New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. Birth of a layout

[Bernd]

I'm going to concentrate on the quarry part of the layout now. I started at least three times before I came up with something I liked.

First off I wanted to use the Gump Stump track plan reversed and mirrored as a starting point. What didn't make sense after revisiting what I wanted to do was build the rock bunker up on a flat ridge and running a track to it. They would have simply run chutes down to the loading track. So I decided to drop the rock bunker to table top level to make the loading facility more plausible.



I found a better picture I had captured on Google Maps a few years ago. It's a clearer picture of the six concrete silos I was going to model with the two tracks under it. The last I remember this scene was when they still used the silos to load cars.



And another picture a bit further to the right of the previous photo showing the rusting equipment.



Picture of where I figured it should go. The one foot space behind it is to hold the bin of crushed stone and auger to load the bins. The idea was to just model the rock bunker being fed from a conveyor out of the scene.



I started on designing the bunkers. I'm going to animate them to actually fill cars which will be taken to a dumper on the standard gauge line and dumped into standard gauge hoppers.

In order to hold the mechanism for the sliding door where the rocks come out I made that part of the structure out of a piece of 2" copper pipe, a brass rolled cone, a piece of 2½" mailing tube and a flat board. Here are the ingredients for one bunker.



The tapered discharge chute needs a ledge to sit on so it's level when the bunker is stood up. A thin slice of copper tubing split will do the trick.



That gets placed in the tube to get marked where to cut a section out so it fits in. Note the overlap at the bottom of the copper ring.



Once cut the ring is tested to see if it fits. Notice the tiny gap at the bottom.



Once satisfied with the fit and making sure it is even with the end, it is solder in. I use a small butane torch for this work.



Next we turn our attention to making the cone. I found a program on the net that helps solve the problem of getting the right dimensions. I hope it never disappears from the net. http://craig-russell.co.uk/demos/cone_calculator/

And I came up with this. I drilled some holes in the sheet metal and stitched it together with some wire. The wire keeps it from unraveling and unsoldering when it gets soldered into the copper tube.



The cone is soldered into the copper tube. I make sure it is well seated on the ring I soldered in earlier and then solder it all together.



Here's where the mailing tube, 1/4" square wood strips and board come into the picture. I'm going to pour casting plaster around the outside of the copper tube to make the bunker look like real concrete.



The copper tube is first glued to the board with hot melt glue. The mailing tube is placed over that with the 1/4" square wood spacing the mailing tube the proper distance from the copper tube.



The casting plaster is then poured and with any luck the part will turn out like this.



The first one using the procedure shown in the above picture showed this procedure would work. Once the plaster had dried for a day I removed the cardboard mailing tube. I then clamped the bunker in the lathe and turned the outside concentric with the copper tube. Why? All six bunkers need to be the same diameter so they are correctly spaced once the cars sit under the rock bunker. Things need to be aligned properly to pull off this project. The piece leaning up against the bunker will become the sliding door that will allow the rocks to flow from the bunker. I just hope it will work when I get to the point of having all six rock bunkers up on their structure.

I poured the two remaining silos. So that makes three if these two come out like the first one. Here I used ACC with an accelerator to glue the copper pipes down. Hot glue didn't want to work for me this time. The mailing tubes were glued down with hot glue and a bead was used to seal around the tube.



And here's the messy part. Not much room to try to pour something that's thicker than pea soup into a 1/4" wide slot. I hope I have no air bubbles in these. I did tap the whole works on the table and it did burp once.



Partial success on the casting I poured. But it's expected. One thing I forgot to mention was I used clear gloss polyurethane to coat the inside of the tube. I discovered on the very first one that the cardboard attaches itself to the plaster as if it was glued on. The polyurethane kind of moisture proves the tube. Started peeling off the cardboard.



I cut into the cardboard with a utility knife till I get to the plaster. Then take the knife and kind of pry up a layer of cardboard and peel it off. Usually when you get close to the bottom it all comes off at once.



So the first one was a success. The second one, not so successful. I happened to catch the edge of the knife in the plaster, it pop off a piece.





After letting them dry for a time the castings were harder. The one that didn't turn out had a powdery feel to it so I decided to redo that one. The one that turned out OK was clamped gingerly in the lathe and had the OD turned nice and smooth to approximately a 2.5" dia.



Wound up with two good ones on the first casting attempt.



I poured a couple more of the round bins but was getting poor results. I decided to put that project on hold and see if I could come up with a better rock storage/loading bunker. In the mean time I started on some scenery. Next time around I'll show two attempts at some scenery.

Bernd

[PRR Modeler]

Impressive technique Bernd.

[Bernd]

Impressive technique Bernd.

Thanks Curt. Unfortunately it didn't work out to well. Might be able to use that technique on some other project. I'm not afraid to post my failures since other may learn from them. I also know 100 ways of not making a light bulb. 

