The glue factory

My next project is a glue factory.  The inspiration was a postcard of the Keystone glue factory that was located near Williamsport Pennsylvania.  That factory was built in 1907 and the plant closed in 1950.  While I have not seen that many glue factories, this one is the most modelgenic one I have seen in a photo.  The others I recall seeing pictures of are the Eastern Tanners Glue Factory in Gowanda, NY and the Peter Cooper glue factory in Gowanda, NY.  I guess Gowanda was a good location for glue factories.  Both of those were large factories with little modeling appeal.  My model will of course be much smaller than the actual factory as usual.

The Keystone glue factory was served by the Pennsylvania railroad and a local trolley company.  It had storage buildings, drying buildings and and a boiler building with six boilers.  It also consumed large quantities of coal.

These animal glue companies apparently used mostly waste by-products from tanneries, unlike the common story about old horses going to the glue factory.  While they may have used some horses that was a very minor source of material.

My previous project of building a model tannery was not all that different from the glue factory.  They employed similar processes.  the glue factory had three major operations; preparing the stock, boiling the stock and treating and drying the resulting glue solution.   The glue making process was very messy as seen in the photo below.

The glue factory photo above shows a conveyor  transporting large masses of slippery materials to cooking vats.  These factories were messy places similar in many ways to tanneries.

I have made a rough design and started on the first building in the complex.  Doing the initial design is always difficult,  second only to deciding on what I will model.  The inspiration postcard is from a moderately large collection of railroad and industry postcards I collected over the years.  During the late 1800s and the first half of the 1900s postcards were a popular means of communication.  Now we have email and texting, and for some people (not me) social media where people share way too much information.  I find some of the messages on  old postcards to be interesting insights into peoples lives - sort of like being able to read peoples emails, something hackers occasionally do.  The Internet, while quite useful, can be a dangerous place if you are not careful.  That is why I do not post any comments that include Internet links.  While most are probably innocuous,  I do not want to take a chance nor should I put any reader in that position.  We are now also entering on the era of the Internet of Things (IOT).  That will include situations where, for example, your refrigerator can communicate with you.  I don't need my appliances sending me messages nor do I need to send messages to them.  But before you decide I just don't understand these things, I spent a significant part of my working life in the computer and information security business.

Western Maryland Railroad bridges

Here are two photos of Western Maryland Railroad bridges vintage 1922.

The first photo shows a long plate girder metal bridge crossing what I believe is the upper Potomac river in Cumberland Maryland.  For me the buildings in the photo are more interesting than the bridge.  It appears that this was a popular location for laundries, perhaps due to the river.

The water level in the river is low, but being an upper branch of the main river perhaps it was often like this.  Those buildings offer some interesting modeling ideas.

The next photo shows a Western Maryland two-span through truss bridge near Cumberland Maryland.  The bridge crosses what was then known as the National Highway (or National Road) - the first major improved highway in the U.S. built by the federal government.  That road is now part of several highways including U.S. rte 40.  The bridge also crosses B&O railroad tracks.  The river in this photo is probably also the Potomac River.

I am guessing the National Road is to the left and the B&O tracks cross the stone arch bridge.

I have decided what industry I will model next and will post something on it in a few days.

Used goods store model complete

I have completed the used goods store model (unless I decide to add more details).  This was a reasonably easy model to build.  The left side and back have very little detail.  I expect to have the left side adjoin another structure and the back will be hard to view as it will face away from the edge of the layout.  The right side was made from a plain sheet of wood which I scribed vertically and then added 1x2 battens over most of the scribed lines.  The shed is commercial vertical scribed siding with a corrugated metal roof.

I added a screen door on each side of the main entrance.  There is an assortment of furniture on the porch including a chair, the end of a metal bed,  two dressers and and washing machine.  There are also two figures.

The three double pane windows are commercial castings.  All other windows and doors are scratch built from wood and cardstock.

Now I will have to decide what to build next.

Railroad industry kick-back track

Years ago some industries used elevated dump facilities to dump their product.  This was mostly used by coal handling businesses, though some other businesses such as grain elevators used the kick-back process.  Sometimes the empty rail cars rolled down a ramp after being unloaded, and then rolled up a high "kick-back" ramp which was designed to cause the car to stop rolling and reverse,  rolling back down the ramp being diverted to a storage track for later removal by a locomotive.  The ramp displayed below served a grain elevator operated by the Reading Railroad at  Philadelphia, PA.

