Sunshine, Palm Trees and a Food Industry...

Latest video update....



Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks mate. It is slowly coming together. Looking forward to adding all the next layer/s of scenic material, ie, static grass, weeds, shrubs, scrub, trees and all those other little details that bring a layout to life.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Well it has been a busy few weeks, working the last couple of weekends and the only work I have been doing is constructing the discharge pipe for unloading tank cars. During this phase, I have also been putting together another video, which will come in two parts for this month. Hopefully I can get more work done on this particular scenic item and have the part 2 video out before Christmas...

So, this is what I have been working on. This aerial shows the fuel depot with the main pipeline, barricade, truck loading rack and main storage tank, all sketched in.

I took a few measurements of this corner module so I could calculate what I needed to complete the build. It may not look like anything, but this diagram has all the measurements I need !

I recently purchased the Walthers Cornerstone Piping kit (#933-3105) which has everything I need to build the main discharge pipe.

I'm sure I have shown the storage tank previously, which I bought locally.

So I removed what I need from the sprue and cut the pipe sections accordingly. The parts I used were the 10" diameter pipe sections, T-pieces, flanges and the S bends which I cut into elbows, as the elbows that come with the kit have quite a large radius, which did not suit my needs.

These parts were all glued together, except for adding the elbows. Each length of pipe has a flange on the left hand end only so that they all meet up once they have been cut to the length required to suit the layout.

These five sections of pipe were taken back out to the layout where I measured them up against the track so I could work out how much the individual pipes need to be shortened.

Next up I had to build stands/brackets to hold the pipe off the ground. I wish to build something similar to these brackets...

To do this I chose to use Evergreen styrene 2mm channel, #262 and 1.5mm angle, #291. For the base I used Evergreen styrene strip, #129 (0.5 x 6.3mm / 0.020 x 0.250").
I cut several 7mm lengths of the channel and as many pieces of angle measuring 6mm in length. The angle was glued 3.5mm from the base of the channel. I then cut as many squares from the flat strip (#129) and glued these on. This is the result...

After letting these cure overnight, I added them to the pipes, making sure the T piece was sitting 90# to the stands, as shown here...

I then too these out to the layout and assembled them together to see how they would look and to also get the positioning correct, as I need enough space between the pipe line and the rail tank cars for depot personnel to be able to work safely.

This is how they look sitting on the layout...

and a pic from the opposite end...

I have purchased five packets of Pikestuff Highway Guardrails to use as the barricades to stop any road vehicles damaging the discharge pipe. I also grabbed a pack of Evergreen Styrene #231, 8.7mm (11/32") diameter tube which I will use to scratch build the pumps. The pumps will be made similar to those on the Tanker Truck Loading Rack, like these below...

Anyhow, I will start on the pumps tomorrow and hopefully have them complete sooner than later.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you kindly. I have already started on the next part of the build, which is the pumps.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Here is my December Layout Update, part 1...



Cheers, Gary.

 

The next stage of the build for the fuel depot is the pumps. These pumps are used for pumping the fuel from the discharge pipeline into the main storage tank.

I looked at the pumps that came with the Tanker Truck Loading Rack and decided to scratch build two that look similar, but not out of place.

For this I used my favourite Evergreen Styrene tube, sheet, rod, and angle. The main tank body is made from Evergreen styrene #231 (8.7mm diameter) which has been capped off with some 1mm sheet off cuts.

Above you can see most the parts I used which also include 1.5mm angle (Evergreen #291), 7.9mm tube (Evergreen #230), 4mm diameter tube (Evergreen #225) and some 0.010 sheet. After the main tank had cured, I added 4 legs to the tanks. These legs are the 1.5mm angle, glued on square to each other. To make sure the legs were even, I laid a piece of 3mm x 4mm styrene strip down and sat the tanks on top, then adjusted the legs so they were all equal.

After this, I cut some thin slices of 4mm tube and 7.9mm tube. The 4mm tube was sanded down and then glued to both sides of the tanks, one high, one low. These become the flanges for the piping. The 7.9mm tube was also sanded thin and a small off cut of 0.010" sheet was glued to the top then cut and sanded smooth around the edges. These were then glued to the top.

From the Walthers Piping Kit, I took two valves and shortened the pipe on one side of the valve. These were then fixed to the lower flanges, with the shortened end towards the tank.

I then took two S bends and shortened one end on both pipes and fixed the shortened end to the tanks (top port). Both of these S bends had the Walthers flanges glued onto them.

I allowed these to sit overnight to properly cure.

The next stage is to connect both pumping tanks together. Once again I took parts from the Walthers kit.

The image above shows how I will assemble these parts, no shortening required.

Once assembled, this arrangement was glued to valves on the rear of the tanks.

From the front...

