Have just invested in the Marklin Z scale blast furnace which will form the centre piece of the next baseboard for Cuyahoga. this will be based loosely on the Cleveland steel works on the banks of the Cuyahoga river. Does anybody have any ideas for the immediate track layout around one of these beasts. I assume you have to get ore and coke in, molten metal and slag out. Any thoughts on where to look?
Google Bethlehem steel museum, there are areial vies of what it looked like, http://ludb.clui.org/gmap/?uuid=PA3128, I hope this helps, if you need current photo's I may be able to help you as I live near there JD
If you can find the book "The History, Making and Modeling of Steel" by Dean Freytag, it will answer nearly every question you have. Freytag is the #1 authority on modeling steel mills. Keep in mide that you will also need a Rolling Mill and an Electric Furnace. Both are available from Walthers. They are N scale BUT they are the correct size for Zee. The Marklin Z Blast Furnace is the same size as the Walthers N Blast Furnace. The only difference is the price. --Steve from the other Phoenix
Try some of these. some are maps, drawings, others are model layouts and descriptions of operations in steel mills. Dan S. http://zwwb.50megs.com/photo.html Bethlehem Steel Plant Map http://www.buffaloah.com/h/beth/index.html http://www.buffaloah.com/h/beth/source/9.html OH RUST BELT http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=234848 Steel Mills The Iron Belt http://www.trainweb.org/ironbelt/steel_mill.html |zahkunst|
Dean Freytag lives about 30 miles from me. Email me your personal email address and I can send you quite a number of photos of his own layout plus a lot of pieces of equipment found in and around a mill. These are all HO and made by Dean. His own layout is about 18' x 10', but it is almost solid 'steel making'. ...don
There is a web site named rustfans that has a lot of steel mill structures, rolling stock, and equipment pictures posted. It also has modelers efforts photos. My Ho and Z steel mill pictures are posted there.
Don--rustfans is a Yahoo group. You can either get there using Google or Yahoo Groups. --Steve from the other Phoenix
Obviously that was the HO mill but it is the same as the Marklin kit. Here's some tips on rusting your furnace. To get the ragged edges and rust throughs I sanded the edge to a 45 degree angle. Then I used a dremmel with a sanding stone to dig into the styrene at a 90 angle. Make sure the removed material goes away from the edge or it will "build up" on the edge. I used a razor saw to make deeper cuts. I painted it brown with a coat of dullcoat. Then I used chalks to vary the rust tones. I touched the edge with some dirty paint thinner. The chalk will suck it up into the grooves. In the iron runners I used a dremmel with a stone to build up the "skull". I used some thick CA to lock down the skull build up. One the stove risers I used some rust chalk to highlight the weld lines. On the rolling mill I made "pannels" by scoring the corrigation at about 7' intervals. I removed one of the pannels for an aging effect. (not seen) I painted one of the pannels silver as if it had been replaced. Also, this kit is going to take some time to build. Be patient.
