Vintage hot metal cars and my next project

These hot metal cars are circa about 1911 or so, built for a mill in the Pittsburgh PA area.

These were pre bottle car hot metal cars - looks kind of like a hot metal ladle on wheels.

My Next Project

I am now building a brick structure to adjoin the galvanizing plant so the weird triangle structure has something to adjoin.  It is similar to the structure in the prototype photo.  I have created the four walls but no windows or doors yet.  Most of this last week were spent on the usual research and planning.

The Fox Saga

Here is a photo of a disappointed fox who did not find any food in his bowl.

The fox is pissing on the bowl to mark it as his territory just in case another critter got there first.  This photo was taken at sunset thus the lighting effects.  We only put food in the bowl when we have leftover scraps or bones thus there are more days with no food than with food.  There are always squirrels they can eat.  This photo occurred before the recent snow and really cold weather - so much for global warming.  I am looking forward to summer!!

Galvanizing company model work yard

Constructing this work yard took longer than I expected due to all of the details.  The yard is about 20 by 20 feet which is smaller than it should be but real estate on my layout is at a premium.  I started with a card stock base which I painted to seal it.  I then constructed a wood fence board by board as the prototype appeared to have.  The side adjoining the building obviously has no fence and the front fence has an opening - no gate.  I constructed a wood crane with a hook and installed it against the inside of the back fence.  The other details inside the yard include a used galvanizing tank made from card stock, lots of barrels, a pallet with a load of buckets, a dolley, a figure, etc, then last I built a roof over the yard and sheathed it with rusted corrugated sheets - ironic for a galvanizing company but this business only galvanizes small items such as buckets and pails.  I covered the yard area with fine light gray cinder.

Above is a view from the building side.

Galvanizing is essentially the process of applying a coating of zinc to iron or steel.  For this company the process is done by dipping the item in a galvanizing pot.

Above is a photo of the yard attached to the building.

Another shot above of the inside of the yard.

My next challenge with this model is to find a place for it on my layout.  I am almost to the point where I have to remove a structure to add a new one unless the new one is very small.

Galvanizing company model

My inspiration for this model was an old photo in an early Philadelphia industrial photo book.  Since the book was published in 1986 I cannot post the 1915 photo here due to copyright.  My model is fairly faithful to the prototype with minor exceptions such as the font style on the front of the building.  The fonts were unusual and I do not have easy access to them.  This industry was primarily a galvanizing company which apparently has a successor still in existence though in a different location with a more modern business.  At the time of the photo the company also had a sideline selling (and maybe making) auto tire filler material.

The prototype photo shows this building against a taller structure on the left hence the unusual form.  On the right was a fenced area with a shed apparently part of this business - in any event I will next be building an outside work yard for the right side of my building.  There is no interior detail in this building.  All windows are commercial products.

As you can see by this 3/4 view the roof is tarpaper style.  The shelf detail on the right side is a commercial casting.  I painted the structure front (and rear) a cream color as the B&W photo showed the prototype was apparently a light (though not white) color.  The right side is unpainted with the wood stained only by my india ink and alcohol mixture as this side adjoins the outside work area and I want that all to look rustic.  The prototype photo showed only the front so I was on my own for the rest of the building.

This view shows the rear of the building and the multiple roof slopes.  For the rear wall I used a probably now extinct product once made by a company called Acme Visible Records, Inc.  It consisted of flexible sheets of thin wood strips covered with paper and was used in filing systems.  This is left over from a long ago job when I was a working guy.  The "boards" are a scale 12" width and they are already connected into a "wall".  I merely added paint and weathering.

Originally I built this structure without windows in the front doors as below.

After I was finished I decided it would look better with the windows in the doors as that was what the prototype had so I removed the doors, modified them, then added them back.  Since I mostly use white glue that was not a problem.

For me, the most interesting part of this industry was the Bettern-air business.  The product was described as a vulcanized vegetable product like rubber (actually raw rubber came from trees so was effectively a vegetable product).  Information on the Bettern-air product was not easy to find.  They claimed it was more resilient than rubber and came in 24 inch long "logs" with diameters designed to fit inside the tire casings, replacing inner tubes (another thankfully long gone product).  They cautioned the product should not be used at high speeds which they defined as being over 30 MPH.  Since the resulting tire was effectively solid "rubber" I am guessing the ride would have been rough - especially with he poor roads of the time.  While reading about the vaguely defined material I could not help but wonder if this could have been an early use of Gutta Percha.  Since the prototype photo was from 1915 and I model 1939 it is not clear the product would still have been in use during my era - but not impossible.  As to inner tubes, I recall riding on moderately long automobile trips in the 1940s with my parents and it was not uncommon to have one or more flat tires during the trip.

My next project will be the work yard beside the building.

Abandoned shack installed on the layout

I installed the shack on a narrow strip of land between the mainline and the edge of the layout.  By being close to the layout edge the details inside of the shack can be seen.

Among the details added during installation are the rat on the porch, a snake on the ground between the porch and the water pump,  an old car without wheels resting on ties, and broken boards and shards of window glass lying on the ground.  The rusty barrel on the other end of the porch was made from a section of soda straw with a paper bottom.

This end of the shack has a fenced in area and an old wagon.  This was an enjoyable project and quite easy to do.

In answer to the question on how I made the rat - it is a commercial product from the small animal set by Busch as is the snake.