The next stage will be fixing these to the main discharge pipeline then working on the main tank and bunding. Then I guess I have to make some extinguisher/fire hose cabinets... How the fun never stops !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Sneak peak before the next update on the build and Part 2 of the video...

Cheers, Gary.

 

I have completed the pumping tanks, painted the pipe lines and stands, built a large storage tank and connected it all up together...

So, where was I up to ? Oh yes, the two pumps...

I have added the additional piping to the two pumps and glued it all down to a small piece of 10thou sheet. The styrene sheet will eventually be treated to look like concrete. More brackets were made to support the piping.

Now having the pump assembly sorted out, I focused my attention onto the pipe that feeds the large storage tank. I cut out a saddle section from the Walthers piping kit and it had to be reshaped to fit its future location. I also cut out a length of pipe with the curved end and also another elbow. I added flanges to the ends of the elbow rather than the vertical pipe or saddle section as I hadn't measured these parts out.

You can see in the above photo that I had to cut the saddle section into three parts, as it was too high and the fact that one side of the saddle had to be shorter than the opposite side. I ended up drilling and adding a styrene dowel to keep it all together.

Whilst all these parts were curing, I focused on completing the large storage tank. This tank is from Tichy Train Group line of products. I can tell you that applying the stairs was not a fun task !
To align the stairs, I folded a sheet of paper to form a 45* triangle and used that to trace a line around the tank. This enabled me to keep the stairs on a smooth and consistent trajectory.
The stairs are rigid to start with and you need to take your scalpel and remove one stringer (the one on the tank side). This allows the stairs to flex around the circumference of the tank. You start out with gluing the base of the stairs to the floor plate of the tank and once that had cured, move gradually up each step, securing as you go and allowing to cure.

It was slow going !

Eventually I got there to the top and then tossed out the stair case hand rail that came with the kit and built my own. Why ? Simply because the posts of the rails would have been set at 45*. You can see the original hands in this photo.

I wanted to add a few details to the area so I scratch built two fire hose cabinets, a fire hydrant and an electrical junction box (for the pumps).

I also ended up painting these items, the associated piping and all the discharge pipes I made previously.

All storage tanks require a bund, so I took some 3mm thick grey board and cut a 3 x length of strip 11mm high. Two strips were cut to 130mm and the third to 150mm. These were glued together and the top and ends had CA (superglue) applied to stop the card going furry on the cut edge. The bung wall doesn't have a front as it faces the baseboard edge and it will also allow for the installation and removal of the tank.

This bund was glued into place after painting and the fire hose cabinets attached. The fire hydrant was attached to the pump stand concrete section.

Now I know where the tank sits in relation to the pump stands, which are now fixed into position along with the discharge pipe, I went ahead and shortened the sddle section and fitted the elbow to it. This saddle assembly was glued to the pump pipe work.

To enable me to safely remove the tank, I decided not to fix the vertical pipe with glue to the saddle section or the top of the tank. On top of the tank, I glued a 2.5mm high ring of 4mm diameter styrene tube which was drilled out to allow the feed pipe to fit comfortably with a little wiggle room.
The feed pipe at the top had another elbow section glued to it to form more of an upside down U shape. The end of the U fitted into the 4mm tube fitting and the bottom of the feed pipe fitted into the lower elbow. Strips of styrene were glued to the vertical pipe to represent cleats.
You can see the cleats in this photo.

Now this is pretty much complete and in place, apart from general scenic details, I had to scratch build the hoses that come off the discharge pipe.

I took two S bends from the Walthers kit, cut them down into smaller elbows and sanded the ends so that I could fit heat shrink tube over one end. For the couplings (where they connect to the rail tank car), I used four smaller flange sand glued a short length of 2mm styrene rod to them. Before gluing these to the heat shrink, I took some brass wire and inserted this into the heat shrink, then attached the coupling.

These are the hoses which measure out to be 20' long. The wire inside allows me to flex the hoses so that they don't sit straight flat on the layout.

Here is a pic from above and you can see the hoses between the discharge pipe and the tank cars.

So, that's where I'm currently up to with this section of the layout.

All the above is spoken about with a little more detail in my latest video, Part 2 of the Fuel Depot build...



Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you Phil. Hopefully between now and say the 15th of January, I can finish off the area around the base of the tank, then add the tanker truck loading rack and some other smaller details, weeds etc. Time will tell !

Cheers, Gary.

 

My Christmas gifts for the layout.

A couple of new vehicles...

and some Miniprints 3D printed items which include 4 x air conditioners, a fridge, 99 x bottles and several figures. Got to love the skate boarder ! Mind you that these didn't arrive in time for Christmas, only arriving yesterday afternoon !

