's the glued up rack. As I noted, it's not cured until tomorrow, but they'll be strong.

Next up will be attaching the railings and stairways. The plans don't show any form of loading apparatus so I'll have to do some research.

While this was curing, I poured another lamp head. This time, instead of clamping the mold in my Panavise, I clamped it between some boards held with rubber bands. The Panavise was not applying equal pressure and the mold kept leaking resin. This new way didn't leak a drop. When I tried tightening the mold in the vise, it would start distorting, but it was still leaking.

I made another light assembly. This one sized for the HP Sphere platform. As I was afraid, the new cable doesn't fit easily into the thicker walled K-S tubing, so I used the finer 24 AWG wire which I spliced to the heavier wire at the other end. The thicker wall bends without kinking in the spring wire tube bending tool.

It's a weekend, so no work until Monday.

Y'all have a nice COOL weekend.

Happy Monday. Unlike the rest of the civilized world, I actually like the weekdays more than the weekend, since I've made this deal of "no working on the trains on the weekend". 

Spent the entire afternoon continuing work on the loading dock. Got all the railings and stairs finished, and then started working on the enhancements. The kit includes no information on how materials get from the all those tanks to the tank cars. So I went online and found many illustrations of chemical loading racks. First of all, there are movable platforms that drop down to bring the operator safely over the tanks loading ports. There are also, sometimes elaborate, articulated piping systems to bring product to the filling ports.

So after putting on all the railings I started to cobble together my version of the loading system.

I had ensured that the platform was a multiple of the Plastruct railings spacing. I had to shorten the overall length any about 1/2" total taking equal amounts from either side. This proved very smart since the long rail fit perfectly. I used some square edges blocks to hold the rail vertical while I solvent glued it over its length. I did the same for the shorter rail-side railing. I clamped the whole deal in the wood worker's vise and blocked it in so I wouldn't crush the leg bases that were wider than the legs themselves. This made it nice and stable to be able to work on getting the rails installed.

There were a bunch of little short rails to build in around the stairway and the loading sites. It was these short pieces that brings all the concern and provides good excuse to make your own railings.

I built the two stairways and this time glued their rails on top of the stair stringer. I really don't know whether Plastruct wants you to put the railings along side or on the top. Hopefully, one of my followers can clear this up for me.

I needed to find out exactly where this thing was going to go vis a vis the railroad. It's going to be permanently mounted to the narrow piece of Masonite. I had to remove the ballast up to the edge of the Vinylbed roadbed foam, and then place the rack on the Masonite which my biggest rail car next to it. There are no curves approaching on either side that are close enough to cause overhang problems.

\

When it was where I thought it would work I marked the location with a Sharpie. Here're the final location marks.

Once all the details are built an it's all painted I'll epoxy the rack to the base. Incidentally, the epoxy was letting go at various places where the deck met the brass frame. I find gluing plastic to metal a problematic activity.

I built two articulated platforms out of the thin ABS with the ABS 3/32" angles. To this I added some ABS wings which will provide the pivots for the platform. THE PLATFORMS WILL NEVER BE DOWN!  If so, they will be rammed and destroyed. That is an absolute certainty. Work began by adding more beef to the extensions to which the pivots will attach.

Here is one of the two platforms just after I attached the pivot wings. Technically, since as stated before, the platforms will never be down, they don't need actual pivots, and some NBWs would provide the illusion of mobility.

There's more to these platforms than just this, as seen in the first picture in this post. There are lift cylinders, and articulated railings that close the gap that occurs when the platform is down. There's also an additional railing up above that comes down over the tank car's load ports to add more security for operators on the tank. I'm not going to model that detail based on its fragility and the difficulty of modeling it faithfully. But I probably will add he lift cylinders.

In exploring all the Internet images, I did find proof that single-legged platforms do exist. I was concerned that this seemed a bit weird, but they're not uncommon. Some have additional diagonal bracing in various places. They also have some additional gusseting at the baseplates. But I made my baseplate are bit too narrow to accept more details. I did add this level of detail on leg feet in the substation.

Oh... and one more thing. I molded two more light hoods. It only takes a view moments to mix the resin and pour the mold. And then while it's curing I'm working on other stuff. By the end of the week, I'll have the full set of light hoods needed for all the lighting.

Miles,  When gluing two dissimilar materials such as brass and plastic ("I find gluing plastic to metal a problematic activity.") i have found two solutions that have served me well. Good old Walthers Goo which i apply to both surfaces and then heat (i use an old hair dryer) until it just bubbles; then join both surfaces. I have some joints that have held for over 20 years using this method. A more recent discovery (thanks to Gunrunner John) is a product called Loctite 380. It is a rubberized CA with a working time of about 90 seconds, sets in 1 hour, and fully cures in 24 hours. To save you some searching time, it is NOT distributed in the hardware, automotive, or mass merchandiser channels, but rather in the industrial supply channel. I get mine  from a machine shop supply house. It's not inexpensive, but has recently become my  "go to" adhesive.

That's good input. I just did a search and Amazon has it for $27 plus change. It's expensive, but if it works then it's worth it. Besides, I get my retirement from Henkel so giving them some business is a good thing. I'm going to buy it. How's its shelf life? BTW: to keep CA for a long time, put it in the freezer. It stops it from curing due to atmospheric moisture. Henkel is now the world's largest producer of CA. They make it machines that are kept below freezing.

Exercise day so only a couple of hours. Finished the drop platforms by crafting some lift cylinders and mounting them.

The cylinders themselves are Plastruct 1/8" tubing. The piston rod is 1/16" steel rod I had lying around. The ends are some Evergreen styrene bar cut cubic, drilled for the 1/16" steel. After putting the two together with CA I shaped the curved end on a sanding block and drill for 1/32" brass rod. The holes were then located on the load rack and pin with the brass rod. The whole deal is held together with CA. 

I added some NBWs to dress up the assembly. These may be a tad oversized, but once on the layout towards the back wall, behind all of the other plant units, it will not be seen. It's just for my enjoyment.

I noticed on the picture that their drop platforms had a shaft that extended from one side to the other so I installed one here. It too terminates with NBWs.

Here is the rack with the racks installed. I'm glad I elected to put on these details. They make sense. If this model was produced by Tamiya or Trumpeter instead of Plastruct, all of these details and many more would have been included.

I then started building the "flexible" tank filling apparatus. It won't move, nor would I want it to since it would surely move into the path of an oncoming train. I used the picture I had to guesstimate it shape and size.

I'm basically using solid 1/16" brass rod, plus some larger tubing which it telescopes into. I made some flexible joints by slicing off some Plastruct 1/8" pipe using the micro saw and a v-block to hold and align the saw. The slices are very thin.

I couldn't move the joints over the bar when the bends were made so I would put on a joint, make a bend, put on the next joint and so on. Then I had to add a larger piece, and finally solder this to a pivot tube with a diagonal brace.  This was done with the RSU. Because I had those plastic donuts already installed I used a forceps to act as a heat sink so the plastic wouldn't melt.

Here's the first one sitting on the drawing from which it was created.

Here is it separate so you can better see what's going on. There's a counterbalance cylinder that mounts on top of the main piece which I'll add.

I took the whole deal back to the railroad and positioned the fill apparatus where it would mount on the rack and checked clearance. It ran into the top of my auto rack so I re-bent the arms to position the nozzle end in its safest position. I'm also going mount the rack another 1/4" farther from the track then I originally chose just to add more safety margin from collisions.

I stil have more stuff to do on this arm including the pipe couplings at the bottom which connects to the supply system, and the pivot assembly that mounts to the rack itself. Full work session tomorrow (other than having the HVAC tech coming) so I should probably finish it up. Also, made two more light housings.

Miles,  Loctite 380 is also available in small tubes for about $7.  I keep mine in a sealed container with a desiccant in the refrigerator. Hope it works well for you.

  All that pipe makes me want to cut some pipe thread, lol.

   I helped install various cooling equipment attached to some portable "test rooms" that were going to be used by or for a Henkle job. I forget the shops name but it took me an extra twenty minutes to get out of there each day because of all the oddball projects going on around me were so interesting. ...and talk about thinking big! These were good sized rooms. 5x10 was the smallest. Ones for automotive industry got mounted on hydralics; looking like cross between a virtual reality ride, and a giant paint can shaker.

