Sunshine, Palm Trees and a Food Industry...

Back on to the silo build this afternoon.

I have scratch built the necessary inlets, power supplies details etc for the top of the silo and placed them where they needed to go.
In doing so, I needed to add the associated pipe work and conduits.

Note that three pipes are all the same diameter yet the way they attach through bends and corners are all different.

The inlet is 4mm diameter styrene tube glued to a 3.2mm tube. The top has been capped off and another ring of 2.4mm diameter tube has been added as a colar. This same diameter tube was used as a collar on the horizontal pipe entering the inlet on the side.

The pipes (1.2mm diamter Evergreen styrene rod #221) are held in place with small pieces of 1.5mm C channel (Evergreen styrene #261)

Next to do was to add the conduits, electrical boxes and radar sensor. Again. looking at photos of the prototypes, I scratch built these from Evergreen styrene.

The electrical box is the small rectangular shape with conduit exiting the bottom and the radar sensor is the round tube with a conduit exiting the side.

A pic of the pipes and conduits running down the side of the silo.

My next job is to fit the vertical straps to the ladder cage rings. This is one job I wanted to do last to avoid any knocks or breakages.

Cheers, Gary.

 

The vertical straps have been added to the cage rings. I did damage one ring when applying the straps. Looking at it, the glue had soften the plastic ring way too much and the end result was that I lost half the ring. See photo.

So I only had one full cage ring left on the sprue, but I thought I could do more damage to the model by attempting to remove the whole cage ring. I measure the rings diameter and it is approximately 7.9mm (5/16).
A thin piece was cut from a the tube of styrene and sanded down to the approximate width of the outer edges of the ring.

This was then cut in half and test fitted. I had to remove about another 3/4 mm for a good fit.

All good this was then secured to the model.

Overall, it doesn't look too bad and with a lick of paint, I doubt anyone will pick it up. Then again, I have just told you lot !

Next job, one that I should have done way earlier in the build was to extend the ladder down above the mid point platform. A small length of ladder was cut to size and on one side I added a bracket. It was damn fiddly getting this inside the platform and under the cage above for a good fit, but once in, I cut another bracket and glued that in. Apart from filling in a few holes here and there, the bulk of the build is done.

Once the holes have been filled and sanded, I'll give it a coat of primer then a top coat of flat white.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you kindly Gormo.
It is a reasonably largish model, well tall anyway. The model stands 242mm (9 1/2") in height.

Last night I went about doing a little filling of holes etc on the model, for example around where the platform joins the silo wall. This was all filed smooth and it was time to give the model a once over with Tamiya Surface Primer.

After allowing it to dry thoroughly, I could clearly see glue marks and more. Out came the a sanding stick and some 180 wet & dry paper and I sanded these areas down. I don't have a photo of the primer coat showing the raised marks, although I have these two photos that show how much was sanded down.

I feathered the edges the best I could with the 180 wet & dry paper and then gave the model another hit with the surface primer.

Doesn't look too bad, but I will allow this to dry and tomorrow I will give it a sand with 1800 wet & dry paper. Once that is done, I'll give it a final application of surface primer and then on Friday night, I will give it a top coat of white.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Tonight I have given the model more of a sanding down in places with the 180 grit wet & dry paper, followed by some 400 grit and finally the 1200 grit wet and dry. I decided to wet the 1200 paper as it gave a nicer finish rather than sanding dry.

Over all the fine 1200 did the job !

Some of the areas I was concerned with came up a lot better than what the model looked like after its first coat of surface primer. The close up shots are way crueler than looking with the eye...

Above and below are each side of the top ladder where too much CA was applied to glue the brass railings to the PVC.

The next two photos (each side of the platform) came up much better too...

After giving the model a wipe down and a clean, it was time to apply another lick of surface primer. This time I decided to thin the primer a little more than the original coat.

Several light layers were applied and this gave the model a much better finish.

Give the model the old 3' rule, it looks 100% better...

Yet when you get in close with the camera..., you can see it is much better than my first attempt !

Goes back to that golden rule of 'If you ain't happy with the model, start again...!' Sort of reminds me of my first attempt with the ladder and platform....

Cheers, Gary.

 

The now painted model in position on the layout...

A few pics comparing how far this module has come over the last 5 months. Mind you it hasn't taken 5 months just to complete this module as I have also been working on others and a few other side projects.

In the very early January...

Today (07/06/25)...

Comparing the prototype the the compressed model...

I think I have captured the scene of Trujillo and the former siding of Graulich International fairly well. The prototype sidings are over 1000'in length and I have compressed that down to a scale 435'. One of the harder aspects of the hobby is selective compression and making sure I have captured enough elements of the scene that it is comparable to the prototype, making it look recognisable.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you Gormo and Ron for your kind words.

I think I need to mask the silo and paint the platform, railings and caged ladder silver to match the prototype. This will be fun..., I may just put it on the back burner and get a few other smaller jobs completed first.

Cheers, Gary.

 

I decided to revisit a building I haven't touched since 6th Oct 2024 (post #649), the Produce in Paradise building...

The building happened to tear where the join between the wedge side joins the rectangular section. A simple fix was to glue a thin sheet of 10thou (0.25mm) sheet to the bottom of the model.

In the photo above and the photo below, I have added the vertical elements to the building and completed the top cornice (?) as well. What you cannot see is the strip of 10thou along the parapet, although this can be seen in the very last photo in this post.

Looking at an aerial image of the prototype, one of the roller doors had a small angled landing to serve the rail car. I put this together using scraps of 40thou (1mm) thich styrene sheet. Steps were also constructed using a method I described back in post #220. The landing and stairs were secured to the card with CA.

Looking down on the landing and stairs.

An overall shot of this module with the Tropical pallets building and wall removed. Here you can see the parapet capping.

Well that's it for today.

Cheers, Gary.

 

The building I have currently worked on has an open back, facing the operators side and the interior of the building will require some details. One section will have some racking and pallets, pallet jack etc and near the loading door, I want to place a psuedo dispatch office. Now a small office will require a desk, chair, notice board/pin board, filling cabinet and so on. This evening I decided to scratch build the filing cabinet.

Now I researched the dimensions of filing cabinets and the most common is approximately 52" high, 18" wide and 24" deep. Now I wasn't going to spot on with my measurements as this will be reasonably small in HO scale. I'm going with that out mantra of 'if it looks right, it is' !

So, what did I need to scratch build a filing cabinet ? Of course the easiest product to use is Evergreen styrene. I used 4mm and 3.2mm channel, some 10thou (0.25mm) styrene strip (6.3mm, 4mm, 3.2mm, 2mm, 1mm) and some 0.5 x 0.5mm strip for drawer runners.

Here is a photo of the completed drawers and cabinet...

A photo of the drawers in the cabinet...

and finally, a photo next to an Australian 20cent coin...

For those of you who don't know Australian currency coin size, here is a Lego block for comparison...

Tiny eh ?? I have a video on our Facebook Group page and you can see it here : https://www.facebook.com/groups/PLATFORM1MRC

Cheers, Gary.