Bernd

[Bernd]

Quick question here. I've noticed everybody puts their description of a picture under the picture. I've always put it over the picture. What is the preferred method? Under or over the picture. Which is easier on the eyes?

Bernd

[Keep It Rusty]

Wow — this quarry is gonna be very cool. And an impressive start!

re: question. I put my text above a photo adding a " : " to preface what I'm about to show. That said, it's whatever works best for you! This is your part of the forum, after all.

[deemery]

I've done both.  Generally text above the photo introduces it and highlights something to look for.

Text after the photo describes how or why I did something.

Those are just generalizations, no hard-and-fast rule!

dave

[Keep It Rusty]

Text above the photo introduces it and highlights something to look for.

Text after the photo describes how or why I did something.

Perfectly put, Dave. This exactly.

[Bernd]

Thanks guys. I didn't want stray to far from forum conventions. I'll continue with the text above then.

Dave, great idea with the posting.

Bernd

[Bernd]

Wow — this quarry is gonna be very cool. And an impressive start!

Hey there Rusty. This was the second attempt. Once I get through explaining what didn't work I'll post how it finally came together for me.

Bernd

[Bernd]

In the last post I ended it with casting some storage bins. I determined that's not the way to go. Also I've come up with a track plan that might work now. I've tossed out the Gum Stump & Snowshoe plan for something completely different. The quarry will have a large animated rock bunker. The bunker will be filled via a belt system from a rock crusher which will be off stage so to speak. The idea is to have a bin filled with limestone that will be conveyed to the rock bunker. There will also be a track on a higher grade going to the quarry off stage to bring back large cut limestone. The idea is for the HOn2½ line to feed a transfer plant somewhere on the standard gauge line. So I started with getting some Styrofoam cut and laid out for the high level track to the quarry.





Notice I haven't done any wall prep. Another mistake I made. Won't happen again.
As I looked over the last two pictures I posted. I need to cover that wall before I go any further. Nothing like doing things bass akwards, layout first - wall finishing last. I had to wait for the weather to break before I could go to the local home horror store for some supplies. Thinking of using either 1/4" plywood or 1/8" under floor laminate. I went with the under floor laminate.





In the last picture I'd like to introduce you to the "Twins". This was a tribute build to a member of another forum. The prize was a set of decals to put on your project when finished. It's a semi-scratch build. If there is interest I can do a thread on the engine build in the "Rolling Stock" subforum.
I decided that the line was to high. I need to get to the table top level in a short distance on the uncompleted part to the left. So I removed one layer and proceeded to glue down the first layer with construction adhesive.



At this point I had already started working on a wall background idea. Using ceiling tile I cut 2" wide strips. Then broke those two inch wide strips into one inch wide strips so they would have a rough edge. While I was building up the background wall a member of the other forum mentioned that rock strata like that was hardly ever straight like I had it. He said there usually was a upheaval in the strata some where along that line. I'll address that in the next post.



While gluing down the styrofoam the mind wandered away for a while and came back with an idea. How about extending the track to the left to an open pit where pieces of larger limestone will be quarried. Something like this Vermont Granite Quarry Museum picture.





Until then.

Bernd

[ACL1504]

Bernd,

In reference to the question you posed above. As Dave stated no "hard or fast rule" here. It comes down to personal preference.

I like explain what I did and then show a photo. It flows better for the reader/follower to see the photos after a short explanation.

My 2 cents worth.

Tom 

[jerryrbeach]

Bernd,


Why not make your round silos form PVC pipe or PVC pipe couplings?  You can turn them in your lathe to the correct diameter, then scuff sand them with some emery cloth while in the lathe.  After that you can either use a rattle can of texture paint or some gesso to roughen the surface of the pipe to better resemble concrete.  After that, some "Cocoon" chalk paint (Jason Jensen YouTube videos), weathering chalks or powders and "Bob's your Uncle".

[postalkarl]

Hey Bernd:

Looks great so far. Keep the pics flowing.

Karl

[GPdemayo]

I'm enjoying your journey Bernd.....keep up the good work. 

[Bernd]

Bernd,

Why not make your round silos form PVC pipe or PVC pipe couplings?  You can turn them in your lathe to the correct diameter, then scuff sand them with some emery cloth while in the lathe.  After that you can either use a rattle can of texture paint or some gesso to roughen the surface of the pipe to better resemble concrete.  After that, some "Cocoon" chalk paint (Jason Jensen YouTube videos), weathering chalks or powders and "Bob's your Uncle".

Good question there Jerry. One of the reasons was that PVC didn't come close enough to the 10 foot dia. I was looking for. 1 1/4" outside diameter is 1 5/8" or 11 feet 9 inches. The other was they way I was going to make the sliding doors I needed the strength of a metal to make them function. Remember I said I'm going to animate the loading process. You also see as I progress with this story that I have a totally different structure in mind.

Bernd