   Your CA tip has allowed an uncapped tube of liquid Superglue to sit in the freezer, stood upright in a tall shotglass, since right after you posted that tip many months ago. The cap morphed into a plug at room temp.. I had been waiting for a big job before I cracked it off with vice grips, thinking it would be the last time it could ever be opened and would have to be used up in one sitting. 

I dont keep much frozen as far as food goes, but kept checking anyhow. There has been no perceptible CA odor at all either.  I find the smell kinda offensive too. 

I'll let you know if any fudgcicle sticks get stuck to my fingers.

Or maybe not....typing won't be easy  

Glad the freezer worked. You just have to remember you've put it there. I've got some Henkel stuff that's probably 15 years old sitting in the freezer which I brought back from Germany with me.

We had an air conditioner problem. The main unit was 21 years old and we had it replaced earlier in the Spring. The upstairs unit, one ton smaller, is also 21 years old and two days ago stopped cooling. The diagnosis: wire from the starter capacitor had burned off. After replacing the wire, the tech tried the unit and the compressor tried to start, but didn't make it. He installed a "kick starter" unit to give it a starting boost and it's working again. But... it's living on borrowed time. I'd like to get it through to next year. Two replacements in one year is a bit much. The upstairs unit is in a closet in the eaves in the bonus room over the garage. It's not an easy place to do an installation. You can stand up in the space and there's a light and an electrical outlet in the space so it's doable.

So... I only got a couple more hours to work. So what did I do? I completed one of the filling booms including creating the mounting bracketry that will hold it to the loading deck.

I used a piece of Evergreen H-beam for the vertical support just like the prototype pic. Onto this I added some brackets, found some Evergreen round stock that telescoped into the rotating piece to act as the axle. I also had to machine a nozzle head out of the aluminum on the lathe.

I machine the larger plastic pipe to serve and the fluid junction to the boom. The prototype is much more complicated than this with piping going into the swivel joint, with gauges and other apparatus showing in the image. I chose to let this stuff off for obvious reasons. On the arm there's the counterbalance cylinder which is depicted with smaller 1/8" Plastruct tubing with the ends capped with the thin styrene sheet glued on and shaped.

The cylinders are held onto the arm with medium CA. The geometry was confusing and I first had it installed backwards and on the wrong side of the arm. It wasn't too difficult to break it off and put it in the right place. I've been making lots of parts in pairs so they'll be ready to go on the filling rig on the other end of the loading platform.

The last two pieces to add were the nozzle and the diagonal brace to support the mount. The real nozzle is perforated by openings, but the scale of this precluded me from further messing with the little machined part.

After holding the assembly in its final position I held a piece of Evergreen I-beam in place to form the diagonal brace that will be glued to the opposite side support beam. It will be epoxied in place. The beam is now glued to the upright H-Beam. I've also glued a pipe extension to the bottom of the big pipe which will hook up to the chemical supply lines. There was nothing showing how this happens so I'm riff'n. When it's all painted, it should look convincing.

Tomorrow I'll build the opposite side. The trickiest part will be making all those pipe bends going in the reverse direction. I'm sure I will screw that up at least once. It's like cutting crown molding. I still have to build the under-platform pipe racks that will connect to the booms and the plant. I've done some Google Earth searching of the Bayport/LaPorte area of Houston to see what kind of buildings there are on some of the smaller plant sites. I spent a lot of time in that region and it still blows my mind of the miles and miles of petro-chemical plants. Many that I worked at are still there. I have to finish the lighting systems and get them mounted to this construction.

Myles,   Just curious if you ever did any work at the DuPont / Noltex plant in LaPorte ?  When with Fluor Daniel, I was Safety Manager there for over two years, then went to another project in Baytown at a Bayer Nitric Acid unit.  Your modeling of the tank car loading rack is very good.  Cannot count how many times I operate crane while they were removed to repair.  Most times it was due to too little inhibitor added to the product and all the bends in the loading arm would gel up and become a solid blockage.  What really beats all was when NO inhibitor was added to one tank load and the product began to react and produce heat/pressure.  The unfortunate tank car was switched out to the team tracks South of the plant and water filled tank cars were positioned along both sides of the "hot" car.  The closest fire monitors were set to stream onto the "hot" car in an attempt to cool the chemical reaction taking place.  Well.... around 3 in the morning, approx. 14 hrs after being loaded improperly, she blew.  The explosion wiped out the two adjacent water filled cars, took out a lot of track, and one of the nearby high transmission towers along with downing several hundred feet of transmission line.  As precaution, the R&H plant and others were notified to switch over to alternate routed power feeds to their plants and averted any other shut downs of additional units.  When she did blow, it sent quite a fireball into the air and local news captured it very well for all to see.  Certainly bringing back some memories of an occupation and environment that was pretty much considered the "norm" when younger and performing the tasks I did, back then.  And, have always liked the fact of my sense of taste and smell returned over time after leaving those environments.  But, the excitement and keen sense of awareness you always maintained, believe it or not, I wont say are sometimes missed...... just a smile of reminisce occurs sometimes.  It really does have one appreciate the more simple every day events of life, and living with those you cherish/love.

Jesse    TCA   

Jesse, I worked with folks at ARCO Chem's LaPorte polypropylene plant, Bayport propylene oxide plant, Lyondell petri-chemical large complex including the old Oxirane styrene monomer plant next door that they acquired. I then did a plant capability study at the same polypropylene plant after it was owned by BP as an individual consultant. I also worked at the ARCO Chem low density polyethylene plant in Port Arthur. The Port Arthur plant was the one with the rail operations problems.

The Bayport plant was the most dangerous since they produced PO through direct oxygenation of propane. They then created an unstable tertiary butyl hyper-peroxide that in concentrations of greater than 25% would decompose explosively. They lost reaction one year (some time before I joined in 1980) and unreacted peroxide ended up collecting in the bottom of the big distillation column that was the next op. It detonated and blew the entire column a 1/4 mile away. all that was left was the concrete pad and lots of piping pointing to nothing. It was a horrific accident and fostered many changes including creation of one of the most effective plant training systems I'd ever seen. The manager of training and I became life long friends. We were from very different backgrounds, but had enormous mutual respect for what we did and what we stood for.

Myles.....   yes, I started working construction at the ARCO plant on Sheldon Road with Brown and Root in 1975.  At the same time, the Oxirane Plant was starting to be constructed to the South of ARCO, I believe it was on Miller Road.  This was the same plant where an emptied storage tank was being hydro-blasted inside for cleaning and it blew due to residual hydrocarbons and a static charge from the hydro-blasting.  Yes, again, with loss of life.   These experiences, and my personal attitude toward accident prevention when supervising crews, is what lead Fluor Daniel to select me into their Plant Safety Program and eventually my managing of Safety at the Noltex, Rohm & Haas, Bayer Phosgene and Nitric Acid plants.  Starting in 1999 I managed Safety at many projects all over our great nation for Benham Constructors/SAIC/Liedos for 15 years.  I must admit, if anyone has to learn some "on the job" Safety, the petro-chemical industrial environment is quite like nothing else to learn it and be exposed to the need for it.

Jesse   TCA  12-68275 

Yes. It is certainly unforgiving. In the BP plant study I did I found that supervisors wouldn't ask hourly to do unsafe jobs, but they would do it themselves. The other big finding was there was no process for updating training manuals when something in the process changed. Without constant diligence, the manuals eventually became worthless. When I wrote about the program at Bayport, the training manager there was ruthless. Nothing slipped through the cracks, and it showed.

Today, due to some errands I had one very short hour in the shop, but did get filler set #2 almost finished. But I was rushing. When I'm rushing I make mistakes and have to do stuff over. "There's never enough time to do things right, but there's always time to do things over." At least today there was.

Bending the new one in reverse wasn't easy since not every bend was reversed. Everything went okay until I got to making and soldering together the vertical support tube. For some reason I cut the first on a good 3/16" too short. Soldered it all up and went to put it all together on the H-beam and it was way short of the end when I went to put on the bottom support. At first I didn't know what I was looking at and then realized that the whole thing was wrong. I de-soldered the tube, cut a new one and new diagonal brace (longer) and soldered it together again. I needed to be redone anyway since the first one's soldering was not up to my standards.

