P5se Camelback's 2010 Summer Structure Challenge GERN Plant

[P5se Camelback]

O.K. … I’ve put this off long enough! It’s time to stop agonizing over a decision and make one before this Challenge gets away from me and I have to sprint to catch up (and it’s not pretty watching a guy with COPD sprint!) I am officially throwing my surveying transit and bunches of HO scale LPB’s with shovels and brick hods into the 2010 Big Blue Summer Structure Challenge. There, I said it! :o

The subject of my madness shall be a GERN Processing Plant for Lehighton, Penna. Rail service will be provided by the Lehigh Susquehanna & Western. Building permits were applied for on Monday afternoon, September 7th, 1936, and there is every expectation that permits will be granted. A reporter from the Lehighton Evening Leader was seen lurking outside the Building Records office all Monday afternoon, obviously looking for a scoop for tonight’s paper! A spokesman for GERN could not be reached for comment at this time.

Not having ever been involved in a challenge like this before, I shall assume that many “Fo-toes” will be required to document progress and I suppose there is no time like the present to start that process. So here is the "Official Initial Fo-toe” of this entry into the Big Blue 2010 Summer Structure Challenge ...

“Structure Parts Palette”



Actual materials used will totally depend on the results of a survey of a location which, at this point in time, exists only on a torn-off piece of ancient Canary Tracing paper, torn from a roll left over from when I was a student at Philadelphia College of Art. I can't believe that roll of crappy tracing paper is still usable! hock:

Let the fun begin!

[Puddlejumper]

This is going to be a great project! I will be watching this build!

Not having ever been involved in a challenge like this before, I shall assume that many “Fo-toes” will be required to document progress

:needpics:

[e-paw]

Great start to you too. That's quit the collection of Kit-bashable parts... Good luck.

[Gary S]

Alright biL!!! Glad to see you entering the challenge.

I too am interested in what you can create out of all them there parts!

[MasonJar]

biL

Looks like you have the makings of a fantastic GERN facility. Ol' Cookie will be proud - and rightly so - of this latest addition.

Andrew

[P5se Camelback]

As I sat on the floor in the corner of the room, Yeungling in a frozen mug in hand, surrounded by the stack of stuff in "Faux-Toe" #One ... I didn't yet arrive at what I'm actually doing, but I did manage to do some thinking about the project in front of me. Yes! (Design School is starting to come back to me) ... to solve the design problem, first identify the problem, then develop a set of goals for solving the problem ... Aha! Next step ... GOALS!

Goals of this Structure Build …

1. Have Fun!

2. Challenge myself to design and build a believable “freshly built” structure that has the “Flavor of an Upstate Pennsylvania Small Town Industry.” (Fear not … all newly constructed building gather “weathering,” but over time … not instantly!)

3. Blend parts from several kits together in a logical, believable fashion (No! Not that kind of “Fashion,” you Silly Goose! Geez!)

4. Develop a site plan that will “work” in the as-yet-to-be-determined, non-real estate, still-just-air-in-the-corner-of-the-room final location, situated in the yet-to-be-laid-out town of Lehighton, Pennsylvania, circa 1936.

5. Consider photographic angles when laying out Site Plan.

6. Provide rail access for the delivery of coal for the generation of the plant’s self-contained electrical power and well as for heat in the winter for administrative offices. Do not forget the need to remove ashes from coal-fired furnesses and convey them away!

7. Provide rail access for Receiving of both liquid and solid raw materials as well as for “finished product” such as machinery and “consumables”.

8. Provide rail access for Shipping liquids in bulk as well as in jobber-sized containers, and solids in burlap bags/sacks, metal “tins,” pasteboard boxes and wooden crates.

9. Remember to tie rail access to existing track plan or highly revised soon-to-be-worked-out alternative track plan.

10. “Plant” the structure(s) on the site using landscaping materials.

11. Remember to include signs of “life.”

12. Try new modeling techniques as well as revive once-existing modeling skills!

13. … did I mention, HAVE A GOOD TIME DOING IT!!!

[P5se Camelback]

O.K.! Let's get off the dime!

Maybe let's have a "Profile" structure backed up against the wall and maybe have tracks to "north staging" run between it and another structure and then disappear into the "shadows." Hmmmmmm! What might that "Profile" structure look like? Hmmmmmm ...



Now, in an effort to discourage Peeping Toms from discovering the lack of a interiors in these structures ...
Paint all interior walls Ace Hardware Rattle-Can Flat Black!



And while we consider how many structures, their sizes, relationships to each other as well as to the site, let's do some basic wall assembly ...



EDIT: Resize & Repost Photos.

[P5se Camelback]

Now that most (but not all - the brand-new rattle can of flat black flat stopped spraying!) of the walls have had their interiors sprayed black, it was time for an initial test fitting ...





