Hey guys, this is the thread i had going on a few forums showing my progress when building the Blast Furnace kit. Hope you dont mind, but i just copy pasted the text from one of the other forums, so some of the text might sound a bit strange because im going to be posting the whole construction process in a couple mins, when i had this thread going over a couple months LOL Hi guys, im currently building this structure for a contest over on the Gauge Forum. Thought i might share this with this forum too since i know there are a few Steel Modelers on here, plus some of you might find it interesting watching such a massive structure being constructed Im going to be building and weathering the new Walthers Cornerstone Blast Furnace. There are over 400 detailed pieces in this kit!! I estimate this will take me about 60 hours to complete, and im exited! Can you believe it? LOL Well here is the kit: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2973
I broke ground on the kit last night. Here are a couple shots showing the amount of pieces in this MASSIVE kit:
Steps 1 & 2 Now it was time for steps 1 and 2 of the 68 steps in the instructions (btw, the instruction sheet is 12 pages long!) lol Step's 1 and 2 refer to putting the Bustle Pipe and Mantle Ring together. The Bustle pipe has been glued together and the mantle ring is shown in this pic:
Steps 3, 4, & 5 Next step was to glue the Mantle Ring to the Bustle Pipe. I glued the Bustle Pipe Hangers to the Mantle Ring, and then glue the Mantle Ring/Bustle Pipe Hangers assembly to the Bustle Pipe. After this, i glued the Furnace Halves together and then slipped it into place in the Manlte Ring/Bustle Pipe assembly.
Steps 6-14 Steps 6-14 were alot of little parts so i assembled them all and then took 2 shots of the end product. Here is a summary of what took place in steps 6-14: 1. Glued the Lower Offtake Halves together and into the openings on the top of the Furnace 2. Glued the Bell Platform in place ontop of the Furnace. 3. Bell Platform Supports were glued in place 4. Glued the Mantle Columns in place on the underside of the Mantle Ring 5. Glued the Sheaves onto the Sheave Rod, and then glued this completed assembly into the holes on the tops of the Trolley Support Trusses. 6. Glued the Trolley Support Trusses to the Bell Platform Platform 7. Small Bell Beam and Big Bell Beam were glued in place on the Bell Beam Support and then to the tops of the Trolley Support Trusses 8. The front and rear Trolley Support Braces were glued to the front and the back of the Trolley Support Trusses 9. Then glued the Crane Support Beams in place atop the Trolley Support Trusses NOTE: there are more steps listed above, in the instructions, some of the steps were combined into one..... lol
Painting the Furnace Assembly Now it was time to spray paint the work done so far. For this, im using Rustoleum Primer "Rust" which in my opinion is a perfect color for such Steel Mill Structures. Here is the Furnace assembly painted as it is right now:
Steps 16 & 17 NOTE, Step 15 has been skipped for now, railings will be installed once this assembly is completely done to eliminate the risk of damaging them when doing more construction on the furnace Steps 16 and 17 involved gluing together the Upper Offtake Halves, Upper Offtake Elbows, the Downcomer Halves, and the Downcomer End Cap together, gluing the Upper Offtake Halves to the Upper Offtake Elbows at right 90 degree angles. Here is a pic of the Upper Offtake Halves:
Step 17 Continued Now the instructions state to place the Upper Offtake Assemblies into the Lower Offtake Halves located on the Furnace Assembly. It also says to set in place the Downcomer Assembly to connect the Upper Offtake Halves together. This is currently where i am at with this project right now. Here is a pic of that assembly as it stands right now:
Steps 18 & 19 Steps 18 and 19 involved gluing the Upper Offtake Platform ontop of the 2 Upper Offtakes, gluing the Bleeder Values together and to the top of the Platform, and gluing the Railings and Railing Bracing to the Platform. Here are a couple pics showing the completed Upper Offtake Assembly and then showing the Assembly glued to the Furnace Assembly:
Steps 20 & 21 Steps 20 and 21 were to glue the Foundation Walls for the Furnace to the base and then to glue the H-Columns to the inside of one of the walls and to the base. Here is where im at right now:
Steps 22 & 23 I finished Steps 22 and 23 and then decided i better start weathering before i get to much further and it starts to get real difficult to reach tight spaces. This way, when new parts are added, i can weather them as i go to, and not have to worry about whether or not i will be able to reach all the areas that are blocked by other pieces lol Steps 22 and 23 were to add the glue in place the side and back walls ontop of the Foundation Walls. The side wall is the one that the Bustle Pipe will protrude through once the Furnace Assembly is installed. I also glued in place the large H-Columns and the Brick Details around the bases of them, followed by the small H-Columns for the support beams for the Cast House Floor. These pics show some weathering done on this Assembly. Next up ill post some shots of the weathered Furnace Assembly.