Then after putting it all together, and setting it up for a picture comparing it to the other one, I realized that I mounted the whole arm upside down on the H-Beam. I had to break lose a glue joint and reassemble. The picture now shows the correct position with a clamp holding the glue joint.

Tomorrow, these will be finished and mounted on the loading platform.

With a short session again, I was able to finish up the loading rack including the lighting.

I finished up filler boom #2 and mounted both. I needed to add a spacer block at the foot of the diagonal brace and used solvent and CA to secure everything. The booms rotated freely... too freely, so I secured them in the rear position with some CA so they don't swing over the tracks.

I made two more light posts using a smaller diameter wire since the zip cord was too fat to go through the tubing. I added a reinforcing block under the deck to provide more meat to hold the poles in place. I took advantage of the hollow tube vertical posts to fish the leads through them and out the bottom and into the layout. I used a piece of black iron wire to fish the leads. I put a slight curve in the fish wire, fed it from the hole in the bottom of the foot up to the hole in the side of the tube. By keeping the curve aligned with the hole, the fish wire popped out of the hole right on schedule.

With the lamps in place, all that's left is the lower lever pipe rack. That will be a quick job without any complications. (Monday).

I then took the newly completed rack to the tracks to re-check all the clearances. I won't be fastening this to the base plate until it's all painted. 

I should have built the pipe rack then, but it slipped my mind. What I wanted to do since the wire fish was so successful on the rack was to do the same and mount the lights on the distillation tower. In this case, the bottom hole had to be much, much bigger so there would be any chance of having the fish finding the exit.

I'm putting lights on two levels and added the reinforcing blocks as before. I drilled a pilot, and then a large pilot and then used a fairly large drill for the bottom. This was NOT A GOOD IDEA! I originally thought about routing the hole larger. I couldn't really grab the tower to support it while drilling and took the drilling really slow. But all the while, I'm thinking... "Hmmm....What happens if that drill grabs when I gets into the plastic base plate?" So of course it did! When ever you hear that little voice of reason, you should stop and do something different because trouble is coming.

The drill grabbed and spun the tower in my hand breaking off 3 of the five downward facing piping on the surface. It snapped the fragile pipe supports right at the base and threw the pipes onto the floor. I finished up the hole by turning the chuck by hand. The hole still may not be big enough so I will end up routing it bigger anyway.

Here are the pipes that I will have to repair. Notice the "normal" state of my workbench. I am not a neat person.

I will drill the stubs and install 0.020" brass wire to reinforce them. I'll get it all back together... it will just take some time. You can see one of the reinforcing blocks in this picture on the first platform. For the spherical tanks I'm using light poles that will reach all the way to the base instead of trying to mount them on the platform. There's not enough access. For the big liquids tank, I will probably go the same route. Getting closer to the finish line.

Bernheim 2 update: I'm delivering the model to the Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience facility on Monday afternoon. I will be happy to get it out of the basement since I'm always afraid I'm going to knock it or do something else stupid to it. They're having a professional display builder make the showcase to protect it going forward.

That's great!  I'm sure it will look great in the showcase!  I agree, I would be nervous something would happen to it until I had it in their hands too!

Mark, it's like when you've sold your house, but haven't moved yet. All kinds of weird stuff starts happening when your house knows you don't love it any more. It's nerve wracking. When we moved here 8 years ago, on the day of the final inspection of our old house before closing, I went down in the basement for one more look around to make sure we got everything after the movers had left and there's water dripping onto the floor in a puddle coming from something on the first floor. I had a heart attack... 

We were taking our washer and dryers which were in an enclosure off the kitchen. The stop valves, which sat in that plastic box in the wall, hadn't been shut off for years, and the washer in the hot side no longer worked, but the drip when down inside the wall and down into the basement. We didn't have time to replace the valve, but my contractor brother in law said, just take a washer hose and connect it from one valve to the other so they would just leak into each other. 

But we had to tell the buyers at closing that there was this leak which shouldn't be a problem when a washer is hooked up. They didn't mind, which in itself was a miracle since you should see what they made us change/fix before buying the place.

Like I said... nerve wracking.

I know exactly what you mean!!  We experienced the exact same thing when shutting off the washer valves to move.  Fortunately, we moved the washer out a couple days before closing, and the valves stopped leaking.  Nifty idea your brother-in-law had.  We have had to fix a bunch of minuscule items before selling during our several moves.  The last sell, before moving to this house went smoothly!

Got the Bernheim model safely delivered to Heaven Hill's Bourbon Experience Center at the Bardstown, KY headquarters. I was totally impressed with where they plan on exhibiting the model. It is dead center in the middle of the room (redundant) right over the first floor outlet as seen in this picture I took today. They waited until I delivered the model to build the show case because they wanted to be sure of the sizes. 

Here's the image I sent them today of my concept of the display. They were open to suggestions.

I don't know how long it will take to finish this, but the model is right not taking up space in the general manager's office so I'm sure she'll want to expedite it and get it under plexiglass.

Very Impressive! You have to be very proud of your self! It looks great!

I truly am Mike. They're reaction truly exceeded my expectations. I took my wife with me when we delivered it so she saw it firsthand what's going to happen with it. It was worth the effort.

Looks like a worthy home!!

Congratulations, Myles. Truly superb craftsmanship deserves a place of honor. You are right to be proud.

Thanks Pat and Mark! 

Happy Tuesday. Even though an hour's worth of elliptical and bike, I got a good two hours in the shop. First hour was spent repairing the destroyed piping around the distillation tower. I used my Drill-with-microdrill, insert-brass-wire method. I used a 0.020" carbide drill and then brass wire of the same size. The hardest part is getting the holes reasonably centered in the remnant of the broken pipe hanger and then duplicating same in the center of the piece still hanging on the pipe. 

I did have to replace one hanger when the stub's glue broke loose and it fell inside the tower so I needed a new one. I only have one left and don't want to buy more. If I have to scratch build them I will. All of the pipes are now back in place and actually probably stronger than before.

With the tower back together I got back to putting in the lighting. I made up two more lamp assemblies and drilled the reinforcing blocks on the tower platforms. This was a bit tricky, and I probably should have installed these pads before I installed the platforms on the tower. Next time... As the drill broke through it did break the pad off the platform, but it was no big deal and I reglued them when installing the light poles. Even though I was using 1/8" brass tubing, I drilled the holes .144" to enable the negative lead which is soldered on the outside of the tube bottom to fit thought the opening without using excessive force. It's all secured with medium CA.

Next I had to fish the cables down inside the tower so they'd be less obvious. Again I used the black iron and twisted a loop at the end to capture the thinner red wire. Getting down the tube required trial and error and persistence. All of the pipe hanger ends are protruding inside the tube so the fish wire was snagging on them and not running straight down the tube. Luckily I made the bottom hole big enough so I could peer up inside the tower and see where the fish wire was. I then made a grab hook with some brass wire and worked it up from the bottom to grab the wire and steer it to the exit. When it got close, I went in with a tweezers and pulled it out of the bottom. 

I was very happy when I drew out that black wire. 

The negative lead is masking taped to the red one and then carefully coaxing this fat portion through the top opening. The next part to coax is the shrink-tubed upper portions if there are any. 

The lower light's wires were easier since the fish didn't have to travel as far and couldn't get itself into as much trouble. In this case, as soon as it was near I snagged the fish with the tweezers and pulled everything through. I checked all the lights with my LED tester rig and they both worked and the tower's ready for paint. Running the lights like this was, while a bit finicky, worked out as I envisioned it.

I glued lamp blocks onto the multi-tank platform and the stair platform for the large liquid tank in anticipation of their light installation. I started making two more light posts, but ran out of time. Tomorrow's a full afternoon session and I'll get more lighting done. I'm trying to get as much done as possible before the guests come in a week and half, but I may not make it. I know, I know, you've all said that I have a lot to show them anyway, but it's not as satisfying.

Lights, lights and more lights. 

Decided to run the lighting power for the big tank through the tank itself like I did with the distillation tower. I used the Dremel to open up a nice sized hole in the base to fish the wires. I was able to capture them with a long tweezers and didn't need a separate fish wire.

Topside, I CA'd the light into the hole drilled through the reinforcing block I added yesterday and then, before feeding the wire through the tank, added a piece of shrink tubing to help conceal (a bit) the wire as it turns inwards. I'm sure this is a prototypical no-no, but the conduit that would have been on the real tank is so small in 1:48 that it wouldn't carry any wires. The 1/8" tubing for the lights may be a bit heavy (6 scale inches), but it's the only size that will work for me with the kinds of LEDs I'm using. If I was using the type that some use with the magnet wire leads, smaller tubing would work.

