Pam's Flour Build

[Jim Donovan]

To light the boxes I am using single strand prewired warm white LED lights. I buy these direct from China with each costing around $.06 each. They come with about 4 inches of wire and the single strand copper means the wire will stay put where placed. In addition they are pre-tinned so I try to leave the wires as is instead of cutting them down. It looks a little messy but I find the solder connection is very good. I try not to have wires making long runs so I usually run them to preplaced copper tape strips, one for (+) and the other for (-). I connect the lights to the strip in parallel. I also try to avoid using resistors or current limiters when I am connecting several lights to the power source. Instead I use an inexpensive adjustable voltage 'buck convertor' which allows for the parallel set up. These convertors are less then $.80 each, can handle 10-12 lights easily and the voltage is adjustable. The one in the picture can handle up to 18 volts input and you can adjust output down to less then 1 volt. For these inexpensive versions there is no display so I needed to use a voltmeter to confirm outgoing voltage which I set at 3.2 volts. A tiny phillips head screw is turned to adjust the output voltage, once set it is done.



Finally, I use Gallery Lead to seal the holes I made to run the led lights into the shadow box. This way light leakage is minimized. You can see the bottle in above photo.

And a test shows the shadow box lights up as I hoped, input is 12 volts, output 3.2 volts.

[ACL1504]

Jim,

Very nice and no light leaks.


Tom 

[Philip]

Nice work! I'm also a fan of tinkercad and elegoo.

Philip

[GPdemayo]

Looking good Jim.....

[Jim Donovan]

Nice work! I'm also a fan of tinkercad and elegoo.

Philip

Thanks Philip. So far I have found Tinkercad gets me what I need. Perhaps Fusion 360 would make life easier but I haven't worked up the energy to learn it.

Jim

[Jim Donovan]

For the roof I went with a Mansard style. I made a simple design using Tinkercad and had the 3D printer produce it. Due to size limitations I had it made in two parts attached together with a thick version of CA glue. I use the brand sold by Hobby Lobby, Todd Wiley told me it works great and it does. I designed recessed circles in the underneigh of the inside roof. CA glue was used to place round magnets in the recesses. The same was added to the building so that the roof is held in place by the magnets and can be removed as needed. I used shake shingles made by Bar Mills for the eve and attached them using 3M 567 two sided tape. Cut strips of construction paper, 
scale 3 feet wide, painted charcoal black,  were attached to the roof to simulate rolled roofing material. The center part of the roof has an elevator shaft building with a door allowing access to the roof. The building walls are basswood clapboard glued to a resin printed inner support structure. Also designed and 3D printed are the door, windows and a  miniature version of the mansard roof. I forgot to take better pictures as I went but hopefully these will show the construction fairly well. 









To make the tar papered roof more realistic I used a blend of water, modge podge and charcoal black paint (Delta) to 'seal' the tar roof sheets together and then sprayed the entire roof with Krylon clear matt varnish before gluing the elevator building to the middle. The varnish produces a dry water stain look around the sealing paint that I like.



Like all the other windows in the building glass was used for the windows. I intend to make a decorative railing for the roof guard wall but that is down the road.

[Jim Donovan]

With the roof in place you get an idea of what I am trying to make. I forgot to take a photo of just the Tower building so you also get a sneak peak of the power building. That structure will produce both the steam and electricity for the entire facility. I have glued it in place already. It too has magnets holding the roof in place but it is also hinged so it opens from the opposite side of the tower building. There will be a complete interior in the power building so the opening roof lets you see inside even though the ceiling will have hanging lights.



You can still see the repeating pattern in the brick from this side but another building will be placed against the lower wall breaking much of that up.



This photo of the left side clearly shows the power building. With the number of windows and the buildings together you can see there is much less repetitiveness to the tower brick pattern..


Finally the front of the facilty as it currently exists. The shadow boxes are in place, the interior braced as needed but the electric still needs to be completed as well as considerable. outside detailing.

Hope you enjoyed the update. Till next time, thanks.

[Jim Donovan]

This is a good time to circle back to the construction of the steam power building. I actually built this part of the facility first but as this thread was orgionally in the winter challange as a place holder (until actual contest entries started) I decided to show construction of the manufacturing building as I was working on that at the time. 