The bottles are tiny !

and the sticker that came with the order !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Over the last couple of days I put together the Pikestuff HO scale armco barriers, painted and installed them around the fuel depot. These are a nice little kit and the armco barriers are nicely modelled.

Around the pumps, I decided on adding two bollards rather than armco barriers, after all, the emergency crew may just need easy access to the fire hydrant.This is simply 2mm diameter rod (Evergreen Styrere #212), painted yellow. They too look the part.

Both the armco and bollards need a little weathering.

I decided to tape off the base on the large storage tank, sat it back into position the laid out some O gauge ballast I had. This was then flooded in with a ballast mix (PVA/water/detergent). After drying, I lifted the tank, removed the tape and sat it back into position.

Again, it doesn't look too bad either ! I do have to build the stairs that go up and over the bunding.

Whilst I had the ballast mix out, I thought I'd start on a little greening up. I tend to do a three or four step process when applying static grass.
First up I squeezed down some ballast mix in a random fashion.

Then I applied a mix of brown/honey/burnt static grass with my applicator.

I applied a second squeeze of ballast mix to the right of the grass that has been applied.

A mix of burnt/light green/green static grass was applied, allowing it to randomly fall into the dry grass.

I allowed this area to go off (which was about 30-40 minutes) then I applied a squeeze of neat PVA to the edge. Here I stabbed in clumps of 12mm grass fibres. I allowed the glue to semi set before teasing the grass clumps out.

After allowing the PVA to go off a little longer, I took my air brush and sprayed the 12mm grasses to tone down their yellow/green vibrancy.

You can see in the photo below, I left a few at the fron yellow and added the odd green clump.

Moving down to the other end of the layout, I worked around the grade crossing. The same approach or a 3-4 step process was applied, this time adding more weed to the grass.

Looking the other direction towards the ferrous processing plant and the fuel depot.

Today, I'll be off shopping for more styrene rod as I have several chain link fences to build...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Got myself two packets of Evergreen Styrene rod, #219 (0.025"/0.64mm) and #220 (0.035"/0.88mm). This along with the tulle fabric (like wedding veil) I ahve what I need to make several 355mm lengths of chain wire fencing.

I first measured up the existing fence I have on the original (first section) layout and the posts work out to be 10' apart and the rails are 6' apart. I drew up a long grid with these measurements on a piece of plyboard, which also included a top mark to where the top of the posts will stop.

The #220 rod was cut to 35mm lengths, which gives me enough length to sink it into the layout by about 5mm and I also 6mm above the top rail for the barbed wire.

These were then taped down on the lines and the #219 rod was laid over the top, following the line as a guide. Now the long wait until the glue/styrene cures before I start the next couple...

Back soon...

Cheers, Gary.

 

It is my home made job. I made one several years ago with a 100mm diameter hopper/strainer and this has been modified so I can use either the 100mm or 50mm hopper.

You will find everything you need to know in this post : https://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/inde...g-my-static-grass-applicator.4723/#post-75982

Cheers, Gary.

 

I ended up making five 350mm long sections of fence a few have been installed on the layout. Quite a lot of the fences in and around Hialeah, Brownsville and Allapattah have a vine growing all over them, like this street view photo...

I ended up replicating this on my chain wire fences, which means I don't need to add barbed wire along all lengths of fencing.

I gate was required as well, so out with the 0.88 styrene rod and MEK. Within 10 minutes a gate was scratch built ! The fence lengths and gate were turned up side down and sprayed black from above. After drying, I turned them the right way up and sprayed them silver from above. It gives the chain wire and rails etc a shadow effect, Boomer style !

I need a few random bushes for the layout as I want to make sure the layout looks as close to its Miami roots as possible.

So I chose Gormo's method of using twine, in my case I used 6mm diameter sisal rope. This method is easy peasy and the results, of course after gluing the base, teasing branches out, airbrushing and adding Noch leaves is impressive !

I thought to myself, I wonder if trees can be made using the same method ?? Simple answer is yes they can !!

I glued the base and then only untwisted a few gathered strands to make the larger limbs. As I workd up the tree, drops of CA were applied to stop the sisal from untwisting any further. The further up the tree structure I went, the thinner the branches got until I could tease the ends out to mimic the fine branches.

The armeture was sprayed with spray adhesive and I sprinkled on some 12mm static grass fibres, let it dry, shook of the excess before repeating the process. After this had cured and the excess removed, the tree was air brushed with a red-brown colour, then the tops had a misting of a lighter grey-brown. This didn't take long to dry and I them gave the top a light misting of spray adhesive and sprinkled on Noch leaves. The leafing process was repeated until I was happy with the results.

The trees I made so far...

From a distance, the 'rope' trunks don't look too bad, but I will end up painting the trunk with PVA and sprinkling on some fine sawdust to close up the fibrous look.

Cheers, Gary.