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dnhman
Fireman
USA
1049 Posts |
 Posted - 08/22/2010 : 11:12:32 AM
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| Rick Your "futzing" deserves its own forum topic,, |
Cheers!, Joe |
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Harsco
Fireman
USA
1101 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2010 : 11:13:58 AM
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Thanks, Dave.... although I think I have an unfair advantage compared to you...everything's bigger, thank God! The eyes aren't getting any stronger, that's for sure. I have to admire anyone scratch building in N!
Hmmmm... "Rick's Futz Works"....I like that, Mark...kinda like the infamous Lockheed "Skunk Works", right? LOL. Just wait and see what comes out next: a stealth bottle car!
While it is indeed nice to have arrived at the "futzing" stage in layout development, bear in mind I still need Mark and Steam to remind me how to turn the damn thing on...LOL. During ops sessions, the guys will sometimes ask a wiring or electrical question, which usually results in my patented blank stare. Electricity? DCC? LEDs? Throttle configurations? It's all Greek to me...
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Harsco
Fireman
USA
1101 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2010 : 11:20:29 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by dnhman
Rick Your "futzing" deserves its own forum topic,,
LOL....I can see it now, Joe! Let's check out a few titles:
"Futzing with Rick"
"Futzing Made Easy"
"Recession-Proof Futzing"
"Futzing for Dummies"
"Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Futzing But Were Afraid to Ask"
"How to Talk to Your Teenager About Futzing"
"Futzing for Fun and Profit"
"Futzing Around"
"Ten Things You Should Never Futz With"
I sense the birth of a cottage industry AND an infomercial empire!
Joe H always chides me for not taking pictures as I'm futzing with something, but to me, that's the essence of the art: futzing occurs when you start messing around with something and aren't sure how it's going to turn out...
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Edited by - Harsco on 08/22/2010 11:24:35 AM |
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MarkF
Engineer
USA
9272 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2010 : 12:58:20 PM
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But in your case, it always turns out great! Seriously, you do have a knack for details, and your 'futzing' proves that. Your step by steps are great as they inspire others.
So what's next on the 'futzing' table? |
Mark
See my homepage at http://home.comcast.net/~prrndiv/
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Harsco
Fireman
USA
1101 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2010 : 2:05:49 PM
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As alluded earlier, major futzing with the BOF complex....due to lack of foresight and pre-planning, I often find myself trying to squeeze ten pounds of effluvium into the proverbial five pound bag, in this case the Maclay Street BOF complex.
For the non-steel modelers reading this, the Basic Oxygen Furnace process, which began to gain favor in the mid-sixties, represented a quantum leap forward in steel making, reducing the amount of time required to convert iron into steel from roughly 12 hours to less than 30 minutes. Instead of using the older open hearth process to slowly "bake" the impurities out of the molten iron, the BOF process instead injects a stream of high purity oxygen into the molten mix, which then literally "fries" the offending impurities (please pardon use of the cooking analogy). Needless to say, this translated into HUGE savings for steel manufacturers and remains in use today long after the older open hearth process has faded away.
Anyway, being a somewhat "progressive" steel manufacturer, in late 1965 HARSCO made a fairly significant investment in this newfangled process, building a facility on a previously underutilized tract of land off Maclay Street, not far from the main plant at Herr. The BOF process requires four ingredients: molten iron (from the Herr Street Blast Furnace), scrap metal, lots and lots of oxygen, and finally, different types of additives to flux or alloy the resulting steel.
The reason for this diatribe is to explain the latest round of futzing. Aware of the above requirements, yet eager to get operating, I laid out the Maclay Street facility in rough terms, putting off trying to make everything fit in a logical manner until the day of reckoning, which coincidentally, arrived this weekend.
Armed with information, old buildings, and a fuzzy idea of what was needed, I've been rearranging buildings and processes trying to find that "perfect alignment" that really should have been decided a long time ago. Here's the present rendition:
Before I had no logical way to unload scrap and get it into the BOF; the smaller open shed in the picture will now handle unloading the scrap from incoming gons, then loading into an as-yet-built Pecor scrap charging unit which will then run on an as-yet-unbuilt elevated railway into the BOF for loading into the tilting furnaces.
Makes sense, right? Nope, not to me either. It probably doesn't appear a lot different from previous pictures, but for me, it's a nasty chore that I had been putting off.
Anyway, the bottom line is that lack of proper planning makes for .....you know the rest, although in a macabre, darkly sinister way, I actually ENJOY this somewhat chaotic approach to modeling since deep down inside, I really believe that it actually mirrors what the prototype went through....or at least that's what I keep telling myself.
Oh, Mark.... we need to discuss changing a few waybills and set out points <cringing>
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Edited by - Harsco on 08/22/2010 2:16:18 PM |
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dlwrailfan1
Crew Chief
USA
574 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2010 : 2:20:12 PM
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Thomas Edison would be proud.[:-bulb] Have to agree -- industrial processes go through fits and starts as modifications improve or hurt. You are going down the same path. Thanks for sharing your thought process.
Mark.
