Construction Report part 2

I took some photos that I was going to include with the previous post, but recently returning from a trip to NYC I still had my camera set at the highest quality image setting. This yields a photo that is 5184 x 3456 pixels and about 6.5MB, and they take forever to upload. For photos I intend to post on this blog I set the camera to a lower quality photo, usually 1920 x 1280. This makes the photos much easier to upload. So, I had to take the photos for this post and resize them in Paintshop, which takes more time than I had available when I created the post.

I forgot to mention in the last post that I recently acquired a large stock of sheet styrene, thanks to a blog post by fellow model railroader and blogger Chris Ellis, who lives just a few miles from me. There is a local plastic supplier called Piedmont Plastics and Chris mentioned getting some sheet styrene from them. I stopped by one day recently and walked away with about $75 worth of plastic. The folks there were very friendly and the stock manager gave me a quick tour of the place. Their warehouse is a model railroader's fantasy, with pretty much any plastic product (not just styrene) you can imagine in stock. If they don't have it in stock, they can get it.

Piedmont Plastics warehouse 

Piedmont Plastics warehouse

I picked up several 4' x 8' sheets of styrene, in .010, .020, .030, and .040 thicknesses. They also had some scrap 1' x 4' .060 cuttings which they sold me for $1.75 each, so I bought 10 of those. They gave me (no charge!) a scrap 1' x 5' sheet of clear .040 acrylic as well.

Considering Plastruct charges $6.95 for a four-pack of 7" x 12" sheets of .040 (a little over $.08 a square inch), the $17.95 price of a 4' x 8' sheet at Piedmont can't be beat (about $.03 a square inch).

Basement Prep

Before I even cut lumber, I added a 20 amp circuit with two outlets on the ceiling in the layout area specifically so I can run my power tools such as my table saw, drill press, and band saw without worrying about other electronics in the house. I also wanted to add some LED shop lights above the power tools. The table saw alone, which pulls 14.7 amps, was on a 15 amp outlet that is shared with another set of outlets elsewhere in the house. My small breaker box had a single empty 20 amp breaker left, so I added two 20 amp GFCI outlets to the ceiling since this is an unfinished basement. I do not intend for these outlets to be permanent because right now the power tools are all occupying space that will eventually be filled with layout and I will have to move my shop area to another location in the basement. For the moment though, having the tools where they are is handy. Eventually I will be upgrading my breaker box entirely, not only to give me the ability to separate the train room power from the rest of the house grid, but because the rest of the house is not wired very efficiently and I think several of the circuits are overloaded and some appliances which by code need to be on their own circuit are on shared circuits. Now the work area is lit up nicely thanks to the two LED shop lights. Previously this area was lit by a single light bulb on the ceiling. 

20 amp GFCI on the ceiling and an LED shop light

Wood Working 101

Disclaimer: I am not much of a wood worker. 

In the photo below are the four 2' x 8' sections of 3/4" birch plywood that I got from Home Depot and had them rip down the long length from a 4' x 8' sheet. These sheets are still quite heavy (over 35 lbs each) and not easy to maneuver or get down the basement steps by myself.

I used the table from my drill press to help support the plywood on the feed end for cutting. I have a plywood base mounted to the drill press table to increase the table space. I only have one roller support so I used it on the cut end of the table saw to support the plywood there as it came off the saw. This setup works well and really all I had to do was feed the sheet without having to worry about supporting it, which allowed me to concentrate on keeping the cut straight.

Each 2' x 8' sheet got ripped into five 4" boards, which after cutting waste ended up being 3 59/64. Left over was a single 3 3/4" board as well. I do not intend on making L-girder benchwork, but rather simple frame benchwork with corners reinforced by using galvanized framing brackets by Simpson Strongtie. This concept was borrowed from Alan of LK&O fame.

Although in my younger years I was a tool & die machinist apprentice, as I mentioned in my disclaimer I am not much of a wood worker. Still, many of the same principles from metal machining apply to woodworking as well. I soon realized that ripping such a large sheet of plywood makes it difficult to feed straight, even when using the rip fence. In metal working the work to be machined is secured using dynamically adjustable vises or clamps and is moved into the cutting tool, which insures a straight cut. Not so on the standard table saw, and it is easy to bump the work or make a crooked cut. To solve this problem, I clamped a scrap piece of wood on the other side of the sheet from the rip fence as a jig to guide the sheet through the saw. Key to this is to clamp the side jig snug but not too tight up against the sheet to be cut. This worked really well to keep the cut straight. Over the entire 8' length of each board, the tolerance ended up +/- 1/32 inch, which I am quite pleased with. The blade I use is a 60-tooth carbide ripping blade, and I use a zero-clearance blade guard around the blade to minimize underside chipping. This gives a very smooth cut even on the underside, but I will still have to sand or file all edges to minimize splinters.

After ripping two of the four 2' x 8' sections of plywood, I was left with 10 4" x 8' boards (3 59/64" x 8') and two 3 3/4" x 8' boards. When I am done I will have 20 4" boards and four 3 3/4" boards. This should be more than enough for my first TOMA module. I plan on using the 4" boards for both the legs and the horizontal top benchwork, with the legs being 48" in length. My target base level layout height is 52". The 3 3/4" boards will be used for vertical benchwork supports and additional bracing. I made sure to label the 3 3/4" boards with a Sharpie to "idiot proof" them to keep me from accidentally mixing them in with the 4" boards.

The 3/4" birch plywood from Home Depot is USA made and sanded on both sides, and so far seems to be a nice product. It will be much more structurally strong, stable, and straight as opposed to using dimensional lumber. It will also resist warping from moisture and temperature changes much better than dimensional lumber.