As I sat there looking at these walls, and the walls from the Superior Bakery/Weekly Herald kits on the floor (picture above,) plus the walls from several other kits, it became painfully obvious that this project was too large to try to conceive structure sizes, wall arrangements, relationships between buildings as well as to the site, all inside this old head :? ... I'm just not sharp enough any more to keep that all fluid in that changes can be made on the fly but still nailed down conceptually, totally inside my head!

It's amazing how when you are away from a 38-year, "life-long" profession for a couple of years, you totally forget the design development process you used to use every day of your life! So ... remembering "The Design Process," and realizing that if I approached this thing like a major design project for a client (GERN Industries, Ltd.) I would have a better time of it. So corrugated cardboard mock-ups are being fabricated to explore "bashing" possibilities, structure relationships, rail access potentials and site development. It's almost like "measure twice, cut once."

So, no big deal ... just corrugated ...







Tomorrow and Sunday will hopefully bring a few more mock-ups! Then site development can begin. Actual assembly of for real structures gets closer ... I may get the sketch pad out yet!! 8-)

[Gary S]

biL, I can see from your workmanship on the cardboard mock-up that your new GERN facility is going to be a very nice structure. Of the few buildings I have kitbashed, finding a proper and realistic design was the hardest part - looks like you got through that part with ease. Now, as you work on the project this weekend, take plenty of photos and keep us posted! Also, as I alluded to in another thread, the enthusiasm in your posts is infectious, so thank you!

And, welcome to the GERN family!

[nachoman]

cardboard mockups are always a good idea, and yours looks great. I know where you are coming from about being away from a job and losing knowledge - use it or lose it they say. I'm facing the same issue now trying to stay mentally sharp while out of work.

[MasonJar]

biL,

Beware the mock-up! Make them too good and they stand-in for a lot longer than intended...

I'd like to make a suggestion about joining the two buildings together. I am going to assume that the lower building is the "newer" addition to the larger, two story structure. If this is the case, you can eliminate the end wall where it abuts the tall structure.

An interesting variation (at least to me ) would be to make the lower building the original. You could then reverse the end wall and cut it into the taller structure to make it look like the second story was simply built upwards from the existing low wall.

Your call of course - just my $0.02...!

Andrew

[P5se Camelback]

Thanks for the input, Andrew! The mock-ups were never intended to "stand" anywhere but exacly where they are. They are intended as a planning and conceptual tool and will likely end up in the recycle bin before all is said and done.

The "existing" structure has not been mocked-up yet ... it will make use of the Superior Bakery/Weekly Herald walls which are currently spread out on the terrazzo floor, as illustrated above (the blue tape on the terrazzo delimits the edge of the layout along that wall ... so I can get used to the "change in the space.")

These two liitle mock-ups may or may not end up together ... that is why the mock-ups -- to site plan the several buildings that will make up the facility, to examine the relationship between structures. (Yeah, I know ... my former wife used to give me grief about "Designer Talk" ... she would just have said, "I'm glad no one is around to hear you talk like that! NORMAL people don't talk like that! Buildings do not have relationships!")
But, Andrew ... thank you so much for the idea of the smaller being older and its rear wall being "built around" ... SPLENDID! I like it! I will use that, maybe not right here ... but I WILL use that! (A good Designer steals with both hands!) 8-)

[P5se Camelback]

Kevin ... thanks for the empathy! I have been in your chair more times than I care to count. Designers always seem to get layed off early in the cost-cutting process. :? It seems the "bean counters" see sales people as cash generators since they go out and come back with sales, which generates profit. Designers "just sit at a drawing board, they don't generate business" ... or so the "beaan counters" think until there is no new product in the pipeline for the salesmen to sell! hock: hock:

But stay sharp! Find reasons to use your skills and keep them honed to a razor sharpness for when that opportunity arises and you can go in and slice-n-dice!
Me ... I'm retired ... I'm using the Lehigh Susquehanna & Western as my current design project.

[MasonJar]

Thanks for the input, Andrew! ...

(A good Designer steals with both hands!) 8-)

You are welcome!

My mother-in-law was a university professor, and she always used to tell her students:

"Steal from one - it's plagiarism; but steal from many - that's research!"


Andrew

[P5se Camelback]

Next step in the process ...
Site Planning

The following images are the result of pushing cardboard mock-ups of the probable structures (unless, of course, more of them morph into a "bashed" configuration than already have) around a proposed site of "XXX" 1/87th scale acres [total acreage purchased not disclosed by GERN officials] to attempt to discover the most efficient use of the available space while giving consideration to needed rail service for receiving raw materials and shipping of finished product, as well as the secondary function of "giving cover" to the Main Line Trackage going north to Scranton and connections with the Lehigh Valley, Lackawanna, Erie and the New York Ontario & Western (a.k.a. the descent to "Northern Staging" below the visible layout.)

The New Lehighton, Penna. GERN Industries, Ltd. Site from the West ...



The Administration/Office Building and the Facility Power Plant ...



The Southwest Corner of the Site ...



The Product Development Building and Package Materials Warehouse and Shipping Dock