Drilling holes in the Walthers Blower Engine House Wall
#1
Hey guys, i thought i might pass this information on and share this with any of the steel modelers who are building the Walthers Ashland Iron & Steel Blower Engine House.

As you guys know, the Blower Engine House goes with the Blast Furnace, and sits to the left of the Stoves of the BF. There is some piping that connects the Stove Piping to the right end of the Blower House. Walthers does not provide any locating points as to where the pipes are supposed to go in on the back of the Blower House Wall, so they leave it up to you to place and cut the holes for the 3 pipes yourself. This is not exactly the easiest thing do do....

I struggled for about an hour in arranging the pipes and trying to mark where the holes needed to be drilled on the Blower House. What i ended up doing was putting a layer of supper glue on the end of the pipe, connecting the other end of the pipe to the Furnace Pipes, and then shoving the Blower House to butt up against the side of the pipe with the supper glue on it. I waited a second and then pulled the pipe away from the Blower wall and set it aside. This left a ring of glue where the pipe needed to go through. After the glue was dry, i would do the next pipe and did this three times so there was three different pipe locations on the wall (small, medium, and large pipes). The tricky thing was to keep everything lined up properly lol. This was done by tracing footprint lines on my workbench of both the Blower House and the Stove Structure, and double checking that each structure was still lined up with the lines on the work bench to keep it all square and in order.

After all 3 pipes were "glued" to the Blower House wall and left the rings of where the pipes needed to go through, i did a rough sketch with a Sharpie marker around the glue line. Then i got the Pipe Connectors and glued them to the Blower Wall so the traced pipe marks lined up with the inside rim of the Pipe Connectors.

Now it was time for the drilling. My grandfather and i spent about an hour drilling the holes out on the Blower wall for each size of pipe. Starting from a small pilot hole in the center of each proposed hole, and using a SLOW drill speed, we gradually worked are way up increasing the bit size by a 1/16"-1/8" at a time. This kept the bit from tearing into too much of the plastic. 5/16" drill bit did it for the small hole, and then filed it slightly to remove some flash. The small pipe fit perfect. We kept going up all the way to half inch on the medium and small holes. The medium hole was roughly 9/16", but we had to stop at 1/2" and file the rest of the medium hole because my granfather didnt have a larger bit then 1/2" in the drills we were using. it wasnt long before the medium hole was opened up and the pipe fit. The exact size we opened it up to was 35/64" and the pipe fit like a glove. Now it was on to the large pipe. The hole had been opened up to 1/2" but needed to go to roughly 5/8" in diameter to accept the large pipe. So my grandfather busted out another set of bits called Fortsner Bits, in this set he had a 5/8". After we used the 5/8" Fortsner bit, the hole was still slightly too small to accept the painted large pipe, so we used the file to open the hole up to 41/64" and now the large Pipe fit like a glove as well.

That was the hard part, and we did this while the Blower House was assembled, which was no easy task. Next time ill be doing the holes before i get it assembled.

Now you may ask, Josh how would you drill the holes in the wall if you dont have it assembled and line up the pipes again???? Well thats where my grandfather showed me another useful thing i can use whenever i build the Blower House (which ill be doing at least 4-5 more times in the near future) and any other structure that needs to have pipe holes drilled out in the walls. Now im not good at math, but i learned pretty quickly and it was pretty easy to take the measurements of exactly where the hole were drilled on the wall for next time. I did a drawling of the actual size of the wall in my trackplanning program, and i listed all the measurements i will need to know next time i build the Blower House. My grandfather has a Milling Machine, so all we will have to do next time is plop in the points and measurements i just took, and sit back and let the machine do the work and drill the three holes for us. Piece of cake letting a machine do all the work Misngth and it will result in perfect circle holes in exactly the right locations to accept the pipes!

Im attaching a picture of the drawling i did with the measurements in case you guys would like to see it and use it for your Blower House. Now unless you guys also have a Milling Machine, you wont be able to have a machine drill the holes for you, but at least you will know exactly where to plot and drill the holes without having to assemble the Blower House, then line up the pipes, then mark them, and then drill them lol.

I would like to note that i did my pipe arrangement slightly different then what Walthers did. On the medium pipe, the right side where it connects to the Furnace Pipe, i put 2 elbows in there to push the pipe over a little farther on the Blower Wall to spread all 3 pipes out a little more. I think the Elbows add some character as well, and make it that much more eye catching.

If anyone is interested in having my grandfathers Milling Machine drill the holes in there Blower House wall, you can send it in a letter size envelope to me and we can drill it for you. Drop me a PM and we can work something out if your interested.

So here are the drawling and some pics of the pipes in the holes on the Blower House (NOTE! The Blower House & the Piping have not been weathered yet). If you would like a PDF version of the drawling please let me know and i can email it to you.

[Image: SL373521.jpg]

[Image: SL373522.jpg]

[Image: SL373523.jpg]

[Image: SL373524.jpg]


Attached Files Image(s)
   
Josh Mader

Maders Trains
Offering everyday low prices for the Model Railroad World
Reply
#2
Good post, Josh. For those who don't have a mill, a drill press could also be used, or an electric drill. I would suggest that you use a variable speed cordless drill or screw driver to keep the speed and power down.
Reply
#3
Russ Bellinis Wrote:Good post, Josh. For those who don't have a mill, a drill press could also be used, or an electric drill. I would suggest that you use a variable speed cordless drill or screw driver to keep the speed and power down.

Thanks Russ Misngth

I realize it may be pretty hard to get the measurements with the fractions because most tape measures and rulers dont go up to 64th's of an inch, but the fractions can also be converted into millimeters. Pulling up a chart from conversions for basic measurements from fractions to millimeters should be pretty easy to find with a google search.

here is an attachment with the measurements in decimal form for those of you who may be using a Milling Machine at home


Attached Files Image(s)
   
Josh Mader

Maders Trains
Offering everyday low prices for the Model Railroad World
Reply
#4
Trucklover Wrote:I realize it may be pretty hard to get the measurements with the fractions because most tape measures and rulers dont go up to 64th's of an inch, but the fractions can also be converted into millimeters. Pulling up a chart from conversions for basic measurements from fractions to millimeters should be pretty easy to find with a google search.

A good set of digital callipers can convert from fractional inches to decimal inches to metric. If you are getting down to 64-ths, you probably don't want to be using a tape measure anyway...

Andrew
Reply
#5
You can also use your "model railroad" scale ruler. You know the one that has scale feet in differet in O, HO, S and N scales on it.
Torrington, Ct.
NARA Member #87
I went to my Happy Place, but it was closed for renovations.
Reply
#6
Another trick that you can use to mark where to drill the holes without assembling the blower house first is to build the blast furnace to get the pipes located. hen you set the blast furnace on a flat surface and dab a bit of lipstick, poster paint, or other colorant that will wash off afterwards. You the push the wall of the blower house against the pipes in the correct orientation to the blast furnace and the marks will give you the locations for the holes.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)