Premier Plastics
More than just a background building
Building a plastic plant from scratch
would require some research.
The footprint for this plant was 30inches long by 5 inches wide.
The building itself was going to be a 3D background while the car
unloading station would be to scale.
Luckily for me I had two resources very near my house. The first just a
mile from me is a new plastic plant. The second is a an ex Rubbermaid
plant that I pass each day on the way to work. The tracks are
still in place leading into this Rubbermaid plant.
Having good photos to work off of is critical for me,
even though I wont be replicating this exactly it will be close.
I originally planned to build two row sof Silos, and then use a photo of the second row to provide depth.
In place of that I went with a set of larger Silos, and opted to actually build the end of the building.
The Silos were cut out of white pvc pipe, each Silos is 9 inches tall. The four Silos were glued to a piece of white styrene which would end up being the cement foundation.
Sheet styrene was also used for the tops of each Silos. I simply traced the tubes onto the styrene, then cut them out with scissors. Once these were glued into place I used regular household spackle to fill any cracks or gaps.
After sanding the filled in caps, a primer coat of
blossom white paint was used.
Front View
Plain sheet styrene was again used here. Two pieces were cut 4 1/4" by 12". Next a cutout was made for a small steel door to be added later. Using thicker styrene the taller side walls were cut out and glued to the rear sections. Additional 3/4 inch pieces were cut to support the rear building walls, and to keep the building evenly spaced off of the basement wall.
Again using styrene the roof top was cut out then glued into place. The building was now given a couple of coats of semi gloss blossom white paint. I chose blossom white because it was not a real bright white, and as it turns out I just happen to have a can of it.
Back View
To build this unit three large rooftop Swamp Coolers were cut into various sizes. The Swamp Coolers were made by Walthers originally. I cut out all of the vent fronts and glued them together as the front of this unit. Sheet styrene was cut for the rest of the unit. The center beams were cut from half I beams made by plastruct.
The remaining parts were trimmed and used along with sheet styrene to create the smaller units. Three large locomotive fans were used for the top of the vacuum unit. Trimmed sprues provided the piping.
Now that the basics are in place its time to add the details.
Using left over sprues that I heated, and then bent, the 6 main water lines were built. These by far were the biggest of the many pipes needed. Wrapping the pipes with automotive pin stripe tape I was able to simulate the joint for the front shutoff valves. For all of the other pipes and fittings I used a Walther's piping kit. Walthers's makes two of these kits and they come with a lot of different pieces. The plastic in these kits is more flexible than the sprue sections left over from your kits, thus you can custom bend them without heating them.
The three filtering units were built from scratch using pvc piping and whatever I could find laying around.
The pump motor behind filter number three is a leftover motor from a grain bin kit. The other compressors or motors, were made from spare rooftop ac parts, again from Walther's. The electrical cabinet was scratch built from sheet styrene.
The handrails were made by Plastruct, The ladders came from a RIX ladder kit.
The three blower fans on top are 52" fans from Detail Associates
Building Details and Painting.
Using Evergreen's styrene tubing the top gutters were installed along with the downspouts. I also used small strips of styrene for the roof top trim.
For the building joints I used 1/16th red automotive pin
striping. This also breaks up the bland white walls.
For the large wall vents I used Paintshop Pro to design my vents, then
printed them on heavy sticky back paper.
Like the large air coolers there are not any specific kits that have the parts needed to build this area,
so you will have to get creative. Scratch building the electrical boxes was simple. I used leftover conveyor parts along with some small Plastruct pieces to build the scaffolding. For the blower motors and containers, I used an assortment of spare parts, sliced pvc tubing, dowels, and a few pieces of small Plastruct rods. The spare parts included but not limited to rooftop ac pieces, a hacked up compressor, part of a small motor, and part of a grain dust collector.
Using leftover heated and bent sprues along with pipe from the Walthers pipe kit, each Silos has a pipe added. The four pipes run to the end and then down the rear side of the 4th Silos. These turn in various directions once they are at ground level. The hand rails were made from cut brass rod and thin strips of styrene.
An additional set of pipes run from the blower motors down along the loading and unloading area.
These get hooked to the individual hoppers bays. To simulate the long pieces of tubing I used 14 gauge wire painted silver to match the other pipes and tubes.
Adding a little weathering, but not to much as this is a new manufacturing plant.
Using photos from previous rail fan trips I created a background to give the this small area some depth.
Next the ballast was poured and some grass planted.