Steps 24-26 Steps 24-26 were to glue the Cast House Support Structure together. Brick encasement's surround the bases of each support for the Cast House Floor. Here is the assembly build and weathered:
Furnace Weathering I finished weathering the furnace assembly. It wasnt easy, there are so many nooks and crannies and angles, it took about 2 hours to do, and i still didnt get everything lol. i had to take a few breaks here and there, because i just couldnt sit through the weathering of the whole thing lol. Its a little hard to see the weathering on the furnace from the pictures, but it looks darker and dirtier in person lol. The bottom half has not been weathered, and if it can be seen when looking into the building, then those faces will be weathered as well.... Up until this point, i have been working on the Blast Furnace for about 13-1/2 hours
Steps 27-31 Steps 27-31 were no easy task lets just say that. and i think what made them so difficult was the fact that i had painted all the parts before assembly. In these steps you have to put the Cast House Floor in place over the Furnace Foundation and Cast House Assemblies. The Floor must go through upright beams on both of the sub assemblies, and they didnt exactly just slide right down over the beams and in place. I ended up just about re-gluing the entire Cast House Support Assembly and part of the Furnace Foundation Assembly after the floor was in place. Im thinking that the paint made the openings for the beams too small, so i had to force the floor down little by little on each beam. Took about an hour or so to get it in place and everything glued back together to get whats in the pics below lol Here is what was involved: 1. Glue the Flooring Spouts in place on the Cast House Floor in the Pouring Hole Openings 2. Paint the Cast House Floor 3. Put the floor in place over the Cast House and Furnace Assemblies 4. Glue the right side wall in place (which was a very tight fit i might add lol) 5. Glue the Roof Supports in place along the front of the Cast House 6, Glue the Craneways in place atop the beams in the Cast House Time spent on the kit now about 15-1/2 hours. Next up will be the weathering of the Cast House Floor and Structure
Steps 33-35 This first pic shows the weathering done on the Furnace Foundation/Cast House Assemblies: Step 33 was to glue the furnace assembly in place in the furnace foundation assembly. After cutting all the remaining roof and wall sections off the spurs, they were all sprayed aluminum and then dusted with chalks, then sprayed with flat finish. From here it was pretty much smooth sailing putting them on the Furnace/Cast House Assembly. Here are a couple pics. The only thing left to do is add the railings around the cast house floor.
Continued from Above Now i just need to paint and install the railings around the Cast House Floor and then do some touch up weathering here and there lol
Steps 36-42 I took a bit of a break on the Blast Furnace, havnt worked on it in a few days, but this morning i got back at it. I managed to complete a few steps. These first 2 pictures show steps 36-40. These involved: 1. Gluing the Stove Base/Foundation together 2. Gluing the Lower Stack Halves and the Stack Breach Halves together. 3. Gluing the Stack Riser Halves together 4. Cutting the holes in the 6 Stove Halves. 3 of them had to have 2 holes drilled, and the other 3 had to have 1 hole drilled in them. 5. Gluing the Stove Halves together 6. Gluing the Stove Halves, Lower Stack/Stack Breach Pipes, and the Stack Riser Pipes to the Foundation. 7. Glue the Upper Stack Halves together and then to the Lower Stack Pipe Steps 40-42 were to gluw the Stove Platform to the tops of the 3 Stoves, and glue the Elevator pieces together. The Elevator was weathered before it was glued in place: Time spent on this kit now is about 24-1/2 hours
Man its been a LONG time since i worked on this MASSIVE project lol Well i finally got back into the swing of things and got working again on the kit. It was all summer since i touched this last, but now that my girlfriend is back in school, and still not having a job (going in this morning to Lowes to see about getting my old job back) i had some down time to sit down and start work again lol The first thing i did was pick up where i left off in the weathering stage of weathering the Stoves. Then i prepared all the Railings for the entire kit, cutting excess spur sections off to better cover all the railings with the rattle can. I primed all the railings with gray, then sprayed them all yellow. After that, i started to glue the railings ontop of the Stoves. The Safety Cadge Ladders were glued together and placed in there appropriate spots atop the stoves to the lower platforms on the sides of the stoves. After this, it was off to start the piping for the lower portion of the Stove structure. Supports were all sprayed with oxide red primer and glued in place. The i assembled the Clean Gas Pipes, Burner Feeds, Lower and Upper Stove Pipes, and the Hot Blast Main Pipe. Once everything was aligned properly, i glued it all in place and that is where i am at as of right now. This took care of steps 43-49. Here are the pics of the latest progress
Continued from Above Next i will be weathering the newly completed piped and railings i have shown above Time spent on this build is not up to 35-1/2 hours
