Railroad storage shed model

The next model I am building is this storage shed I photographed some years ago on a railfan trip in Pennsylvania.  I think this shed was somewhere near Lancaster though I did not make any notation on the back of the photo.  My model will be a shortened version of the prototype having only three compartments to avoid overwhelming the location on the layout where it will be placed.

This shed has obviously seen some wear and is somewhat in disrepair.  The roof appears to be covered in some loose roofing material with a few boards showing.  It seems to be facing a siding as the track and ties are well worn.  Perhaps the loco in the back is on the mainline.  My model will be mostly wood and somewhat distressed also.

I will leave one of the doors open and place some details inside - not sure yet what they will be.

Acid tank truck for glue factory

I built a small tank truck for the acid tank at my glue factory.  The starting point was a plastic army style tank trailer which I modified and added a front end.

As a close-up it looks a little crude but sitting on the layout it looks decent.  The cab and front end were made from card stock.  The headlights were pieces on plastic sprue rounded ends.  The front bumper is a strip of metal.

The spigot on the back of the tank is the end of a train line hose.   Below is a photo of the tank trailer that I started with.

I cut off the squared fenders and made new ones from card stock.  It was a simple and fun project.

I have decided on my next structure to build.  I am using a photo I took on one of my railman trips to Pennsylvania.

Glue factory acid tank plus updates

The glue factory acid tank is a little dude - about 7 1/2 scale feet high (about one inch).  Acid was used in the glue preparation process to dissolve the hide or bone components to create the glue solution.  The tank was built using a short piece of wood dowel with a strip of card stock glued around the base to give the the off-set with a wider base than the top.  I then glued strips of wood around the dowel giving them a slight sanding at the top so the boards would remain parallel.

I added small pieces of wood to support the metal support cables (thread) and keep them away from the tank containing the acid as did the prototype.  Unlike the prototype photo I used as my guide,  I made a flat wood top with a tank access hatch in the center.  The ladder was built from wood strips.  This tank will be located outside and in front of the boiler house.

Above is a photo of a prototype wood acid tank vintage 1944.  It actually shows two tanks but my facility is small so I only need one tank.

This completes my glue factory.  I will finish with some additional signs and scenery.

Update information

Below are some additional prototype acid tank photos.

Above are some acid storage tanks  vintage 1937 made from Haveg, a phenol formaldehyde type resin reinforced by outside wooden strips.  These tanks are apparently 10 foot high and 10 feet in diameter.

The above photo shows two Mills-Packard tanks for the manufacture of sulphuric acid.  Here you can see even these large tanks use wood separators to keep the metal bands away from the sides of the tanks.  The exterior of these tanks are water cooled by a curtain of water from the top.

I am considering my next industry/model to build.  I am working with a few ideas.

Glue factory water tank

This is a wood water tank to supply water to the boiler house for both the boiler and the glue prep tanks.  The water tank was constructed around a small cardboard tube.  The tank structure is about 32 feet high and is constructed mostly of wood strips and card stock.  The ladder is a commercial plastic part.

The tank bands were made with coarse thread, tack glued to the tank, then when all bands were on I sprayed the tank with clear flat to adhere the bands.  

The photo above shows the tank structure temporarily in place next to the boiler house awaiting scenery.  

Next I will build the acid tank for the glue making process.  When that is complete I will scenic the entire factory area.

Glue factory storage and shipping building

This structure took longer than I expected that it would.  This is the last of the glue factory buildings - next I will build a water tower and some chemical tanks, and then scenic the entire factory area.  This is a wood structure with a masonry (hydrocal) foundation.

The shipping dock is on the near end of the structure.  It will not have a rail siding.  There are a number of details on the roof,  seen in this view is a pallet, and a tarp covered stack of barrels.  The barrels under the tarp are simple dowel sections and the tarp is made from facial tissue.  

In the above view you can see the dock on the left side of the building for moving materials into the storage building.  The barrels of finished glue products are moved from the dry house via the upper balcony onto the roof of the storage building, and then lowered by a vertical conveyor inside the building.  The worker on the balcony is moving a barrel by rolling it with his feet - very inappropriate.  He is a plastic figure and I added a hat to his head and an apron to his front. 

I still plan to add more details to this structure but most of it is complete.  The finished building has a much different look from my initial sketches.  I also made changes as construction progressed - that is usually the way I build things.  It sometimes presents problems in the construction process.  

A busy lumber yard 1939

These photos show a busy lumber yard in 1939.  Those are really high stacks of lumber.  In the first photo you can see the stack of the steam sawmill in the back of the lumber piles on the left.  I thought I had some decent lumber piles at my layout sawmill but they are nothing like these.

There are two car loads of lumber in this scene.  They have just come from the mill and will be off-loaded for drying.  You can see that there are separator boards between the layers of lumber to allow drying.

This photo shows another area of the lumber yard with a two-wheeled wagon heavily loaded with lumber.  That dirt road through the yard is heavily rutted from the heavy loads traversing it.

The above photo shows a modern load of poles.  I took the photo in 1990 near Washington Grove, Maryland.  I found the means of securing the poles to be interesting.

Glue factory dry house

The dry house for a glue factory functioned differently depending on the type of glue being manufactured.  In no case did it make the glue solution totally dry, but rather it removed most of the moisture created when the glue stock was boiled in the boiler house.  The resulting "dried" glue ranged from a thick liquid to glue gelatin and many solutions in between.   Modern glue manufacturing is somewhat different but my factory operates in 1939 and uses processes developed years earlier.

Above is my version of a glue dry house which is located to the right of the coal storage and supply facility.  The base is a hydrocal masonry stone style floor which contains the furnace that supplies heat the the floors above to support the drying process. The primary drying process occurs on the second floor and the resulting product is moved along the outside balcony to the storage and shipping facility which will be located to the right of this structure.  The third floor contains the control machinery for the interior barrel hoist for moving the glue from the basement where it enters the building after leaving the boiler house.  It also houses office space for the glue factory.

Above is a 1927 photo showing a wire frame glue drying device.   In this case they were creating glue gelatin.

I may later add more details to this structure.

Today I used a lawn sweeper to remove leaves from my lawn.  This is basically a large wheeled bag with a wide rotating brush that sweeps grass, leaves or whatever from the lawn into a bag and is pulled by my lawn tractor.  It sure beats raking leaves but it filled up with leaves quickly requiring frequent dumping.  I have just short of 2 acres surrounded by trees, and with trees also in the yard.  That is a lot of leaves.