Hudson Cement becomes Empire Grain

[Ralph]

I haven't posted a picture in a long time so I thought I'd start a thread about my efforts to turn the unrealistically massive Hudson Cement complex on my layout into a hopefully believably massive grain elevator. In addition to my concerns about the believability of the size of the cement plant I have many more cars appropriate for grain traffic than cement. Some research about grain facilities along the Hudson River and also at Buffalo NY made me think it would be reasonable to have a large grain complex on a Northeastern based layout.

I am not a very good modeler of structures. It isn't my favorite part of the hobby. I'll confess to having some limited skills including a lack of patience and poor abilities controlling a sharp blade when trying to cut square windows. I'm also a cheapskate...er...a thrifty person, who likes to see what can be done on a budget.

So, what follows are my own uniquely Ralph-like efforts at making this happen.

Here is the old Hudson Cement plant:



First of all, to make the complex look more like a grain elevator I needed material for more silos. PVC pipe is very popular and not too expensive but I happened to notice a display of mailing tubes at a local liquidator store for 50 cents each. They were two feet long and 3 inches in dameter.



I bought ten and cut them in half with the finishing blade for my miter saw.

[Ralph]

The obvious problem with cardboard tubes is the unrealistic spiral pattern. I used short sections of 2 inch wide paper drywall tape to cover the tubes. This hides the spiral and also creates a series of lines that suggest successive pours of concrete to form the silos.



I've seen grain elevator silos with streaks originating at each pour level so I think it will be fun to weather these in that fashion later.

I'm getting the call to go fire up the grill for dinner time! I'll get back to this later. More to come!
Ralph

[Mr Fixit]

Hi Ralph

Dont sell yourself short on your modelling skills as your former cement plant looks like a good and large grain silo complex to me.

On the subject of grain [or cement] silos, they are poured using what is called the 'slip form' method, whereby the formwork is jacked up by around 4 to 6 inches [100 to 150mm] and the next layer of concrete is poured before the lower level has properly cured. This process goes on 24/7 and the reason for doing this is to make the concrete as seemless as possible for maximum strength, waterproofing and integrity. It all seems a little crazy but it has been used sucessfully post war for everything from cement and grain silos to power station cooling towers, very tall bridge piers, and North Sea Oil/Gas Platform legs.

The reason you tend to notice horizontal band lines is from the different pours and the subsequent finishing of the outer concrete as well as minor adjustments in the slipform to maintain a horizontal level.

Mark

[cnw1961]

I am not a very good modeler of structures ....

Mmmmh ... you are not talking about yourself, aren’t you? You cement plant is a fantastic structure and I always admire your creative use of materials. So I will be closely watching how you are doing these silos ...

[Gary S]

Dang Ralph, you're being much too humble, you are one of the premier modelers here at Big Blue. Your structures look very good in the photos, and to have a large layout at such a stage of completion is a huge accomplishment. Alot of us talk big, but Ralph, you walk the walk! Hopefully I will be where you are one of these years.

Looking forward to the readjustment of the cement complex. It looks terrific as is, and I imagine you'll make it look even better.

[Ralph]

Thanks guys, you're very supportive!

I glued several silos together and supported them from behind with wood strips for strength. I took a few pics of them with unfinished conveyors and other raw components (i,e, balsa wood blocks) on top to show what I have in mind.

[Ralph]

The windows on the long conveyors on top of the silos are an example of the sort of project that I find daunting. Neatly cutting out these squares with a blade and straight edge is challenging for me. Before I started I tried to imagine other ways of creating square holes. I occurred to me that scrap booking supply stores might have paper punches that would work. After a little investigating I discovered this nifty paper punch that makes 3/4 inch square holes!



After wrapping my silos in drywall tape I'm planning on using long strips of it to create the conveyors. Drywall tape has a ready-made crease down is length. My two inch wide tape wraps neatly around some one inch square wood stock I found at my local hardware store. I'm going to paint the wood stock a gray color that will show through the window holes, suggesting interior darkness and shadows. I have some left over window grids printed on transparencies that I'll fit into the window holes as well.

Here is an example of the wood stock with punched drywall paper simply fitted on but not glued to test it's appearance.


That's the basic approach, but of course there are lots of details and other things to do. You probably noticed that I used plastic grids to represent windows on the structure in the last picture which was part of the original Hudson Cement complex I made years ago. I plan to remove those and cover the surface of buildings like this with card stock that will have paper punch windows cut out to make them look better.

Thanks for looking! I'll have more updates as things progress.
Ralph

[Charlie B]

Hello Ralph
Very impressive thread so far. I too am rather on the thrifty side when possible and your techniques are great looking as well as inexpensive.
I never gave drywall tape a thought, and I always have some around.
You under rate yourself as a modeler. You sir, are one of the best.
Charlie

[Russ Bellinis]

I like it, Ralph. I never thought of drywall tape for finishing a model either. I think a lot of people automatically think of grain elevators as something found only in farm areas. What many don't realize, is that a big city will need large scale bakeries to meet the bread needs of the population and those large bakeries will use a lot of grain and flour. I never thought of grain elevators as being for the big city, until I started driving a service truck around the Los Angeles area to repair transport refrigeration equipment on site and notice how many grain elevators I could see in every direction as I drove over the top of freeway overpasses.

[doctorwayne]

Lookin' good, Ralph, and an innovative use of materials, too: shades of E.L. Moore, but more (better) in my opinion.

The elevators at Buffalo were primarily for the New York and eastern seaboard market, first via the Erie Canal, then later by rail. Rail eventually spelled the end for those elevators, though, as rail shipment from the west was year-round, unlike the lake boats used to supply the Buffalo elevators.

There's some more info HERE and HERE

Wayne

[Ralph]

Thanks guys. I hope to post more photos of progress in a day or two. I spray painted the drywall tape conveyor housings to match the silos and found that its still a little tacky this afternoon. Once its dry I'll use spray adhesive on the wood stock (now painted gray) to secure the drywall onto it. I experimented a little with the transparency windows and was gratified to see that the spray adhesive did not cloud them or otherwise detract from their appearance so it will be an easy project to include them.

Wayne, thanks for the links. I found some similar pics on Google images when I was doing research to see if a massive grain facility might look out of place along the Hudson River. Here is one I found at Port of Albany NY.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/photos_by_laurence/3478038751/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/photos_by_ ... 478038751/</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.geolocation.ws/v/W/4cb3f7c4421aa927a7000166/grain-elevator-at-port-of-albany/en">http://www.geolocation.ws/v/W/4cb3f7c44 ... -albany/en</a><!-- m -->

[nachoman]

Check out today's shorpy page (<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.shorpy.com">www.shorpy.com</a><!-- w -->) for a historic photo of a buffalo NY elevator:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.shorpy.com/node/10666">http://www.shorpy.com/node/10666</a><!-- m -->

[Mike Kieran]

Ralph, I hope to attain the level of skill needed to build your cement and grain complexes. They're nothing short of amazing. If I'm correct, the Albany Port Railroad serves a grain elevator.

[tetters]

My goodness that is HUGE! Very awesome indeed. Just out of curiousity, what is the scale height of those silos Ralph?

[Sumpter250]

Just out of curiousity, what is the scale height of those silos Ralph?

:| Just because I love to guess.....95' +/-


---- There is a "madness to my method", practice. I try to figure out dimensions based on one known dimension, in this case, the height of one of the cars. ---