Steel Making - Steel Mill Model

High line addition

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:56:24 GMT

As you may or may not know the original viaduct type highline was removed from the blast furnace and adopted to the EAF section. The thought here was to have an elevated line either abandoned or not signifying the fact that this structure was originally part of an older Open Hearth now cannibalised over time.

or something to that effect....steel mills are always such a hodge podge of stuff bvuilt over the years that this fits nicely I thought...

EAF moved

Thu, 21 May 2009 15:16:07 GMT

As the EAF has been moved from the other room I wanted to lay down the tape measure to show the size of the designed Open Hearth as compared to the EAF. The tape measure here at 8'(2.4 M) shows the length and the drawing below shows the designed widths.

As per the original layout drawing plan the Open Hearth is to be located to the left of the EAF in the picture. I guess now the way things are situated I can actually build the entire thing if I wanted.

The Open Hearth illustrated by the tape measure length is designed to be 1,280 scale feet (390 M).

May '09 and shaking it up

Wed, 20 May 2009 15:17:00 GMT

Over the next few months I am going to build the first 12" wide x 16" length of the OPEN HEARTH furnace which is designed to be 8+ feet long. The 12" width does not include the lean to furnace area where the stacks are to be located. I'm going to use the ones at Gary Indiana as a prototype:

Further Refinements to EAF

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 01:16:45 GMT

Over the past few months I have been slowly whipping this bad boy into shape. The more recent changes include a separate teeming building with stack, a flux raw material bunker/conveyor, and some panel changes.

To the right is the teeming ingot building which is the same size as (1) Walthers N Rolling Mill. The conveyor and bunker are built from a Walthers HO Coke Retort kit. The remaining parts from those kits are scheduled to be combined into my sintering plant. The coke doors and tops were sold.

These images represent a more finalized version of the EAf as compared to the last entry which had a more squarish building in the same location as the bunker building. That squarish building (more of a conceptual placeholder) which was an HO Walthers Cornerstone Tri State Power Authority kit will be recycled, altered, and combined with another one (the one I paint stripped) to create another boiler house which goes behind Machine Shop #1.

EAF Update

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:47:05 GMT

Been working on re-arranging the EAF quite a bit in the last week or so. I wanted this building to have more contrast to the brick Blowing Engine House so I nixed all the red brick facade in favor of all steel construction. i mixed and matched a whole bunch of stuff to get the complexity I was looking for that is not available in the walthers kits.

Re-Edit: Selective EAF Demolition

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:53:39 GMT

Last night (11pm-ish) I started packing up my most recent ebaY auction sales and was looking at my building shelf where all the neglected structures reside. "Neglected" meaing either buildings I want to use but have no space for right now OR stuff I'm going to sell. So I stood there, staring at the now un-used Tri State Power kit. I had originally built this for the Boiler House #1 building but 2 thoughts came to mind.

1. Do I try to convert this back to HO and try to sell it? What a pain, it took me a while to get it to N.

2. This building is so big to fit into my layout it really has to be next to something huge though so the scale doesn't seem that off. For a boiler house the scale is too big but what about...hmm my EAF is HUGE

Bingo. Why not add this to my EAF and make it even longer. So I pulled apart a section of the EAF down and inserted the Tri State Building to see how it would look. After a few configurations I arrived at something I was pleased with that I thought had potential. I then went online to look at Indiana Harbor to find something similar because I know I have seen something like that before.

OK so we have this image then from Indiana Harbor:

To highlight some features i liked Architecturally:

1. Varied heights of sloped roofing in some parts
2. Square box like geometry mixed in with more traditional sloped roof type. In fact this building mimics the Tri state Power Authority structure with a lower roof and stack coming out of it.
3. Smokestacks...can't have enough
4. Gap between main structure which helps break up monotony of building and potentially helps add detail.
5. Vertical cylinder type structures connected to horizonal piping up high.

