fictitious QA&P West TX layout agriculture industry

A little progress on the cotton gin. The windows, doors and glass are all in. A cotton gin is incredibly dirty, and there's no interior on this model, so I sprayed the inside of the glass with a super light coat of dullcoat.

Started on the roof yesterday. I ran into a minor dilemma regarding the vents / stacks. As I was preparing to put roof panels on, it came to me that there was no real support for the four vents. It worked out ok, but I should have planned better. You wouldn't believe how many times I've done idiotic, brain-dead things and painted myself out of or into the proverbial corner.

After debating several solutions, the one that seemed the easiest was to simply cut a piece of quarter inch thick balsa, drill the appropriate hole (diameter for the vent pipe) at the proper angle, and glue it to the framework under the metal roof in the correct location. It worked pretty well. So far only one side of the roof is installed and it will need lots of weathering. The vents aren't glued in yet, so they are a little crooked. Then on to the roof for the warehouse.

 

Probably reminds you of home!!!

 

A little more weathering to the actual gin and the basic roof installed on the warehouse portion. It needs lots more weathering and more dirt and junk around the structure.

 

The gin is nearly complete. It needs some people and a little more junk. It might also get a vent added to the roof of the warehouse portion. But that's nearly it for this model. If anyone has any ideas on where to find or how to make scale cotton bales, that would be great. Finished bales weigh 500 pounds and the dimensions are 54" X 21" X 33". A couple of photos are attached for reference.

 

Thanks. I had already seen these. $10 for four bales? Way too expensive for my tastes.

 

Thanks, Tom. My wife and I sometimes wish we could have lived here back in the '60's when farming and oil were better and the small towns were much more alive and prosperous.

 

Thanks--hadn't thought of that.

 

I am just admiring that huge pile of cotton seed in that "bale" photo.

While I admire and like details - I believe I would try and make some myself using Tom's suggestion.

 

The gin will ship out cotton seed. How would that have been done during the era being modeled? The current BNSF HAYBAK trains use big, rectangular open-top cars covered with canvas.

 

After seeing your post and looking online for info on shipping cotton seed, the attached photo showed up in association with the Waco, TX, cotton compress.

 

Cottonseed must be high-value to rate a Redbird as power!

 

Added a couple of structures to the layout. One is a downtown building and the second is a paper structure. The downtown building is to the right of the pharmacy. The paper structure is a small cabin. there will be a couple of other cabins and rural buildings near it. It still needs to have dirt, weeds and grass around it, and will get a little more weathering.

Paul Moore

 

Looking great...

 

Thank you!

 

Brought a new-to-us dog home on our trip to Colorado a couple of months ago, so there's not much time to railroad now. Spending lots of time hiking and training the new dog. It's ok...she's great!!!!

Had a few pieces laying around, so I scratch built a small warehouse to add to the cotton gin scene. It's the small building to the left of each photo. Still needs to be mated to the layout better. Right now it's basically sitting on top of the scenery.

The second two photos are terrible. When we installed lighting for the room, I screwed up and added one too few LED overhead fixtures. As a result, one side doesn't get much light. When using the flash, the pictures get weird, even when I set the white balance to flash. Oh well...

We're finally having summer--about 100 everyday and still more humid than usual. It's time for fall to roll in!!!