Sometimes a brakeman would ride the top of the cars to provide some control over the process - not a very safe job.  The tracks on the kick-back were laid on reinforced concrete buttresses to support the weight and thrust of the cars.  The empty cars rolled off of the kick-back and were automatically diverted to empty storage tracks.

The photo above shows the track arrangement at the base of the kick-back, which appear in the distance.  One track was the feeder from the dump, the rest were for storage of dumped cars.

Years ago I visited a club model railroad that had an operating coal dumping facility with a kick-back.

Second hand goods store start

I have started working on a model of a Second Hand Goods store inspired by a photo in an old book.  This building is about 30 feet wide by 20 feet deep.  It is all wood with horizontal planking on the front and vertical capped siding on the sides and the back as seen in the prototype photo.  I am not building this exactly as in the photo, but am upgrading it as the prototype is somewhat crude.  So far I have constructed only the front of the structure.

Yet to be added is roof trim at the top, corner trim, a low porch along the base, double screen doors on each side of the center doorway and signs and posters.  The center door is the entrance to the store and is inset about 2 feet.  The right door is for access to the upper floor which is the residence for the proprietors family.

I plan to place some of the store goods (mostly furniture) on the porch - a chance to use some of the cast metal SS Ltd furniture I bought years ago.  Putting that furniture inside of a structure is mostly a waste as it is very hard to see even if the structure is lighted.  I did furnish the interior of an old Yorke bordello kit with full and populated interior.  Since those details are on the upper floor, I made the roof removable.  Even so they are hard to see as the structure is about 2 feet from the edge of the layout, thus only tall people can see inside unless a foot stool is used.

Below is the photo of the prototype.

I am also planning to add a storage shed on the right side of the building.

Car to truck model conversion

I had a built model of an old style car (I believe it was from an old Dyna Models Products kit) that my father built many years ago.  The Dyna Models cast metal vehicles were interesting but fairly crude.  In any event it did not fit my layout so I decided to convert it to a truck.

I removed the figure and the convertible roof, then I ground down the little box trunk at the back.  I also lowered the steering wheel which was too high.  I repainted the vehicle a more conservative black.

I added a pickup back end and a roof.  The additions were done using card stock and wood scraps.  I like the revised vehicle better.

Dyna Models also manufactured small wood structures, some using a rubber shingle roof cover.  I found that the rubber sometimes contracted due to the type of glue used to attach it to the roof, resulting in it pulling away from the edge of the roof - BAD!  I quickly learned not to use the rubber roof covering.  Other than that, the structure kits were not bad for the time.  I do not believe Dyna Models is still in business.

Billboard wall

I have built a stone wall with billboards on top.  Actually the stone wall is a commercial product.  The reason  for this wall is to provide separation from the Paper Box Company factory without adding yet another structure next to it.  I have not decided what will be to the right of the wall but it will likely be another structure.

The billboards are scratch built and the images are from a collection of billboard images I have accumulated.   In the early 1900s it was not uncommon to string multiple billboards together to utilize dead space on long walls or fences - sometimes around construction sites.

Above is an example of a wall of billboards.  That wall was around a construction site in New York about 1906.

My next structure will be a fairly small wood commercial business.

Paper box factory partially complete

The factory is in place and the elevated walkways are complete.  I have done some detailing around the factory and have begun adding scenery - lots more to do.  I built several open cardboard boxes for details around the outside of the factory.  One of the larger ones is next to the front platform.  They were made from paper and painted tan.

To the right of the factory is the start of a wall which will have a row of billboards on top.  I am tired of making these moderately large structures agains the wall so my next structure will be a small wood structure.

One thing I have found is that the  room lighting on this structure is not good due to the location.  I am not sure at this point what to do about it since I did not include lighting in the structure.  One thought I have is to drill a hole through the benchwork from the under side at the back of the alley to the right - out of sight - and install a small bulb to light the back of the alley.  I will have to see if this will work.