But now what about the scrap yard building and all those arched brick windows. I dunno it seems out of place and I think the building calls for an all steel skinning now with some recent changes I made last night. I'm going to remove all the brick facades and replace it with the rolling mill kit provided sheets. However I'm going to use this opportunity to experiment a little and add in some grandt line windows. That is a process I was thinking of using for my Open Hearth Furnace building which does not yet exist.

Pix to come....

Storehouse

Thu, 15 May 2008 03:10:18 GMT

I finally decided on a building arrangement for this area near the end of the EAF and it is to be the storehouse made from Walthers Vulcan Manufacturing kits.

I also cleaned up the EAF end as well.

Prototype in the middle of the picture below:

Vulcan Manufacturing

Fri, 09 May 2008 21:23:59 GMT

Or actually now I'm thinking this for the area previously mentioned. All that is required is 1 more Vulcan Manufacturing kit.

Weathering: Office

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:49:37 GMT

So the first building over at the Steel making Dept to receive the weathering treatment is the small brick office. I finished it off with the railings for the stairs, some decals, and a nice clock face that comes with those Greenmax factory decal sheets.

Open Hearth

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:33:11 GMT

The time has come to start planning ahead on my Open Hearth structure while I continue to work on current items. I first settled on a prototype structure which is the Open Hearth design at Gary Indiana:

The next phase is to then attain the necessary kits to build this structure. I am not buying them all at once and am pacing to get the best deals since I can't build it right away anyways. I am deeply entreanched online searching for deals and going to Train Shows when I can. That's how I got the HO Walthers Tri-State Power Authority kit for under $40 sealed 3 months ago.

To build what you see in the picture above is quite simple actually. It requires (6) HO Cornerstone Rolling Mill kits, (1) Walthers N scale Electric Furnace kit, and perhaps some N scale Rolling mill kits for the stack lean to's.

The HO rolling mill kits make up the main body that is to be 96"+/- long or 1,280 scale feet +/-. Ths builds a (12) furnace structure. The kit supplied "modern" vents will be used but more vertical like you see in the image with some roof modification all the way at the top. The building will then be lowered to proper proportions (9" at top of fink truss below monitor". At the end of that is then the N scale Electric Arc furnace kit which serves as the mixer building. That's built kit sized or slightly narrower by one truss brace row. The left over Electric Furnace Interior pieces from that kit are then to be used as the 5th missing EAF within the currently constructed EAF structure. It will be modeled tilted.

The smokestacks (12) will be grey butyrate plastic tubes from Plastruct which have been on sale for practically free recently. They come in 15" lengths or 200' in scale height plus the base piece to bring them in line roughly to the 225' prototype height. Items like the scrap yard or mold yard I have yet to figure out.

New Boiler/Powerhouse

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:47:26 GMT

Since I stole the last power house from this module to accompnay the machine shop #2 structure I took this one off the shelf and re-applied it at the stripper end of the EAF.

On the left you see a bottle car being pushed by a VO into the EAF to deliver some hot metal on schedule.

ebaY auctions

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:04:18 GMT

ITEMS FOR SALE

During the next few weeks I will be focusing primarily on preparing for ebAy auctions to thin out some inventory of extra things lying around. I am weathering some of these extra buildings and fixing them up quite a bit to get them ready for sale on ebAy. These are mostly smaller buildings that are warehouse like and based off kits such as the Heljan 2 stall engine shed kits but with a lot of customization such as custom signs, weathering, filled in windows with brick, custom roofs, custom cut door openings, custom cut truck loading openings, custom loading docks etc.

Items include:
N scale:
Custom made storage depot from Heljan Slaughterhouse accessory out bldg -- built weathered
Heljan Bakery customized and converted to small business --built weathered
Heljan Appliance Warehouse customized and converted to small business-- built weathered
Heljan 2 Stall Engine House customized and converted to an engine/railcar wash facility-- built weathered
Walthers Machine Shop, built in basic kit form-- built weathered
Walthers built up steel water tank without separate spikits-- weathered
Walthers Co Op storage shed with custom work-- built weathered
Large custom Store House building made from Cornerstone Modulars-- built weathered

HO scale:
Coke oven extension kit #1
Coke oven extension kit #2
Customized Walthers Cornerstone HO Gas tank. Built Weathered.

