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Nice Charlie! I could attach that every April Fool's Day!
I took a look at my stock of Plastruct "planks", and I don't have anything small enough currently for the front face of the building to hold the glass front. I'm going to check out a couple of places locally, but I may have to surrender and order some as well as some transparent glass. Once I get that stuff, I think I can start building the ACME.
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^^^^LOVE IT!
Tom
Life is simple - Eat, Drink, Play with trains
Occupation: Professional Old Guy (The government pays me to be old.)
Dinosaur Rider
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Plastic strips and sheets have been ordered. No luck finding anything local. In the meantime, I'm thinking about making a start on the sewage treatment plant that will be just down the hill from the ACME.
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Not that you ar looking for any additional stuff but in these parts where there was an ACMEbuilding like the one you are doing there was a Thirft Drug Store next to it or in the same shopping center.
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(11-03-2025, 01:19 PM)TMo Wrote: Plastic strips and sheets have been ordered. No luck finding anything local. In the meantime, I'm thinking about making a start on the sewage treatment plant that will be just down the hill from the ACME.
too bad you don't live closer evergreen sometime back doubled my order as a result i have more evergreen products that most hobby shops.
Jim
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(11-03-2025, 09:22 PM)tompm Wrote: Not that you ar looking for any additional stuff but in these parts where there was an ACMEbuilding like the one you are doing there was a Thirft Drug Store next to it or in the same shopping center.
Good thought, Tom, and the additional strip mall did have a drug store in it. However, I've figured out that with as large as the ACME's going to be, I'm going to be hard pressed to squeeze it and the other proposed buildings in. I'll add it to the wish list though...
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A small forgotten mall business that would work for a filler in your time frame is Fotomat. They were just a small kiosk. You are really doing a fine job with this portion of the layout.
Charlie
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Sweet! That's a great suggestion and would fit just about anywhere!
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Sewage treatment.... There's a lot more to pooh gas than you'd think...
I've been working on some basics for the sewage treatment plant which is located between the ACME and the river. From the satellite pictures, it looks like there was an older plant located to the south of the new one, but I'll only be focusing on the new one which has three "clarifiers". Clarifiers are the biggest items you see in most sewage treatment plants and are the large circular bins that allow solids to settle out of sewage and allow for oxygenation and some breakdown through biological decomoposition. There are motors in each clarifier that stir up the wastewater and encourage settling. Here's a typical cutaway...
So, building clarifiers... I found a piece of 3.75" OD plastic tubing a few years ago and thought it might be useful for something. Today's the day when I took a handsaw to it and cut three inch and a quarter sections out of it. Sanded the edges and the exterior and interior surfaces and I think I'll paint them a base coat of light gray and add some additional concrete details later. They are a bit smaller in scale than the prototype, but I need to start saving some space anyway.
Here's a shot from the Rt 940 bridge approaching town and looking south - it's really the only ground level shot I have of the tanks. My thought is to model the top walkways and the feedwell, but keep each clarifier "full" of liquidish stuff to the scum baffle. I'm not really sure how I'm going to do this - trial and error once again...
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A bit more progress on sewage...
Cut down some plastic pipe from some old sink drains to serve as the central well for each clarifier and base coated them with a coat of gray paint. They will also support the catwalk decking on the top of each clarifier. Looked into HO scale grating/handrails and decided to pull the lever on a couple of Tichy grating and handrail sets which I think will work very nicely. I bought some scale piping last week when I visited a hobby shop up in York, so things are starting to come together pretty quickly on the sewage treatment plant. There is also a small narrow brick single story building on the property that is probably used for clorination/offices/etc. I'll have to think about what I can model that with.
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I slapped the base coat of gray on the viewable surfaces of each clarifier and feed well, cut a base for each of them and glued the pieces down to each base. My plan is to load them up with plaster to the top level of each feedwell. Once it dries, I'll paint the plaster a greenish brown. After I've put in all of the other structure (skimmer arm, supports for the walkway and drive motor), I'll load in a layer of Realistic Water and then add some water effects to simulate movement of the sewage.
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Now I worked next to a sewage treatment plant for 11 years. The head operator was a great guy. Our boss from upstate New York was down for a visit and I mentioned that Darwin was a man that really knew his s*(&. My boss about lost it. One of the operators had fish tanks that had gold fish in the water that had been treated and ready for discharge. They would empty the sludge tanks into large areas lined with sand and allow it to dry and when it was deemed safe it was given away for fertilizer.
There were some pretty big piles at times but I don't know if you want to get that carried away with your model. 
Some of these plants have exploded. They capture the methane gas and use it in the plant. I have not read about what exactly they use it for. Sometime I will check on that. I have a septic tank cleaning truck on my layout, a model of the one my father in law had in the late 50's and early 60's.
Charlie
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In my dabbling I have seen videos that say the methane is burned to heat the plant facilities - don't know what they do in the summertime! I don't see a spot for piles on the overhead, they must ship their s*(&!
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Here is the one I worked next to. their sludge area adjoined our property. I was an operator at the hydro plant that is identified. I modeled one of the plants that we had in upper new York.
Charlie
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Yeah, you can clearly see the s*(& bins. Looks like there was plenty of room for dried sludge.
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