You had to ask and see what happened - revisions to the carefully built system. [:-banghead] |
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pcmatt
Engine Wiper
USA
181 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2010 : 3:50:52 PM
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Rick-
Great updates!!! Always look forward to any of your posts showing your latest work.
Quick question, I thought you said that summer was slow in terms of getting work done on the railroad? 4 separate updates in 9 days on four different projects-summer is slow??? Look out when the leaves change and you really get time to futz.
Hope all is well.
Matt [:-turtle] |
http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=26375 |
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Harsco
Fireman
USA
1101 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2010 : 7:51:04 PM
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Matt: LOL....I guess I should start writing down the Rules...
Futzing isn't seasonally affected, but instead a internal process, both physical AND metaphysical...futzing can occur at any time, any place, under any condition, however common place or remarkable. The other night my wife commented during dinner that I seemed "out of it", ie: not paying attention (her cute way of telling me my attention span is slipping). Truth is I was actually futzing, albeit mentally, trying to figure out the ten pounds into five pound bag problem at Maclay.
So...it's isn't Alzheimer's, it's futzing! (At least that's my story...)
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MarkF
Engineer
USA
9272 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2010 : 10:32:16 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Harsco
Oh, Mark.... we need to discuss changing a few waybills and set out points <cringing>
[:-bigeyes] What? Again? 
Nah, just kidding!  I just love changing the paperwork around everytime you complete your 'futzing' process. [:-banghead] |
Mark
See my homepage at http://home.comcast.net/~prrndiv/
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vzjtothalo
Section Hand
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2010 : 1:21:50 PM
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Rick:
Excellent futzing. I'll have to see if I can make time to come over the next time I come back home.
John Loesch |
John Loesch
For God so loved the world, he did not send a committee.... |
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Harsco
Fireman
USA
1101 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2010 : 2:54:35 PM
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This morning's futzing:
For some time now I've need to scratchbuild a scrap box for the Maclay Street BOF; after staring at the one in Dean Freytag's "Cyclopedia of Industrial Modeling" for some time now, I decided to continue futzing with cardboard as a modeling medium.....here's the results:
A scrap box is used to charge the BOF vessel with pre-sorted, dry scrap...and looks a lot like a big dumpster, albeit with a "scooped" opening to make loading easier. The vertical braces shown were cut from standard illustration (mat) board that's about .050 thick using a traced pattern from Dean's book. The sides and rounded bottom are made from one piece of 3 ply Strathmore; the other parts various thicknesses of Strathmore and light card from my cast-offs pile. The rear brace includes a lifting eye made using a paper punch; the lifting trunnions on the sides are the bottom halves of Walther's roof vents:
One thing that makes fabricating with cardboard easy is contact cement, which grips enough to keep things in place, yet flexible to allow some adjustment. In this case, I'm using a clear product called "Welder" that I picked up at Lowes.
After a quick spritzing with Rustoleum Dark Gray primer:
Twenty minutes later, I gave everything a dusting of chalks in various rust hues, loaded in some appropriately weathered scrap, then placed it in the BOF scrap shed. Later, after I've finally figured out how to design it, the box will be mounted on a wheeled dolly that will move on an elevated trestle into the BOF:
This was my first "non structure" model using cardboard and although certainly NOT contest quality by any means, find myself pleased with what the medium has to offer. Easy to cut, easy on the wallet, easy to purchase, easy to curve and bend, and easy to glue, cardboard's one downside is probably moisture, which I hope that the paint will provide some degree of protection from. If you look close, I attempted to fabricate my own "c' channel on the lower sides using the material and at a one foot distance, think it can be pulled off. From here I want to try fabricating my own "I" and "H" beams to see how they'll come out.
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Edited by - Harsco on 09/04/2010 2:55:27 PM |
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hunter48820
Fireman
6024 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2010 : 3:01:11 PM
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Very nicely done Rick. A geat piece of detail for the industry!
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Best, Andy Keeney
Look out for #1, but don't step in #2! |
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AVRR-PA
Fireman
USA
4600 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2010 : 6:43:19 PM
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Hi, Rick --
Here's a piece of trivia for you. Some time ago, I was allowed to tour the Edgar Thompson Works, the only integrated steel plant left in the Mon Valley. They use a Basic Oxygen Furnace (of course) but it's referred to as the Basic Oxygen Process and the facility is (at least informally) called the BOP Shop. Kind of a neat name.
Don |
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MarkF
Engineer
USA
9272 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2010 : 11:47:05 PM
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| He's done it again! WOW! Rick, that looks really good. I can't wait to see it in person. |
Mark
See my homepage at http://home.comcast.net/~prrndiv/
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Harsco
Fireman
USA
1101 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2010 : 06:59:17 AM
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| Don..good point...as if steel making terms aren't confusing enough, USS had to have their own name for it...LOL. Thanks for the comments, guys...a little voice inside my head is telling me to remember I have an open house/ops session scheduled for the end of the month and to stop futzing and start cleaning up! |
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Harrisburg Terminal Railroad (HTRR)
