Freelance 2011

[Harry]

great work, Reinhard

[bdw9535]

Reinhard,

The conveyors that you have are used for moving coal or aggregate, don't believe they would be appropiate for grain.
Here's a link to a grain elevator site, you should be able to get an idea on how the grain is moved into the silos.
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Bruce

[faraway]

Just a last update for today.

Bruce, you are right. The belt conveyor I use from Walthers are not designed for grain but for coal, cement etc. I did use them because General Mills is indeed using belt conveyors but they are covered and have no open sides as it usual for coal. The examples you sent are the standard way how it is done for "storage" grain elevators with pipes etc. The installation in Vernon is a plant for all kind of cereals like corn flakes etc. You may notice (photo from Andy) the extensive transportation facilities (far exceeding any "storage" grain elevator) used at that GM plant. I assume they have to move a lot of intermediate products into the smaller silos.
ps. You know, it never rails in southern California

[fwwrmodeler]

Reinhard,

Did you scratchbuild the small silos or are they from a kit.

[faraway]

I think there is a simple solution to soften the problem of the open "coal conveyors". I did close the sides with a strip of styrene. That is more like the prototype with the closed conveyors of unknown internal details.


The small silos are "Industrial silos" part number 130476 made by Faller.

[Tyson Rayles]

The complex looks great and is probably bigger than my whole layout!

[bdw9535]

Reinhard,

That looks like a very resonable fix, nice job on the mill complex.

Bruce

[Ralph]

That's super! Glad to decided to build it after all!

[faraway]

Thanks for the kind words.
Last details have been added and I could call i completed (at least for now). I did think about weathering but the Vernon climate does not put black dust on white walls and washes it down in black stripes on rainy days. White walls do look mostly white at least if they do not belong to a very run down business. The normal light and sun in my home office will tone down my used white primer a bit over the time and the "natural" dust will do it's job too

I do feel comfortable with the model since I dropped the idea to build the Vernon mill in vertical scale of may be 1:200 and a horizontal scale of about 1:120. This is a 1:87 scale model of a small to medium free lance mill very much inspired by the GM mill in Vernon.

[Southern Tuxedo]

Reinhard,

That looks AWESOME.

Even though it is compressed, it still is a massive structure that should require a fair amount of rail traffic.

Did I mention that i love it?

Mark

[fast car]

[quote="faraway"]Thanks for the kind words.
Last details have been added and I could call i completed (at least for now). I did think about weathering but the Vernon climate does not put black dust on white walls and washes it down in black stripes on rainy days. White walls do look mostly white at least if they do not belong to a very run down business. The normal light and sun in my home office will tone down my used white primer a bit over the time and the "natural" dust will do it's job too

Reinhard,

Looks very nice. Light weathering might be the way to go especially on the converyors since they are exposed to the elements (rust and such) that could extend slightly down the top of the silos.

Larry

[Russ Bellinis]

Fantastic Reinhard! I'll need to keep this one in mind for my LAJ since I've decided to model General Mills for covered hopper traffic instead of the now closed and removed Great Western Malting facility that I took many pics of a few years ago to use for modeling purposes.

[faraway]

Weathering is a more delicate task than widely known. I thought a soft and thin coat of very light gray from the spray can might be a fine simulation of dust.
To do so I held the separate units of the mill over the balustrade of the balcony in the 4.th floor. The main part was held with the left hand and the light gray rattle can in the right hand. After about 5 seconds over the balustrade did the main part start to separate in two parts and glide slowly out of my hand. I did pull back my hand and all parts made it over the balustrade to crash on the tiling of the balcony.

Ok, this evening is "glue time". Nothing is really broken or destroyed. I had a lot of luck

ps. Be carefully when you do weathering the next time
pps. The weathering worked. The super clean white became an ordinary white and the beautiful dark gray silos are somewhat dusty.

[Mr Fixit]

Phew. That was a close one, I dont think the model would be salvageable if it fell from the 4th floor.

Sounds to me like Reinhard has been engaging in 'Extreme Weathering' in as much as the weathering technique is Extremely Dangerous for his wonderful models.

Keep up the good work Reinhard, minus the Extreme Weathering adventures [please].

Mark

[Gary S]

The General Mills facility looks terrific. I'm glad it didn't make the quick trip down to the ground floor!

Keep up the good work!