(HO scale items are complete sprue parts from Walthers HO Coke Retort kits which will allow one to extend their HO scale Coke Ovens by 18 more ovens each). I am keeping the overhead metal sheds and coal bins for a planned sintering plant.

ebAy auctions will be listed under user name johnnysky0 and will begin approximately March 4th.

Among the structures to be sold:

Depot Building + Store House

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:14:05 GMT

I finished the depot building which was built from (2) Walthers Water Street Freight Terminl kits. It's essentially kit form but some windows were bricked in here and there:

The track plan where stripped ingots leave the EAF at the top left 2 tracks, and below 1 track for hot metal car entry:

Below the Storehouse is seen on the left with an office in front and the substation in the distance.

Below is a closer view of the front of the storehouse building. The store house was made entirely of Walthers Cornerstone modulars.

Neglected I must say

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:59:41 GMT

No I did not forget about you steel making department. I had purchased the USS Making, Shaping, and Treating of Steel ca 1957 so I could study specific aspects of the EAF process to ingots. I also purchased some Mike Rabbit drawings of an EAF. I then studied this stuff for a while and then starting digging into the module.

The first thing I did was weather and sell off the Heljan made office from one end (ebaY). I had a better idea and that was the former blast furnace office...it wanted to be over here by the EAF. Also the storage depot was also removed and will be up for sale soon. It is going to be replaced by a kitbashed Walthers Water Street Freight Terminal.

Then I finally finished filling in all the wall panels with vents etc for the EAF structure shell and base coat painted it. This was done however only on one side so the side facing away from the camera is completely open to see all the operations within. One day I'll be able to actually see this other side. The building way at the end is the powerhouse for the EAF.

In the image below in the bottom left is the new freight depot and to the right of that the new office.

Below you see 3 tracks going into the EAF. From left is ingot teeming, slag, and then hot metal "out" which has to be slighty altered still. That's the new office on the right. way better than before.

Now the other end I obliterated completely after reading the resource information I previously mentioned. I needed the space to accurately depict the operations just for the EAF operation.
Here we see the scrap yard exit tracks, the hot metal "in" track and behind that the stripper building for the ingots. Also the new vents and wall panels added to the structure:

Small tweaks

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:23:14 GMT

I haven't worked on this module for a while but did make a few positive alterations. The powerhouse roll up doors were difficut to access so I got rid of thm and rebuilt a solid facade for this area. Also, I added some track for the EAF on the upper level thinking this is where the elevated open hearth tracks used to be. The track will most likely not be in service. The left over smokestacks that seemed a bit odd over by the cokeworks fit in nicely with the repair shop building.

Tightening things up a bit.

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 01:16:11 GMT

I re-worked some of the buildings and track work to a more simplified rather cleaner approach. The building in the lower left of the image directly below straightened out because the kink was bothering me a bit. I also added to the end of the EAF the planned length which is to 985' in scale now. This additional end structure was made from left over rolling mill parts and left over coke works kit parts. I am also currently swapping sections to see if different arrangements will look better. That is still in the works.

or alternate arrangement?

Moving the large structure which houses the actual EAF's allows for the easiest viewing of the inner workings which I rather like:

Topo change

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 15:19:36 GMT

Today I thought this part of the steel making module would be good for a little topo change which comes in the form of a 15' grade change and retaining wall. The workers would come to the lot and park. They would then cross over the pedestrian bridge to their respective posts. The elevated grade pieces are made from one sheet of gyp board from home depot. They come in 24"x24" sheets, are easy to cut, and are 4 bucks. The top is paint grade so I'll asphalt right over it with just paint probably.

