Does anyone know what these tower structures are called and what they do? And does anyone have a close up photo of the top of them? They are part of a feed mill complex in Modesto (my current project, photos coming soon )
They are called elevators.......there are buckets/scoops inside the tower attached to a chain drive. The buckets move up one side of the enclosed tower and as they pass over the top, they dump their load, which slides down the tube and then gets diverted into various bins/hoppers (the multitube piece under the cone shaped piece routes the material).
I believe the square shaped upside down "U" is an elevator. The cone shaped thing is supposedly a distributor to sort different sizes of feed to different parts of the mill. I found this online, but if you try to follow it, much of it does not make the best sense. :-/ Nonetheless, its the concept that counts.
The vertical elevator is usually referred to as a leg. The housing at the top above the catwalk platform is where the electric motor is that drives the belt with the buckets.
Wow, that's some diagram, Mark. Grain elevators used to be big buildings, inside of which were the elevators and grain storage. As operations modernized, people began to build the elevators externally and cover the working parts and motors with housings, which is what you see here. They convey the grain to external grain bins. Photos of these can be found on the internet, but the best thing might be to get a Rix Products Guthrie Grain elevator kit!
Dave, Here is a simple kit to get the basic parts. You can add piping and such to go from there and make it as complex as you need... http://www.rixproducts.com/6280707.htm The sell the elevator by itself and it can be made up to 120' high with the parts in the kit. http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/628-707 Other than that, there is plenty available in HO. Just replace the hand rails and ladders to scale them down. Then of course, scratchbuilding shouldn't be out of your relm of capabilities. :tb-wink:
As Tony points out, the elevators are easily scratchbuilt using strip styrene. The rotary distributor, noted as the distributor in the diagram, is also easily scratchbuilt using tube styrene as are the augurs using smaller tube and layered strip styrene. The silver silo is a Rix item, the grey made from a 40mm PVC coupling with .010" x .020" styrene strip bands and shaped vents, mounted on a .040" base The rotary distributor above is a Rix part from memory, and the mesh is bought.
Hmmm......that may work better for me than using the Walthers ADM kit (which is now in place on my layout). I need to model a poultry feed distribution center such as is used by Tyson, Pilgrims Pride and Simmons, and even though the Walthers kit looks OK, it seems out of place for what I need. Gary's model of a feed mill is inspiring- wonder if he has pics of the building process somewhere? (hint, hint )
Thanks for all the info guys. Gary - outstanding work. Is that a free lance model, or modeled after a prototype? You've done a great job of nailing alot of the details. The more I study the Modesto mill complex, the more details (& work ) I see! Catwalks, pipes, ladders, etc... I've seen the tall buildings also referred to as 'grain elevators'. What's the difference? Or are the tall buildings the old-school version and the slender towers newer technology? I've often wondered what' inside the tall buildings.
Looks like an interesting project. Keep us informed! And thanks to the guys who posted those pictures. Elevators make sense now.
Those can be found all over the midwest. From farms to grain elevators. I refer to graion elevators as the place where us grain farmers deliver our grain to when it leaves the farm. This is pretty old technology. Been around for probably a hundred years. In corn country there are also dryers that dry wet corn as it is delivered from the field to the elevator. This year there is a lot of wet corn and harvest is dragging along slowly. The dryers work pretty much like your home clothes dryer except the grain doesnt spin around. Gas is used to heat the air to dry the grain then it is moved into the storage bins. Wet corn is held in a special wet holding bin. The wet grain needs to be dried fairly quickly or it will spoil just as food would spoil.
Thanks, Dave, it's modelled after the prototype feedmill is located near Tifton GA. I photographed it back in '97 after spotting it from I75 on a trip from Clarkesville to Orlando. The model is compressed but I wanted to maintain the look and part of that look is the myriad of pipes, walkways, elevators, etc. The self-supporting pipework was an interesting scratchbuild (looking for an image). Bob, sorry no progress photos as such. I started building it whilst work in HK in '98 before I bought my first digital camera, but it's not complete as yet. There's lots of detailing and finishing of sub-sections to be done so plenty of photo ops!
WOW Gary, that is some beautiful work you have done. I hope you dont mind me saving the photos for my own personal reference to get some ideas flowing
