Piping at Jones

Progress has been slow on the Jones Chemical Company. I've been busier than I thought I would be this fall, and there hasn't been a lot of time for model building. Anyway, I did find some time on the weekend to install the tank piping. The basic inter-tank connections are 1/8 inch piano wire bent to appropriate shapes as per the article. Corresponding holes were drilled in the tops of the tanks for seating the wires. Although a little hard to see in the picture, the small tank at the rear has a large diameter plastic pipe from a Walthers piping kit connecting the tank to the building. There is also a vertical pipe and valve from the same kit attached to the large diameter tan coloured tank.
I also added clear plastic to the windows and installed a view blocker in preparation for installing the roof. I had plans for adding a large horizontal tank with flashing LEDs inside the building to simulate a bubbling chemical tank, but with this project taking so long - longer than the Bunn's Feed and Seed - I decided to forego that idea and concentrate on wrapping up the project. Next part: installing the roof on the main building, and building the structure that covers the tank pad.

E.L.Moore industrial park?

I thought I'd think a little bit about how Jones' Chemical Company and Bunn's Feed & Seed would be positioned on the train board. After trying a few different configurations, a side-by-side layout along a siding looked the best. I'm going to mount them to a piece of 1/4 inch acrylic cut to fit into the centre section of the layout with its long sides parallel to the siding and to the highway. I thought the acrylic sheet would provide a stable base resistant to changes in temperature and humidity that occur in the basement. Also, I wanted the base to be sturdy enough to be removable so that the display could be used on a future layout, or as a stand-alone diorama. The windmill is a Walthers kit. It's a little weird placing it near these buildings, but I want to do something with the vertical elements in the scene, and I think this will make for an interesting contrast - although, I suspect its location may change before everything is finally placed in the scene.

New tanks for Jones

I haven't done any model building in awhile, but on the weekend I spent sometime fixing up the tanks. I decided to make due with material I had in the workshop for the new tanks. I no doubt could have found some 1 1/4 inch tube or pipe for exact replicas of those in the article, but I was lazy and thought it was more in the Moore spirit to use what was on hand. So, I built two tall tanks from 1 inch diameter aluminum tube and a third small tank - peeking out of the background at the back of the pad - from the same tube. Styrene caps were glued to one end of each tube and gaps were filled and sanded to get a uniform appearance. The aluminum tubing has a length-wise crease - it used to be part of a lamp - but when turned towards the building it is not noticeable. The next stage will be to add the piping.

Preliminary tank fitting at Jones

Mr. Moore recommends building the chemical tanks from 35 mm film canisters wrapped with paper and topped with a balsa cap. With digital photography the norm, it's hard to find 35 mm film cans anymore, so I thought some substitution was in order. According to the plans, the tanks have a diameter of 1.25 inches. I did some searching - as it turns out, not enough - and decided to use some 1.5 inch diameter, plastic sink tail-pieces cut to the length of the tanks specified in the plans. The problem turns out that at 1.5 inches in diameter, they are too wide and will require some major changes to the catwalk dimensions, as well as some basic changes to the layout of the tank facility, to get things to fit. Overall, I think to preserve the interesting appearance of Mr. Moore's design I'm going to go back to the drawing board and find some other tubes with 1.25 inch diameters. I should have followed the old adage - which, ironically, I always preach, but apparently don't heed :-(  - to "measure twice, cut once". 

Truck loading dock at Jones

The truck loading dock is built from balsa wood as specified in the article. When completed it was stained with a very loose wash of brown, 'mud' and flat black paints to give it a used look. 

The tank along the back wall is an addition to Mr. Moore's project. There is one photo in the article which shows a horizontal tank peeking out from the back end of the loading dock. It looks like it was made from paper or cardboard. This tank is never discussed in the article; however, I liked it and decided to add one. My tank is made from an HO tank car that was part of a Loblaws' Christmas train set. After stripping everything from the tank, it was set on a base built up from balsa strips. The end ladder is made from Plasti-struct HO-scale stock. All the wood was stained in the same manner as the truck loading dock. The ladder was painted Tamyia yellow-green, and was washed with a thinned flat-black. Some flat aluminum paint was used to pick out worn spots on the ladder such as the foot treads.

Mr. Moore scratchbuilt all the discarded 55 gallon drums that are strewn about his model. I was lazy and used Grandt Line and Campbell 55-gallon drums. They were painted different colours and washed with thinned flat-black paint. When I studied painting I once had an instructor who thought a painting wasn't lively if it didn't have any red in it - I tend to agree, so the drums gave me an opportunity to add some red elements.

Before all these items were added to the building, the building's panels were all washed very loosely with thinned flat-black paint. I also added some signs that I had left over from other kits. I'll post some better pictures of them soon. Now, I need to find something to make the large chemical tanks out of.