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.
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.
I been thinking about how to build a cotton bale, we explored this as I recall, on another thread. We really need 2 different sizes of bales. The nominal size as you refer too and one for a super compressed bale which was done in Quanah. This was done so the bales were much more compressed (heavier) and better for transport by rail as regular bales were not heavy as far as rail loads go. I wonder if a person could carve or sand a block of wood, or similar, to the rough shape, coat it with an adhesive. Take a cotton ball and glue some to that basic shape, then wrap where appropriate with a burlap colored cloth with the banding made of graph tape.. Then maybe one could make a mold of several of these in RTV and produce them in quantity, maybe try some in N scale to replicate the super compressed bale in HO. Any Idea as to a better idea? My older brother worked at the compress in Quanah, he drove a fork lift modified to squeeze the bales to lift and move the bales to the compress then into boxcars, some spotted 2 abreast for loading. I'll tell you those guys drove them lifts like madmen at a demolition derby. I mean it was entertaining almost comical, just to watch those guys go at it. That would have been late 1983-1984-ish. I have seen miles of SL-SF 40' boxcars at Paducah for loading cotton bales to be moved to market or to Quanah for compressing and then on the FW&D or SL-SF (both had rights to switch the compress I think) to mills or markets. Brings back memories for me as a little kid, of my dad driving that old tractor w attached cotton stripper, and pulling trailers heaped full of stripped cotton. Good times on the farm before farming got really bad in the 1970's. Sorry for the hijack.
https://modeltechstudios.com/hoscaledetailcottonbalesetof4finished.aspx https://www.ebay.com/itm/COTTON-BAL...e-Painted-for-you-4-Pack-/124342831164?_ul=IL
Almost all gin bales had at least 6 metal bands, but I aint gonna say this never happened. It is a great cotton bale model. I need to order a few for myself.
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.
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.
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
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!!!