I also did a similar thing bringing the wires down through a leg on the multi-tank platform.

From the viewing distance, these wire tricks will be very hard to see. 

I then added two lights to the roof of the cooling tower. Again, I first reinforced the mounting points by adding thick stuff underneath. I drilled corresponding holes in the bottom of the CT box and then, using a transfer punch, located the same holes in the Masonite base which the wires will pass through to the layout's nether regions.

After looking at this picture, I suddenly realized that I positioned these lights from underneath basically paying attention to interference with internal structures, totally ignoring the topsides problems which may occur. I ran downstairs while writing all this and put the venturi on to see if it cleared the poles. Whew! It does. Barely. As Mark Knopfler sings, "You get lucky sometimes."

With the cooling tower lit, all the unit mounted lighting is done. I still had some surface mounted fixtures to build. I figured six more will do the trick. As it is, this thing is going to light up like an amusement park. I'm mass producing this batch. I pre-bent all the LEDs, pre-bent all the tubes, drilled the negative lead hole in the bottom end after sanding a flat spot to facilitate drilling, and soldered them all up.

I thought I show a closeup of the LED soldering even if I show it a long time ago when building the Substation or the silo system, since it's something that folks might like to reproduce for themselves. After wrapping the + Lead around the + LED lead, soldering it and then putting small shrink tubing around it to isolate it from the tube (which is the negative lead), I carefully wrap the negative LED lead over the tube's bottom, again supporting the lead between the bend and the head. I need to keep the tube top clear since the light hood gets glued there. I use a little bit of extra rosin flux to promote adhesion and using the Weller iron with a broad tip and temperature set a 3+, I solder the lead to the tube by heating the tube to get the solder to flow. You should be able to see the contour of the conductor under the solder. The solder flow should be concave, not convex. Convex indicates bad adhesion with the solder's surface tension is causing it to ball up. Usually this means not enough heat on the substrate or unclean surfaces.

Remember: Don't bend LED leads at the head. If you do, the stress will kill the LED. Hold long nose pliers under the head and bend away from the pliers. Always!

Here are all six new lights waiting for the guy who's casting the resin parts to get his act together.

And sometimes you don't get lucky... While doing all this, I wrecked several LEDs. First, I test the LEDs before soldering anything. Then I test the fixture again when all the wiring is done, but before the hood is CA'd on. Remember, the pole is negative. I have a test rig that is 12VDC with a positive lead and two negatives; one with a 470 ohm current limiting resistor and one straight through. If I testing the lighting installed in a structure it will have its own current limiter so I could run straight 12 VDC. I had the positive lead on the + power, and accidentally brushed the tube over the un-protected negative. The LED lit....ONCE, and then it was gone. I desoldered it and replaced it. 

Then I couldn't find the bag of LEDs that was supposed to be right in front of me on the workbench. I looked all over the place. Then I see it. Behind me... rolled over by my chair caster. Several were deformed, and one I tested was kaput. Murphy's law at work.

For the ground mounted fixtures I have a resin mold of a faux concrete base. I've also shown this before, but it bears repeating. Since this is a tapered part and needs a square-flat bottom, I made a sanding fixture that supports the part at the correct position vertically and horizontally so I can sand the bottom with the Precision Sander.

I cast a dimple into the top so drilling would be easy. But I also needed a jig to hold it square on the table. A vise was too strong and would damage the fragile resin. This hole goes clean through. The fixture's hole is just a tad smaller than the overall size of the base so the base sits tightly when inserted from underneath the jig. All this means that I can reproduce these parts over and over.

Lighting will be done as soon as I can cast the remaining parts. Then it's on to the pipe racks and hangers. That means sometime next week it all goes to the paint shop. Then I have to build the ops building and all that fencing so it clearly won't all be finished when I wanted to, but it will be quite far along.

I need to buy more caged ladders to go to the top of the flare tower. I also want to put the flashing lights on top which should another tricky fishing expedition.

Myles,   Really looking great!  And an inspiration for all of us to follow... as best we may.  As we can attest, everyone, looking forward to the final viewing of your excellent modeling in place and lit up, adding so much to your layout.... ANY layout, it truly would.

Jesse    TCA   12-68275

Thanks Jesse!

Worked three hours today (and did some exercising too) and while made progress, it doesn't look like much. However, it was important stuff.

Throughout the day I molded the remaining light head and bases. It takes roughly 1/2 hour per pour for the resin to cure enough to pull from the mold without too much distortion. It's still quite rubbery and hardens over the next couple of hours. If I try to sand them too soon they don't really sand well and they can be deformed. It's best to wait... there's my lack of patience rearing its ugly head again.

Again, Plastruct short-changed the quantity of 16" (scale) H-beam to make the amount of pipe rack supports shown on the plot plan. They show 8 on the plan and I only had enough to make 5, and that was with reducing the rack's width from 8" to 5" so I could get enough cross pieces out of the stock. It's a simple assembly with two verticals and a lintel across the top. I cut them all in the miter box and then squared their ends on the Precision Sander. I glued them with solvent cement on the surface plate using the angle blocks to keep squareness.

The feet are pieces of plywood cut into 5/8" squares, sanded and epoxied to the H-beams. I thought about putting a mounting plate on the bottoms and some NBWs, but I decided to just assume that the H-beams were embedded in the concrete when it was poured. It's not as critical as a unit op. That's my take on the matter. The single post is to hold the piping coming to and from the heater.

I also cut and glued plywood bases for under all the pump units too. I needed to get this done since it affects the piping scheme running to them.

I placed the racks on the plan to see how five looked instead of the eight needed. It will be okay, but does weaken the piping system. I still would like someone to tell me why the plans show the pipes running the full length of the piping system with connections running to them using T's. I don't know what you'd want many linear feet of piping containing product that would not be flowing anywhere. Now I have to figure out how and when to paint and get all this stuff together and onto the layout. I supposed all the piping could be painted en-masse before installation. I want some of the piping to be other than white... most likely metallic since most of the pipes are jacketed. I may glue the piping onto the entire rack system before mounting, but this seems like it would be ridiculously flimsy and hard to handle. I need some input from our refinery builders. Al... do you hear me?

The chain link fence will be made in sections with the Brennan fixture and installed in panels onto the layout itself. I still have to build the ops building. At first I was thinking about some kind of brick structure, but many of the buildings occupying the chem plants on the Gulf Coast are simple curtain wall structures. I could use the same corrugated siding as I used for the cooling tower and then add a standing seam roof. I have the roofing material, but will be some more siding.

Wow,  Amazing work!   Look forward to your updates.

Glad to please! 

Trip to the LHS today to pick up ladder stock for the flare tower and some more corrugated siding for the future ops building. Speaking of ops building, I drew something up last night on SketchUp. I figured the space at about 10" X 7" (40' X 28' in O'scale). Not a big building, but enough to make an impression that it's a working establishment.

It's not based on any specific prototype, but I needed office and service space in this small footprint. I reckoned that there would be a high-bay area and a normal space, thus the two-tier design. I'm not sure about the upper windows, not from a design standpoint, but from what kind I'm going to be able to find. I ordered some Grandt Line windows at the hobby shop since they get them and I don't have to pay for shipping. It will have corrugated walls and standing seam metal roofing. I'll scratch-built the overhead door. It looks like the O.H. door is going to face the wall so I'm won't worry about having it open or doing the interior, unless I put one on each end. hmmmmm...

When I got back to the shop I cleaned up the resin castings.

I added all these to the lights I built yesterday and with that, completed all the lighting for the site. There will be 16 LED lights illuminating the refinery itself. I will also have to light the ops building and the drive at the door. So I'll have to make some more now that I'm thinking about it. Luckily, I've got the whole deal down to a process that's easy to replicate.

I wanted to make some pipe supports that would go on top of the pipe racks. The print calls for five small diameter pipes and one large lying in the middle. I use 0.030" X .125" Evergreen stock. I scribed a line lengthwise which would be the split line and then laid out the hole positions with a divider. I then drilled the holes. The large pipe is also .125" so I quickly realized that I couldn't drill the hole since it will split the piece in two. So I cut the piece in two.

