Refinery Complete!!! (Part A)
This is a huge post today with 15 pictures so it will be in three parts.
Today, I'm officially turning over the keys to the refinery to Sinclair Oil. There are a few minor punch list items that need doing (signage, landscape around fence posts), but for all intents and purposes the refinery is complete.
I finished drilling the remaining holes for the right end fenceposts and decided to inject Gorilla Glue into the enlarged post holes using a syringe. The glue expands as it cures so it fills up the space securing the fence. I put a board across the far end since it was trying to pop up. Then I decided, before gluing in the left end around the parking lot to check clearances since the fence terminates into the interior of a curve. Boy! Am I glad I did that. My favorite clearance test car is an MTH auto rack. It hit the fence!
I was able to stress the next bend and pull the end away on an angle. I then tested this fit with five different locomotives: all of the big steamers and some of the ungainly diesels. The fix cleared okay in all cases, so I was able to glue that end in place.
After the fence was sitting well, I connected up the parking lot lights, and added all the missing ballast. It was a challenge to get it on the far side of the loading rack, but I persisted. I used a squeeze bottle to carefully apply "wet water" (Isopropyl Alcohol/water mix) and then dribbled W-S scenic cement directly from the squeeze bottle in comes in. As a reminder, I use roofing granules for ballast. It's just about the perfect scale size to 1:1 ballast on the Norfolk-Southern RR.
Here's that piece of 1:1 scale lumber holding down the fence's far end until it cures. In these pictures I've just added the glue which is why the gravel is wet.
This is a huge post today with 15 pictures so it will be in three parts.
Today, I'm officially turning over the keys to the refinery to Sinclair Oil. There are a few minor punch list items that need doing (signage, landscape around fence posts), but for all intents and purposes the refinery is complete.
I finished drilling the remaining holes for the right end fenceposts and decided to inject Gorilla Glue into the enlarged post holes using a syringe. The glue expands as it cures so it fills up the space securing the fence. I put a board across the far end since it was trying to pop up. Then I decided, before gluing in the left end around the parking lot to check clearances since the fence terminates into the interior of a curve. Boy! Am I glad I did that. My favorite clearance test car is an MTH auto rack. It hit the fence!
I was able to stress the next bend and pull the end away on an angle. I then tested this fit with five different locomotives: all of the big steamers and some of the ungainly diesels. The fix cleared okay in all cases, so I was able to glue that end in place.
After the fence was sitting well, I connected up the parking lot lights, and added all the missing ballast. It was a challenge to get it on the far side of the loading rack, but I persisted. I used a squeeze bottle to carefully apply "wet water" (Isopropyl Alcohol/water mix) and then dribbled W-S scenic cement directly from the squeeze bottle in comes in. As a reminder, I use roofing granules for ballast. It's just about the perfect scale size to 1:1 ballast on the Norfolk-Southern RR.
Here's that piece of 1:1 scale lumber holding down the fence's far end until it cures. In these pictures I've just added the glue which is why the gravel is wet.
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