Steam power buildings were much like ship steam boiler rooms of that era. Rock coal was shoveled by hand into fireboxes, valves were manually adjusted to keep the psi in the correct zone. The work was hot, hard and non-stop (not to mention dangerous). A steam power plant in Toledo was used as reference. I will have a complete interior as well as the building:



The pace of innovation was incredible for the time. The above photo was taken around 1910. By 1920 an autofeed system was in place to keep a slurry ground coal mix feeding the boilers automatically. More in a minute.

[Jim Donovan]

Power Buildings of that time had lots of tilt windows that opened to help with the heat. So my design incorporates that look. I designed the shape using Tinkercad and had the 3D printer create the four main walls as one piece. The wall thickness is 3mm or about a scale foot.





I use a UV light machine made eby Anycubic which has a rotating base to completely cure the parts after they have been printed, trimmed of all supports and finally cleaned with an alcohol bath.



For this structure I used the tough version of resin I have on hand. I was concerned about the strength of some of the front wall pillars but after seeing the final product I am sure regular resin would have worked fine too.





So we have walls including a staircase at this point. More in a minute.

[Jim Donovan]

With the walls made I used a textured brick sheeting bought from Italy to cover both the outer and inner walls. A different pattern was used inside then outside much as these old building did. The expensive brick was for outside areas seen by public, cheaper brick used where not important for looks. To correctly cut the sheeting I used the Cameo 3 cutter I have. I've cut this paper in the past with my little laser cutter but the Cameo is much faster with a new blade installed. To glue the paper to the walls I use 3M 567 two-sided tape. I have a roll of the 12 inch wide version which covers the back very easy. 

To cover the corners of the building I used a design I found in my research that was common for that period. While it was also for design its primary purpose was to help hold the walls in place. They too were 3D printed and painted slate gray.

Here is how it looked and stages of process:

[friscomike]

Howdy Jim,

Nice work with the resin printer.  I've never seen a resin print that tall.  It looks like you printed it flat on the plate, is that so?  Amazing work.  Congratulations.

Have fun,
mike

[Jim Donovan]

Time for windows, an boy there are a lot for this building. I designed tilt windows in such a way I could use microscope slide cover glass. I wanted the windows as clear as possible so that the interior can be seen. I again used Tinkercad for designing, printed the parts, spray painted the frames charcoal black using Rust-o-lum and cut the windows to shape. The glass was glued to the frames using dots of canopy glue in each corner, out of site when looking at the structure. The tilt sections are static, glued either open or closed.

[Jim Donovan]

The final major part for the building is the roof. For some reason I did not take many photos of the work done but I will try to show how it was made. First the roof substructure was 3D printed designed after building fronts of that time.





The above photo shows the roof. the main part (seen in first photo) was designed in one piece. All the other painted blue parts were individually designed, printed, painted and placed in slots I had designed into the main roof section. This way I could have several colors and a realistic look. The roof top is surfaced with construction strip paper painted charcoal and overlapped like tar roofs of that time. Light weathering was done.

The underneath part of the roof has magnets that line up with magnets in the wall corners to keep the lid shut. However the roof is hinged in the back (the brick sheet paper acts as the hinge). A paper sheet that looks like board on board was glued to the underside of roof. Metal supports were designed, printed and placed over the paper after being painted.

The lights were designed to look closely like those found in the Toledo Steam Building. The fixtures were printed using clear resin. The wiring was left draped like the original lights as well.

[Jim Donovan]

Turning to the interior I designed a simplified version of the Toledo Steam plant seen in the first photo I showed. The boiler stand was one piece 3D printed with brick covering added like the walls. The firebox doors, dividers, and all plumbing were made as separate parts. The plumbing has the most important values and such with more detailing needing to be done prior to being called finished. There are over one hundred parts in this scene.



Note the roll of two sided 12 inch tape in photo.





The white gauges even have decals with the temp of the water for each boiler.



The interior slides into the building and latches in place.

[Jim Donovan]

Finally, I made a double bin on the backside to hold coal. This would only have been used for emergencies. Normally one or two wagons full of coal would have been waiting for use outside the back of the building. The boilers went through a lot of coal and wagons would arrive regularly to keep the fires hot.More work needs to b e done detailing the walls, interior and such but here are some final photos as the building is at present.





Till next time, thanks for stopping by.