I first was cutting the segment of 1/4" hole with an Xacto, but in the last batch realized that I could punch it out with the 1/4" hollow punch. I scribed a centerline down the pipe rack top as a gluing guide and glued the segments in position.

As I was gluing them up, I somehow ran short of the piece with the two holes. One side has three pipes and the other two. So I made some more. Then I looked at this picture... And there are two pieces with two holes. DOH! I will form the missing hole with the Dremel. When I placed all five back on the plans I realized that in some places there are more than five pipes and in other less. I figure this out later. I still don't understand why the large pipe from the distillation tower to the reflux drum runs the entire length of the site with Ts coming off to the two units. I'll built it like it shows, but I don't understand it. You can see this line as the double line running the length of the plan.

I'm still deciding on the equipment positions. I may be able to run them perpendicular as originally shown on the plans which would free up space on the left for the ops building and some parking area. 

Since I bought the ladders for the flare, I started working on that again. I think it will need two platforms; one in the middle and one at the top. I started building the platforms. This time I'm using styrene. I may revert back to ABS. The styrene has a bunch of residual spray adhesive from other work I did with it. I'll remove it with GooGone. 

This upper platform will not be 100% circular. There needs to be space to the ladder to enter the platform. I'm going to build a styrene frame around it and probably do my Make-it-yourself-railing scheme, since the radius is pretty tight and I won't get a commercial railing to make the curve. With the brass wire I can pre-bend the curve and thread it around. The outer frame with serve several purposes: strengthen the assembly, provide anchorage for the rail stanchions and give me a place to add the flashing LED warning lights. I have bright blue white or red. Strobes are more modern, but flashing red might look cooler. Perhaps both?

I may get one more work day next week, then lots of family and friends converge on Louisville for my younger grandson's Bar Mitzvah. Like 3 years ago, I'm hoping that folks will be able to see the progress on the railroad. Lots! The week after will be more normal.

A couple of hours work on the flare. I got the platforms roughed out and fitted the ladders. The total height is 23.5" high so it's approaching 100 scale feet. Big for my layout, but puny in real life.

I shot myself in the foot wiring-wise when I filled the lower chamber with lead shot and then glued it all together with CA. It was an idea to add more weight to the bottom and help stabilize it since it's so top heavy. But... it now means that I can't run the light wiring out of the bottom. If I attempt to run the wires out the side it'll make fishing the wires much more difficult.

I made the platforms out of very thin stuff and put on a double edge of 0.020" Evergreen stock. It's springy so I had to coax it around and use both solvent and CA to get it to stay there.

Underneath I added the triangular braces that support it on the column. The column in this case is CPVC potable water pipe and is impervious to standard solvent cement so I'll secure everything with CA. I have put the capping on that I did on the distillation tower and will do that tomorrow. I ordered styrene railing and will permanently install the platforms when the railings are installed... next week.

I only had 6 Plastruct ladder supports left so I used four on the lower ladder and 2 on the upper. There's really nothing that's going to disturb the ladders once it's on the layout. I put a mid platform halfway up the tower, but frankly don't know how far up the ladder should go before there's a rest platform. I'm sure someone out there knows this fact and could share it with me.

There's a sneaky way that I can run the wires from the warning lights at the top. I have to run a couple of pipes from the bottom to the top, one for 'steam' and one for 'pilot gas' to the pilot light. I can't get both conductors down one Plastruct #4 pipe, but I can get the positive down one and the negative down the other. I have no more Plastruct pipe hangers so I'll have to scratch build some. I can us some brass tubing with a 1/8" i.d. and a piece of brass rod soldered to it. It will take some time, but so will ordering them via Internet and waiting a week till they arrive.

This is the first time that I have seen this work. This guy is a born modeler. Unbelieveable work. I looked at all 48 pages. I don't know how I missed this thread.

Thank you Eddie! But as they say on the all the infomercials; "But wait, there's more!"

This post actually started 6 pages before the one you read where I describe the preparation of the space, benchwork, track laying and wiring. It's here: https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...-build-thread?page=1

I did that original thread in the layout design and construction forum and then moved over the Scenery and Structures forum when I started doing landscaping and all the buildings.

If you read 48 pages, another six is a piece of cake. Let me know how you make out on this thread. That thread is no longer being supported (for some reason).

The past thread was probably one that got closed accidentally, glitch of some sort in the forum setup or something like that. The moderators have said that they will re-open these if you ask them and provide a link to the thread so they can easily find it.

Myles,   In reference to the question you asked a couple posts back, OSHA Standard 29 CFR Part 1910, Subpart D - Walking-Working Surfaces, 1910.27 Fixed Ladders (a) Design requirements (2) Landing platforms..."landing platforms shall be provided for each 30 feet of height or fraction thereof..."    Cages are required for any ladder more than 20 feet high; the maximum of 30 feet is also measured differently for the type of egress to platform utilized; reference drawings 1910.27, figure D-8.

Also, in the petro-chem plants I worked, rack piping was very often color coded painted per product carried by the pipes.  Example: cooling water was light blue; process water dark blue; natural gas orange; product gases were often multi color striped per unit's criteria; cyanide was always identified with purple.  This was always in association with affixed labels and marking on the pipe or jacketing itself, and facing downward for easy identification from the ground as a pipe was "walked down" for inspections.  You could not always rely on size of pipe and labeling/marking.  In one unit, during sub-zero weather, a flowing process line froze up and expanded, without bursting.  We were walking it down to identify the impacted area to remove/replace as necessary.  Now, mind you, this was a heated flowing process product line.  However, the 4 inch painted line we were looking for had swollen to almost 6 inches and the paint code color had flaked off in the process of expansion.  Only by referring to the unit model in the control room, and a lot of extra walking/climbing in the racks, could we positively identify the frozen and grossly expanded line. Any day this would be a chore in a chemical plant.  This was in the middle of January, after midnight, winds out of the North and temps below freezing, wind chills below zero.  But, we found and removed/replaced the damaged pipe as needed before Noon the next day, a total of approx. 90 ft to 110 ft pipe.  Hardest part, besides the chill factor, was removing the old pipe and wrestling the new up and through the already crowded pipe rack.  Of course, it had to be in the middle rack of a 3 tier pipe rack.  

Sometimes it is something, almost say amazing, how memories of events can come forward when prodded just right.  My wife has all but disallowed me to speak of some things I remember when working in that environment.  But, it wasn't all dangerous and I really did enjoy the satisfaction it gave, and going home at the end of the day, however long it may turn out to be.

Jesse    TCA    12-68275 

Jesse, based on your new information (thank you), my spacing is probably too long. I'm running at 11 inches between platforms which is 44 real feet... to long. I could adjust this by making another platform and re-sectioning the ladders.

I've also sent a note on the tech forum to reinstate the thread based on RTR's input. Again... thanks!

Haircut day so not much time. I've decided that I'm definitely going to do the run-the-wiring-through-the-external-piping scheme. In preparation for that I had to create my own pipe hangers.

I didn't have a brass tube with the exact o.d. for the 1/8" Plastruct tubes, but it was close enough. The process is as follows:

1. File a flat spot on the tubing so the micro-center punch doesn't skitter off. 
2. Drill pilot hole with 0.032" carbide drill in pin vise
3. Open hole to a #51 drill which is a nice tight fit for a 1/16" d. piece of brass rod
4. Apply a bit of rosin flux to the assembly and solder. First I tried using the RSU, but in this instance, the Weller iron with broad tip actually worked better.
5. Using the micro saw, slice off the correct amount of tubing, about 1/8"
6. Again with micro saw, slice the tubing approximately in half
7. Using flexishaft Dremel and diamond burr, grind off any remaining stub of the rod protruding into the cavity.
8. Lay the Plastruct pipe in the space and with long nose pliers, lightly squeeze the part to better fit the tubing.

I made 8 of them (4 per pipe run). I actually made 9, dropped it on the floor, and into the quantum rift. I swept the entire area, rolled by roll-around work bench out of the way, searched the shelves in the work station. Nada! Bupkis! Nothing! Gone! I made another in less time than it took to look for the missing one.

I tried using the lo-temp TIX solder, but some joints weren't strong enough so I went back to the rosin-core 60/40 solder.

