ezdays spring 07 scratchbuild challenge

ezdays

ezdays

Out AZ way
Feb 3, 2003
6,339
0
36
Arizona
bigbluetrains.com
I just thought I'd kick things off. As usual, I'm not prepared to post a picture yet since I haven't made up my mind what I want to build. I've kicked around a few ideas and have had a few suggestions. And for those of you that suggested it, thank you, but no, I do not plan on going to see a shrink.hamr hamr Yes, I know, everyone else is out to get me and try to beat me on this challenge and the competition is going to be fierce, but I'll cope with it in my own way, even though I do understand that Tony Soprano's shrink will be available at the end of this season.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: No, I really don't have the feeling that I want to whack the competition.. not yet anyway...:D :D

Hang in there, I'll post something meaningful in the next few days.
 
OK, so I've been a bit slow getting started but I've got at least a dozen excuses as to why. The formost one is that I couldn't decide what to build. Well, everyone can use a grain elevator on their layout and so I guess that's a good choice since I don't have one on mine yet, so that's my choice for this challenge.

There's an old flour mill at the beginning of.... Mill Ave.... in downtown Tempe, Arizona. It's been there for over 100 years and was originally called the Hayden Flour Mill. The first one was built in the late 1800's and was replace around 1908 after a fire burned the original down. I remember it back in the 50's and 60's when I was going to school there with a big "Arizona Rose Flour" sign in the side. It closed early in the 90's and is on the historical register. Transients caused a fire there a few years ago, but the elevator and buildings are poured concrete and the only damage was to the interior. They plan on turning it into condos one of these days, but for now, this is how it looks. I'll do the storage elevator and that small outbuilding. There are a few larger buildings that don't show in these pictures, but they wouldn't add anything to my layout so I don't intend to build them. I found a drawing on the net that shows the hight of the main structure to be just about 160', which works great since I'm doing it in N scale. If I can find any old pictures that show some signage, I'll post some links.
 

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Also, don't know if this will help or not but for what it's worth...
 

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That's a great shot, I couldn't find anything from the air. Not sure if this one was taken from the butt or a plane, but it does give me some info on the silo roof system.

I found some 5/8" PVC pipe at Home Depot that I hope will be about the right diameter. That comes to just about a scale 8' which looks about right.

I've read several articles on the history and restoration plans, and even found several drawings of a proposed project.
 
cnw1961 said:
Don, ambitous project. I am looking forward to see your progress.
I found some more pics of your elevator (just in case you haven’t found them already):
http://www.grainelevatorphotos.com/photos/az/tempe_az_012612.jpg
http://photos.travisswicegood.com/d/5970-2/Tempe-Mill-at-sunset_001.jpg
http://www.tempe.gov/comdev/images/AZ Rose Flour.jpg
Hayden Flour Mill + Silos* HP#26
Click to expand...
Thanks, those are great shots and give me a bit more prospective. I'm looking for one that has the sign "Arizona Rose Flour" along the side of the silos along with the picture of a rose. That was there during the 60's and later, as far as I can remember.
 
Step 1....

Yep, one small step, but that's how one starts on a journey. Here's my first glue-up. After much juggling with the scale, I determined that 160:1 was still too big for my layout. That would have made it 12" tall and about 11" long, so I scaled it down even more. I'm now at 266:1 bringing it in at about 7 1/2" tall and 7" long. It will become a background piece for my N scale layout...
 

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The next step was to rough cut the sides and glue up the tower. Not much progress, but here's the next step anyway, just to show you that I am sincere in moving ahead with this project.:mrgreen:
 

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Some progress. Initial paint before the windows go in and I added the silo roof and roof structure. Both pieces are still separate until I get the window in and maybe some of the details put on. I was kinda dreading the silo roof because one side is sculpted to fit the silos and the other side is straight. That took a while to do.
 

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Hey Don...Looking good..!! What's the function of the sqware tower..?? I ask 'cause the corners are rounded...Is there some grain storage here as well..??

Gotta get back to mine...Spent the whole weekend working on my car....:-(
 
Thanks guys
steamhead said:
Hey Don...Looking good..!! What's the function of the sqware tower..?? I ask 'cause the corners are rounded...Is there some grain storage here as well..??...
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what's in there, or was in there.:confused: :confused: I've always assumed that since there was windows there that it might be part of the processing or a way to get the grain back out of the silos. There should also be stairs there to get up to the top snce there are no outside ladders. I've not found anything that says otherwise, but I'm as curious as you are so I'll let you know if I find out for sure. I also think the rounded corners are purely cosmetic.
 
The tower would contain everything needed to get the grain or whatever into the silos. It also contains the equipment to get it back out.

Don,it's looking good from here.I do believe it will be a real asset to your layout.I dop have a couple of questions for you though.

I believe you said you found a website that gave you the dimentions of the elevator,could you share that info cause I think I'd like to build that for our 2TRAK layout.My second question is,What did you use to glue the silos together and the styrene top to them?

By the way,if you should find out after finishing the model that it is too big for your layout aftrerall I would happily send you my home address.:mrgreen:
 
Catt said:
The tower would contain everything needed to get the grain or whatever into the silos. It also contains the equipment to get it back out.

Don,it's looking good from here.I do believe it will be a real asset to your layout.I dop have a couple of questions for you though.

I believe you said you found a website that gave you the dimentions of the elevator,could you share that info cause I think I'd like to build that for our 2TRAK layout.My second question is,What did you use to glue the silos together and the styrene top to them?

By the way,if you should find out after finishing the model that it is too big for your layout aftrerall I would happily send you my home address.:mrgreen:
Click to expand...
Gee, how thoughtful of you. Fortunately, I scaled it down to 1:266 so I would have room for it.:p :p

The silos and the corners are PVC, the flat pieces and top are styrene. I used regular PVC cement to glue the silos, and to glue the styrene to the PVC. The top is glued using regular modeler's cement, then I used clear epoxy to fill in any gaps.

I found one web site that gave me the dimension of the tower, 160' and I used the pictures I had to pick off the other dimensions. There is one site, and I'll go see if I can find it again, that showed engineering drawings of what they proposed to do with the structure. They were not dimensioned though, but would be helpful in scaling things. When I scaled it to N scale, that made the silos 1" in diameter and the tower 12" tall. That was too big for my layout so I found some PVC pipe that was 0.6" in diameter and scaled it down to that. That made the tower 7.5" at that scale. I'll PM you with the URL of that site if I can find it again.
 
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