Next step will be to finalize the plan for the first module and to design the benchwork to go underneath it.

Construction Report #1

Not much posting lately, but I have been doing a lot of model railroading work. Mostly still research, but the emphasis of the research has shifted from prototype to actual model railroading. Specifically, how have others before me built steel mills on their layouts.

There are a few "celebrity" names in regards to steel mill modeling. The late Dean Freytag is probably one of the better known names to those model railroaders who have any interest in steel or heavy industrial modeling. He has been featured in Model Railroader and is also author to a couple of "bible" books on steel and heavy industrial modeling. Both of these books are still available but neither is cheap and I have not yet sprung for either one.

Jeff Borne is author of a pair of DVDs titled Superdetailing a Walthers Blast Furnace. I just picked up both these DVD's and they are a wealth of information. Too bad I don't actually have a Walthers Blast Furnace kit since it has been discontinued, but the DVD's are still valuable for the scratchbuilder too.

Bernard Kempinski has authored several books on model railroading, the one on steel mills I have already mentioned in a previous post. His book is probably the most recent of all the other publications listed.

Anyway, the title of this blog is Construction Report #1, so more on that.

I decided a couple weeks ago that I needed to get out from behind the computer and into the basement. The basement needs a lot of prep work before I fill it with layout. That doesn't mean I can't get started on building stuff. Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine has had a lot of discussion recently on the TOMA (The One Module Approach) method to building a layout. Several months ago I started building a small module on an 18" x 7' hollow core door just to get started building something. I didn't get very deep into that project and in hindsight I believe the main reason was because it had no relevance to what I wanted to build for a layout.

TOMA proposes that a layout be built in separate modular phases, each module being built as close to completion as possible before moving on to the next. The TOMA modules are not necessarily templated modules such as N-Trak or Free-Mo, although they certainly could be. I've kind of been visualizing building my layout this way from the earliest conceptual stages, not realizing that MRH had already defined TOMA.

I purchased two 4' x 8' sheets of 3/4" birch plywood from Home Depot. Each sheet is just under $50. The sheets weigh over 70 lbs each, so I had them rip the two sheets right down the middle long ways so that I could handle them by myself.

Even a 2' x 8' sheet of 3/4" birch plywood was somewhat difficult for me to get into the basement by myself. I then ripped each section into 4" x 8' boards (actually about 3 59/64" after cutting waste), which netted me 10 4" x 8' boards and two 3 3/4" x 8' boards for a single 4' x 8' sheet of plywood.

Before I started cutting lumber though, I had to do some basement prep work even for that. I realized that my 10" table saw draws 14.7 amps, and it was plugged into my only outlet into the work area which is a shared receptacle on a 15 amp circuit. I had one completely empty 20 amp circuit left in my breaker box, so I wired up a couple 20 amp outlets mounted to the ceiling above the work area. Now when my table saw runs I can be assured it won't cause any electrical problems throughout the house. I also added some additional LED shop lights above the work area.

Now I have some lumber to begin building benchwork on my first TOMA module. My intent is to build this first module as a free standing module and not attached to the basement wall. That will make it mobile enough that I can move it easily if necessary.

I will post some construction photos in a follow up post to this one.

Cheers

Trip to Bethlehem Steel, Labor Day weekend 2016

The wife and I took a trip to NYC to visit friends over Labor Day weekend. I took advantage of the situation to take a not too out of the way detour to visit the old Bethlehem Steel plant in Bethlehem PA.

Briefly for those who don't know, the old Bethlehem Steel plant is one of the oldest steel mills in the country. It opened circa American Civil War era and closed its doors in 1995. Originally it produced steel rails during the time when railroads were transitioning to steel from iron rails. In the WWI & WWII years it was big in naval shipbuilding.

Instead of razing the mill buildings after it shut down, in recent years the complex has been turned into a museum, arts expo center, and even a concert venue. 5 blast furnaces and many of the old mill structures are still intact. In 2015 they completed the Hoover-Mason Trestle, which is a 2000-foot walkway built on the original high line for the blast furnace structures. You can visit the complex and walk the HMT for no admission fee. Even though the old structures are slowly rusting away and crumbling, it is still a great place to visit for anyone interested in getting an up close inside view of a large steel mill complex.

The beginning of the Hoover Mason Trestle and 3 separate blast furnaces. A fourth is just visible at the left side and the fifth one is further to the left off the photo. At the very right side of the photo is a partial view of the concert venue that has been built here. At night colored lights light up the old blast furnaces as a backdrop to concerts here.

A view of the raw materials storage bins below the high line. Iron ore, limestone, and coke were stocked in these bins and were added to the top of each blast furnace in measured amounts by skip hoist buckets from below.

3 burner furnaces and stacks for one of the blast furnaces to the right. The burner furnaces produced the hot blast air that was fed into the bottom of the blast furnace to create the 3000 degree blast needed to produce molten iron.

A shot of the top of a blast furnace. Seen here is the upcomer and downcomer piping that moved the hot gas from the top of the blast furnace. The hot gas was basically cleaned and then recycled back through the burner furnaces. Also seen here is the top of the skip hoist that fed raw materials (coke, ore, limestone) into the top of the blast furnace.

View down the high line showing the large pipes that carried the hot blast air from the burner furnaces to the blast furnace.

A view of the remaining mill complex from the Hoover Mason Trestle.

Steam powered blower engines that provided the cold blast air to the furnaces which in turn supplied the hot blast air to the blast furnace.

The high line viewed from the side opposite the blast furnaces. Iron ore, limestone, and coke were dumped into the bins below for distribution to each of the five blast furnaces.