These will work fine and be much stronger than the Plastruct ones. Again, to reiterate the wiring idea; run the two leads down separate pipes (steam and natural gas) bringing them out at the bottom before going sub-terrainian. Should work. If I can build it in my mind, I usually can do it for real.

I started preparing the upper platform for the flashing LEDs and soldered up one set. I'm using four around the perimeter. I'll need to figure out where to insert the resistors since I don't have much room to bring two conductors down each pipe.

Due to the two-layer banding with the inner being shorter than the outer, the drill wandered and clipped the edge and opened up. I'll live with it. No more shop work until next week. Big family doings with guests, etc. I will be running trains though.

This is way cool! I might actually be learning something.....

That is if talent can be absorbed by looking! Great work here.

thanks! Talent can't, but techniques can... I've learned a lot from others. Learn something new every day.

Fellows,  that is one of the best things about the Forum... what we each learn from one another, and pass on "down the line".  Input and absorption.....

Jesse

Always learning.

Well, all the great Bar Mitzvah celebrations of this long weekend are now over. I had lots of people visit the trains and they weren't behaving. The people were fine. It was the trains that were being bad. My daughter and son in law rented the entire Louisville Palace theater for the celebration. It was a terrific venue and folks had a lot of fun.

Got back to working on the flare today. Based on Al Graziano's suggestion (more learning) I received my styrene railings from Plastruct and installed them. I also received two more pumps that will feed the cooling tower, and some Plastruct brick sheeting that will be used to make the Nighthawks Cafe. Picked up more corrugated "metal" siding and some Grandt Line windows at my LHS.

I first attempted to pre-bend the railings by wrapping them around some PVC pipe held with rubber bands and then heating it... gently... to kind of set the bend. I then wrestled it around the platforms and glued it with solvent reinforced occasionally with CA.

To add the loose end, I added some backing to add more surface. I looking at these now, I again realize that I should have sized the sectors based on the rail spacing of the Plastruct rails.

With the rails in place, I got back to making the flashing lights. I wanted to tie all four lights in series, but the current limiter is 1 ohm and I didn't have a resistor of that size. The smallest value I had was 100 ohms. So I did the next best thing and make two series sets each with a 330 ohm resistor. 

I had to then get both conductors of each series set down a pipe to the bottom. I realized immediately that the hole down the 1/8" Plastruct pipe was too small so I decided to try it with a 1/8" piece of K-S tubing. This is the same I used to make the the light poles. 

I figured out where the pipe would end up top and then where the platform would meet it. Then I drilled a couple of increasingly sized pilot holes and finally opened up and tapered the opening with a diamond burr so it would accept wires going all the way down the tube. I was able to get both the positive and negative leads down the pipe. This composite shows both ends.

I got all four lights CA'd into the platform edge and finished soldering them together and with their downward running leads. The + lead was soldered while off the platform since it required shrinking the tubing on it. I soldered the LEDs together in the platform and of course touched the iron to the plastic and melted a divot. I've secured a piece of  tubing in the gap which I will trim and shape tomorrow when it's fully cured.

I made a very short movie to show the lights flashing. Yes! They actually work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...ture=em-upload_owner

Tomorrow I'll try and put the finishing touches on the flare. I have a couple of lights to modify for the HP Spheres. I made tall poles thinking I was going to use them next to the cooling tower. Then, at some point, I thought they were going next to the spheres and made lights to sit on top of the cooling tower. Now I find that the first poles are actually too short to properly light the spheres, and will have to do something about it. I have enough 1/8" tubing to make some short ones that will go on top of the sphere platform. I've also finally figured out how to run the wires discretely down on the tanks without having to drill those spheres.

Myles,

the platforms look good. Another hint with styrene and abs is that you have to be very carefull applying glue to the handrails after they have been held into a curved shape. You formed them with heat and a pvc pipe, putting less stress into the material. I am too impatient and do not go to those lengths, causing some of my handrails to break during construction.

alan graziano

Thanks Al. Do you have plans for the piping at the flare top? I could sure use some drawings. I have to create some kind of ending for the gas and steam pipes as they go up and around the head.

Myles have been following your build and usual the results are outstanding.

For your consideration;  Concerning the wire size you are using for your tower lights etc. it seems excessive for powering LED's  I have been using # 30 AWG wire wrapping kynar insulated wire for my Pensy style signal targets with good results. That's 3 LED's connected in series per wire with a common for the three aspects.. I've ran (8) #30 thru a .125 styrene tube without a problem.

Gerry

Alan Graziano posted:

Myles,

the platforms look good. Another hint with styrene and abs is that you have to be very carefull applying glue to the handrails after they have been held into a curved shape. You formed them with heat and a pvc pipe, putting less stress into the material. I am too impatient and do not go to those lengths, causing some of my handrails to break during construction.

alan graziano

Alan:

I have on occasion applied heat with a hair dryer after gluing the railing especially at the ends where the railing tends to stick out rather then straight up. But I need to be real careful about applying the heat too long (been down that road).

PS - I tried using styrene angles and tees (-3 versions) with 20 mil thick rectangular rods. Kind of like your spiral stairways on storage tanks. The effort failed miserably. Instead of a circular pattern I ended up with a bunch of straight runs which put stress on the horizontal rails. I sat there watching them pop off the angles/tees one by one. I thinking my spacing was too long???

Joe

If I'm going to no use the Plastruct rails, I would go with my second option and use plastic stanchions and brass wire rails. You can preform the brass in curves and it will stay the way while you thread it through the stanchion holes. The hardest and most tedious part of the job is locating and drilling all the holes BEFORE you glue the stanchions in place.

Myles,

Ive been following this build, but haven't commented much.  Early on, I saw it was going to be a real challenge!  The question occurred to me today.  How does this project compare to some of your other most challenging projects?  It seems to me it is more challenging that the power substation was.  That is from an observer.  How does it seem to the builder?

Great question Mark! They're all challenging and for different reasons. Substation had a lot of machining in it and took me into modeling in brass for the first time. The mountain was just a bruiser that taxed my stamina. The distillery was a whole new realm of laser cutting and design. The refinery is challenging for several reasons. It's really big! Lots of repetition. Instructions are almost non-existent, but for a scratch builder that's nothing new, except they're marketing as a "kit". But building the cooling tower and flare is really just like the substation with design and building. I also find it frustrating that the Plastruct white butyrate piping doesn't hold well with solvent cement and keeps coming apart.

Now back to said refinery. Got lots of pictures so bear with me. I first fixed those extra long and wrong light poles by cutting them shorter and modifying their bases for connection directly to the HP Spheres. I used a small K-S brass tubing cutter to shorten the tubes with the wiring still inside trying to preserve the positive lead so I didn't have to rebuild the entire light. I spliced thinner gauge wire to those red leads since I didn't want such fat wiring under the tank platform.

I tested them after reassembly, but one didn't work. I don't know if it was a short in the tubing (maybe I caught the red wire with the tubing cutter) or something was going on at the LED end. I just desoldered the LED and started over. Notice that I placed the mounting blocks onto the poles BEFORE soldering the negative lead allowing me to drill it will an 1/8" drill and getting a nice tight fit. I used a slightly larger bit when drilling the platform to pass the bottom since it's wider with the negative lead being soldered to the tube's exterior. The base pad was glued to the platform with solvent cement. 

I wired the two poles together as a series circuit with a 330 ohm current limiter soldered to the negative lead at its bottom. I fastened all the wiring underneath the platform with RC servo tape which holds like crazy. When all this is painted the wiring will not be as obvious.

I tested the whole deal and, Voila, it worked. Another lighting system done.

Now back to the flare. First I needed to figure out where the steam and gas pipes should go and then install the pipe clamps. I would have loved to have soldered the clamps to the pipes since they're both brass, but didn't. I was afraid, rightfully so, that the heat would destroy the wiring that's already inside. So I used CA.

To lay out the clamps so they followed a straight line up the flare stack, I again used the surface plate, surface gauge and the flare supported by a couple of V-blocks. I scribed the horizontal center line and then spaced off four equally spaced points for the clamps. They're installed in 1/16" holes and held with CA.

I laid the pipes in with the upper platform hanging on and then positioned and CA'd the upper platform onto the stack. Since this is CPVC water pipe, solvent cement would not work. I pulled the wires more taut so they would be less obtrusive.