Yard office and boiler shop/power

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 02:00:06 GMT

The other night I decided to dig into some boxes to see what I coud find to build a yard office for this module at the opposite end that I was originally working at. Low and behold I found just enough parts from the model power engine shed to build a modest structure right for the job.

Also, I wanted to experiment and tilt some buildings in relation to the EAF rather than have everything go straight for 9 feet. The reason here was I thought this may make some more interesting space than if it was parallel and perhaps this hints better at "off module" space. i also added a power/boiler shop of some kind because well...you can never have enough!...plus I needed to fill the space and help support the "tilt" of the structures in this area.

A cloe up showing the yard office on the left with parking lot. Power Building in background.

Images from the move

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 00:18:44 GMT

The steel making dept now runs along parallel to the blast furnace dept.

The former OH mold yard now the EAF scrap yard house:

A view between the EAF and blowing engine house:

The moved car shop. Once the ingot stripper perhaps with an addition built on.

Overall Cladding/re-arrangement

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 00:38:37 GMT

This weekend I worked on re-arranging a few things on the EAF in order to make it easier to see inside. The EAF section that was at the end of the scrap yard where the exterior OH crane was got flipped and lost it's skin. I always liked seeing the trusses and this allows easy views down the line to see ingot pouring via the heavy duty OH crane.

The re-worked facade opposite the scrap yard to show a more simple direct approach. It utilized un-used rolling mill panels and a little southern inspiration:

The openings in the bottom the the building allow for views through on to the scap yard structure:

This facade now features an attached powerhouse. This facade as it's an older building will be all brick:

Out of control

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 02:14:41 GMT

Well here ya go. It's as long as it's gunna get for now. That's 750' actually. The scrap yard to the right consists of (5) Walthers rolling mill kits and look at all those trusses. I think there are approx 30 of them.

Furnaces detail

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:02:36 GMT

This EAF structure will have 4 electric furnaces. 3 of which are connected within the taller structure. The rest of the space down the line I was imagining as ingot casting.

EAF Roof Vent

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:41:41 GMT

I thought the roof vents looked a little odd being open at the top so I added some screens from left over Walthers Coke Oven quencher kits to detail this area out. The basic parts are seen below:

The perpindicular supports molded into each screen were just short of fitting perfect so I had to add some evergreen I beams to them to lengthen them a bit.

The pieces were layed out as shown below, and then flipped over and glued on the inside of each large vent structure. This part was a bit of a pain in that i had to clip the ends of the i beams ever so slightly to get everything level....one at a time:

The final installed version atop the EAF structure is shown below:

Beginning EAF additions

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:36:42 GMT

The first phase of the addition was to add 1 Walthers HO rolling mill to the mix at the end of the larger structure. I had to raise the HO rolling mill structure slightly so the crane rails would line up and added the N scale EAF roof vents to the top. One side was detailed out with some vents from the kit and windows from the Walthers HO new river mining company kit. The other side was just some vents from the kit as well. One nice thing about obtaining an HO rolling mill kit was the fact that I could now use a larger decal on the side as seen below. The proportions work better than the little N scale one.

Side vent seen below and area where scrap yard structure will extend past to the end of the module:

Windows on one side:

A view of the scrap tracks. I decided to group the scrap according to type. On one track is a more silvery screens and plates, then bailed scrap on the second, and finally misc scrap junk on the third:

Laying trackwork and expanding

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 20:34:11 GMT

I layed and glued down all the trackwork for the first 4' section of the EAF building. I basically have 2 lines going into the EAF structure and 4 lines in the mold yard building. The scrap yard building I imagine would be on the opposite side of the mold yard. I added an open top ladle train on the EAF side and an ingot mold train in the yard so I could start visualizing the operations a little. These particular ingot mold cars are from peachcreek.com and the nice yellow cab for the OH crane came courtesy of Dave Ayers on a recent material purchase from him.

The expansion goes back towards the wall for an additional 34" and will consist mainly of just extensions of the existing buildings. The mold yard requires 3 N scale rolling mills to complete and they just so happen to be on sale at Walthers for only $32 right now.