At the bottom end, I added some Plastruct piping and brought the wires out just above. To get the piping to fit I shaped the ends to fit in the pipe and cut a slot to let the wiring out. I then held it all together with CA. The wires have shrink tubing on them. The pipes will be painted yellow and orange, and the wiring will be colored the same as the stack so they'll...hopefully... disappear into the background.

Now onto the upper end. I needed to connect Plastruct to brass. For one pipe I shaped some styrene to do the job, but then realized that I had a much more elegant and stronger solution. K-S tubing all telescopes into the next larger size. The 1/8" tubing has a 3/32" i.d., and the 3/32" tube has a 1/16" i.d. Guess what the i.d. of the Plastruct 1/8" tubing is? 1/16"! So I just put a piece of 1/16" brass rod into the Plastruct and a piece of the 3/32" into the larger pipe and the joint is perfectly and securely made. I have a lot of the 3/32 for the chain link fence project that's coming up soon. 

I needed to make some kind of ring for the steam jets. I really don't think it's prototypical, but it's symbolic. I decided to use solder wire and form the circle around a piece of pipe. I did a similar thing when forming the corona rings on the substation main transformer. I first drilled a hole in a piece of ABS pipe and then hand rolled the solder around the pipe.

After using the razor saw to separate a ring, I filed some small flats on the ring to permit seating for a drill, center punched 8 reasonably spaced holes and drilled them with 1/16" drill. I used 1/16" brass wire to form the steam jets. Again, I'm not sure they aim downward now that I think about it, but they look busy and cool.

Another 1/16" hole on the bottom and a piece of brass holds the ring to the feeder pipe.

For the gas pipe, I had to run around the steam pipe and did so using some Plastruct 45 degree elbows. Using the brass/brass connection in this case worked well.

I'm sure guys with real experience are going to tell me that my arrangement is a) unsafe and b) impossible.

Here's the entire tower with everything except the ladders in place.

Next up: put on the ladders, and start preparing the Masonite base for the wiring holes and stiffening it so I can start the interconnecting piping. Then it's time to paint ALL OF THIS. Oh... and I have to build the Ops building now that I have all the materials for it.

Myles, as all else, great work............       I had worked top of more than one flare in the past.  There were different configurations used, depending upon the unit and product to flare off.  What you constructed looks very good, and according to your plant's criteria, perhaps a useful piece of equipment. 

Jesse

Yes, I can see how each project had it's own set of issues.  I never worked with plastruct, but I see what you mean about the tubing

Jesse, I'm glad that I'm not completely out in left field with my attempt. No one that views my railroad will have any more experience than my readers so I'm on safe footing. Plastruct does have its benefits and challenges. It's a bit tougher to cut ABS than styrene and their structural shapes are a bit thick in cross-section. Evergreen structural shapes are more scale that way, but not as strong. Tradeoffs...

Finished the flare today except for piping to it and paint. Also finished the distilling column. In both cases I decided to glue on the ladders. I was going to leave them off until painting was complete since I want them yellow, but had second thoughts due to the difficulty of gluing to a painted structure. I'll mask around them or hand paint them when that time comes.

I added correct limiting resources to all the lighting systems and series wired some so only two wires would need to be tied in underneath the platform. This included the cooling tower, the distillation tower and the flare. I really didn't no what I was going to do in making a flare tower other than knowing what piece of water pipe I was going to use to build it. I didn't make any drawings of it (Horrors!) which was very uncharacteristic of me. I just built it as I went along finding different sizes of tube to make the various pieces. I did study images in Google and went to various web sites of constructors to see how they worked and then just built it.

I took some liquid electrical tape on the exposed wiring of the LED array and smeared some to the LED backs to block the light from that direction. This will also be painted so the only light will emerge from the lenses.

I built the final pump that will move cooling water back and forth. I'm using the bigger piping for this, but the pumps are really sized for the smaller. I had to again use a step-up series to go from the 1/8 to the 1/4" pipe. 

With this pump, all of the unit ops are now built and are ready for paint. What's left is the ops bldg, all the interconnecting piping, the fence and ground cover. Before painting, I'm going to prepare the base for all the wiring holes, then transfer these positions to the solid sub-base. What is the best way to paint all the piping? Any suggestions? I'm thinking about air brushing them when they're glued to their stands, masking the bases.

Thought I was going to paint today, but getting a later start and the changing weather precluded it. Meanwhile, I had much to do in prepping the base plate which took the entire work session. I still have much more to do on that. I started seriously working on how I'm going to lay in all that connecting piping. The first one I started to work on was the pipes to an from the heater. The piping is insulated (supposedly) and therefore I went with the larger diameter. The pipe needs to rise up to the pipe rack so I did some fitting to do that.

I then needed to lay out the equipment locations on the Masonite and mark where all the holes for the wiring are going. I cut out the overlaid plans to expose bare surface and then used a Sharpie to outline locations. It took a while to do this and I needed to spend some thinking time to ensure that everything fit and still left enough room for the ops building. Speaking of which, I created a scaled line drawing in Illustrator and printed them out in preparation for building it which will commence shortly.

I had to do the spacing for the pipe racks of which I have five while eight are shown on the plans. I discussed this earlier that I was shorted enough material to build them all. I'm also getting worried that I'm going to come out short on the pipe elbows of both sizes.

Looks like a mess, but it's really not. I then took the drawn Masonite to the layout to check it out and found that the smaller panel that is under the loading rack was too wide. I had measured it to reach the ties, but I'm actually having it reach the edge of the Vinylbed roadbed so I need to trim about 1/2" off it tomorrow. I also noticed that I ended the downward running pipes on the distillation column too low. I ended them 10 scale feet about ground level and they should have ended 17 scale feet (same as the pipe rack height). While I could cut them shorter, I'm a bit reluctant to do this since it would wreak havoc on those fragile pipe supports that I've already repaired once. If I don't cut them, I'm going to have to consume a bunch of elbows to bend the pipe up to reach the rack. Either solution is not optimal in my estimation. In the below the black dots are the holes for lighting wires.

I also got a piece of ply ready to cut for the base of that last pump I built yesterday.

So here's all the pieces waiting patiently for paint which I hope to do tomorrow or at least get it started. If not, it will be next week. I have to remember to mask all those LEDs...

After picking up some Tichy windows for the Nighthawks Cafe Project and some microscope liquid masking I got to work first by using the liquid mask on all the LEDs and then taking batches outside to spray them with Tamiya gray primer. I thought I had 3 cans of it, but the first can was effectively empty and I only had two and ran out with some big parts not done. Annoying since I was at the LHS earlier and could have easily picked up more.

As you can see, the flare, big tank and heater are not painted. I did get all the rest done including all the little bits. I have not painted any of the connecting piping. On Monday I'll get more primer and finish this first coat and start spraying the rattle can Tamiya bare metal paint on the pieces that will be metallic: distillation tower, cooling tower, flare, decking on loading dock and spheres. I have three cans of bare metal and hope that should be enough. Once all the rattle can painting is done, I can bring it inside to do any water-based painting.

Happy Eclipse Monday. My daughter and grandsons were thinking about driving the 2 hours to Southern Kentucky to see the Totality, but saner heads prevailed and we watched the 96% eclipse right here at home. We only had one pair of Eclipse glasses, but I made four "Cereal/Shoe Box Sun Viewers" that worked well showing the specific moon shape passing across the sun. It certainly was less dramatic than what was seen in Hopkinsville.

Before the Eclipse I went and bought more Tamiya Primer and then after the Eclipse got some work done by finishing all the priming and even got some Tamiya Bare Metal onto the Distilling Column, the Flare and the Cooling Tower.

I still have more metallic finish to apply on the loading rack and the platforms on the Spherical Tanks. For the spheres, I'm going to paint the white tanks first, then mask them and paint the metallic. It seems to be an easier masking task to got that way than the opposite. However, I may be wrong. I see what it feels like.

I like how the metal looks...

My color scheme will be as follows. Ladders and rails - visibility yellow, Large Tank - Blue, Methanizer - Red, Reflux Drum - Red, Small Vessels - White, square legs - concrete color, footings - concrete color, Heater - Flat Black, Steel Work - Green, Product Piping - yellow, relief valve lines - white, natural gas - orange, Steam - Light Blue, Water - Silver, Overhead from Distillation - Silver. That should do me for a while. Should take a couple of weeks to get it all done. Meanwhile, I'm going to start working on the ops building and chain link fencing.

Myles,

Yes, went to the OKC downtown "Eclipse Event" and my wife had more excitement than some of the kids.  To say the resulting products of your modeling effort is very Fantastic, well, that is not near good enough a superlative.  Such excellent modeling is a joy to see and the step-by-step following of construction a real treat.

Thank you, Myles, from all so fortunate to follow your efforts..

Jesse

You're welcome Jesse! Feedback like that keeps me going.

Almost had a major catastrophe. As yesterday's pictures showed, I had the Flare sitting on its base... just sitting, not fastened in any way. I was picking up the distilling tower to paint its railings and something knocked the Flare over. Not just over, but onto the concrete and it took the heater with it. The Flare sustained mild damage with the vertical piping popping out of its pipe supports (CA'd) and the pilot light upper pieces separating. Easy fixes for both. But the heater broke apart at the seam at the base of the transition piece. It also broke the ladder in two at the same point. 

It was "almost as catastrophe" since I was able to refit the joint, apply CA and get it back together without any noticeable damage. Whew!

It was storming outside so no further rattle-can painting, but I had plenty to do inside. I started painting railings and ladders with the cooling tower. Painting yellow by hand is one of the worst covering colors in the model paint palate. I did the top rail by hand and started painting the caged ladder. It was a pain in the butt, so I made some paper masks to fit under the ladder to protect the corrugated skin and air brushed the yellow. Much, much better. I even was able to go back and lightly spray the railings to even out the coat. I also mixed up a custom batch of "concrete" color and painted the foundation. I don't know whether or not I will do any weathering on the CT. The picture I have shows a bright shiny new one, and I'd like it to look like that. But I'm sure it gets pretty crumby in service with air and water in close proximity.

Next up was the distilling tower. That was a different story. I really couldn't wrap my head around how to mask it to spray all those details so I hand-painted all the rails and ladders. It was a chore and I'm not totally satisfied. But that's that. I did get some yellow on the metallic, but I'll go back and back paint it with paint decanted from the spray can. The images make the paint look better than it does in the flesh. I want to paint the valve handles red to highlight them.

I painted the heater Tamiya Nato Black from the air brush. It was an easy paint job. I'll mask it and do the ladder with the air brush. Nato Black has a bit of white it in giving it a more natural weathered look.

But the Flare looked like it could be a masking candidate. I was NOT going to hand paint all that caged ladder. So I spent the rest of the afternoon wrapping and taping all the expose silver so I could air brush both the ladders and the rails at one go. It takes a lot longer to mask than to paint.

'

Weather tomorrow should be very nice and I'll be able to do more outdoor spraying. I have to do the loading rack and the white work. All the rest of the colors will be water-based paints so I can do them indoor with the airbrush.

Just like the substation, a customized locomotive, and a host of other models; the paint makes it look like the prototype.

Beautiful work!     Do you paint paint items white before painting silver?    i used to do that when I had to hand paint my tank model interiors.    also did a light grey or white base coat for yellow.   I have added detail to Lionel sand towers and coal towers with Plaststruct ladders, cages and valves with piping.

You did a wonderful job on your project.

I know diddly about petro-chemical plants, et al, but what you're doing looks mighty convincing, Myles.

Thanks for the very informative posts.

Cheers

You're welcome!

Yes, all of the models were primed with Tamiya gray primer from a rattle can. One usually reads that gloss black is the best undercoating for silver paint. In this case, I did not do that.

Yesterday's foul weather left this after the front went through. The iPhone 7's camera captures these kinds of colors and lighting much better than my iPhone 5 did. It doesn't over blow the reds. I locked the exposure in the clouds themselves and even with this you were able to make out features of the houses. First the eclipse and then this. Nature can be a blast when it wants to.

Today's weather was perfect for outdoor spraying so I finished the rest of the rattle can work with the last of the metallic finishes and then the white. I'm not a fan of spray can painting and usually will have runs where I don't want them. Can't control the flow like I can with an airbrush. If you catch the run quickly, you can smear it with a gloved finger and then re-spray gingerly and hope it levels out. It came out reasonably well.

I decided to paint the exposed steel Japanese Defense dark green. It's a pretty good color that's close to the green of Sinclair Oil which is the company that I'm having own this facility. It goes with my Sinclair gas station and I have some decals left from that project that will go onto the big tank.

Steel painting started with the load rack. I didn't mask this since the supports are going to be hand painted concrete and the angles that I was able to hold the air brush, I kept most of the overspray off the metallic-painted decking and any that got on the supports would be painted over. The tricky areas were around the drop-down loading platform and steel support structure for the loading tubes.

Any incidental overspray will be touched up by hand brushing. I'm painting the loading tubes themselves that same lighter green as my prototype photos. The nozzle on the end is coated with liquid mask and will be natural aluminum when the mask is removed. In the above picture you can see the other small tanks that were sprayed white.

The deck and all the exposed steel WILL need to be masked to prepare for painting the yellow railings. I'll do that tomorrow.

For the tank platform, again I didn't mask for the steel work since I'm going to touch up by hand AND will have to mask for the railings. Behind it is the masked flare tower waiting for its railings to be painted too.

Next up was the spheres. First I had to mask the entire sphere so I could paint the exposed steel. This took a lot longer to mask then paint. After shooting the green, I then started masking for the railings. This was painstaking and slow, but will be worth it. I spent almost an hour masking this tank and didn't finish. I'll finish up tomorrow and shoot all the remaining railings. 

I could have left all the steel gray like galvanized, but I wanted to add some contrast to up the interest and make things pop looking at it from a distance. After struggling hand painting the railings, air brush, even with the time consuming masking, is the only way to get a smooth and precise finish. It's really fun to be painting this stuff... the end is near.

It would be good to find one of those tank cars... or get some undecorated ones and do my own decals. That green looks a little light based on the decals from the Berkshire Valley kit.

Spent hours masking the rest of the apparatus and then additional hours spraying yellow... lots of yellow. Hopefully, inhaling Tamiya paint thinned with 91% rubbing alcohol isn't too toxic because I was in a lot of it.

The units masked were: finishing the spheres, the heater, the load rack, the loose stairways and the ops platform. I also free-sprayed the stair wrapping the big tank. 

Platform masking was a chore due to some of the x-bracing. As you'll see I probably got side tracked since I didn't mask the whole deck... whoops. I first airbrushed flat aluminum on the decking before masking began.

Masking the heater was relatively easy.

The load rack offered its own challenges due to the length and amount of tape it required. I couldn't mask it all due to clearance problems so I will go back and re-touch by brush.

I also masked the stairways, on which, much to my surprise, I actually attached one of the railings upside down. I am not going to rip it off. It will have to work. I will fit this stair so the "funny" rail is facing the wall. With all the masking out of the way, it was time to spray. I had three partially full bottles of Tamiya flat yellow, all which were very thick. But thick Tamiya paint is instantly restorable with 91% alcohol. I used almost all I had. Yellow is notoriously difficult to cover, and when it's not well covered it looks kind of green. It took three coats to get it solid.

So here's all the masked parts ready to paint. The large tank will be finished as follows: Mask the railing, paint the tank overall blue, and then mask the tank and respray the aluminum stairs. I say respray since I already sprayed it with the metallic spray can paint, but then immediately destroyed it by doing the yellow rail. I really couldn't figure a good way to mask the curved stair, so it will be the last to paint after the blue is done. Masking the tank next to the stair should be easier.

The flare looked real nice. Where I had some yellow leakage (not an overactive bladder problem) I was able remove it with a little alcohol. The metallic paint underneath is lacquer-based so it doesn't come off with this solvent. I still have to remember to remove the liquid mask from the warning lights at the top platform.

Here's the completed platform. Notice that the decking now has a big swatch of yellow where I forgot to finish masking the deck. I will go back and respray the flat aluminum after re-masking some of the structure. Could have been eliminated if I was paying more attention. I was getting tired of masking and getting anxious to get to painting. As I've said many times in this saga, I am not a patient man, but I am persistent. There's a little green touch up that I'll need to do, but this is easy stuff.

I got everything painted, but only pulled tape on the above units. I'll strip the rest of the tape tomorrow. I still stand by the decision to mask and air brush. The results are worth it. Used up a ton of Tamiya masking tape and will have to replenish.