General Tire Akron - Original Plant Build

[Philip H]

Lately I've been doing grills on HVAC and locomotives with Tamaya Grey Panel line paint.  Give just enough depth and (blackness" without being overwhelming.

[Sokramiketes]

When I don't have the depth to capture dark paint, I simply darken the base color a little bit and let resulting grayness of the area imply a fine mesh grill. 

In other words, just mask off the rectangle and spray it with some medium gray.  It will look tidy and imply the affect you were originally looking for. 

[SAH]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I'm going to use Mike's tip for the upcoming cooler build.

I've been adding little details bits here and there recently.  Most will not draw a viewers attention.  The floodlights at the top of the hoist house are different in that respect.  Here's a good photo (showing lots of others goodies too).


I had some Tichy HO scale lamp shades left over from my HO B&O Akron Junction engine terminal adventure.  They looked about right for this application.  Here's a construction sequence photo and an installed photo.  I think they capture the look well enough.




I wanted to build a little fan cooler for a spot that looked rather bare at the left end of the roof.  The cutter was pressed into service to make parts.  Here's the assembled but unpainted cooler as well.  I'll paint it a light gray, make air intake overlays and paint them a darker gray per Mike's suggestion.  I think I'll try to use the cutter to make a faux grill on the intake screens.



Pour yourself an extra cup of eggnog if you can identify the source for the fan screens. 

Merry Christmas from General Tire Akron!

[Mike C]

  Keyboard vacuum ?

[SAH]

Nope.  Desiccant pack parts.


The air intake screens turned out better than I expected.  I'm betting this technique will come in handy for other apps.  The score lines are at .025" x .050". 






Here's a shot showing the roof top details in total.  I added three more floodlight to the left front corner after I snapped this photo.  I think I'm done save for the carbon black conveyor, which will go to the right of the loading dock end.

[SAH]

Ah, the carbon black conveyor.  I've been able to locate photos of the General Tire installation taken at a long distance away.  I believe it was a bucket conveyor, similar to what you might see at a grain elevator or cement storage silo.  Given carbon black's microscopic particle size it must have been one dirty operation.  And maintenance . . No thanks.  In any event, I have the Goodyear Plant #1 installation to use as a model.  Shown below.  This and much of the old plant around it disappeared this past summer. 


I purchased a bucket elevator kit from Yelton Models when I was at Altoona.  Most of the parts are decent, if slightly warped, but that is fixable.  I wasn't impressed with the ladder and safety cage.  Metal is still the way to go for iron work IMO.  The ladder is not necessary for my installation anyway, so I'll set this model aside for another use.


I've been thinking about this installation for quite some time.  A plan is starting to come together.  I think.

[SAH]

Happy New Year to all.

Building the bucket conveyor shaft seemed liked a good place to start.  The white paper is a template for the extension of the concrete pad off the back of the old admin building.  It occurred to me after fitting this in that I'll be crossing the line into scenery with this part of the build.  All structures HAD BETTER be in the final position.


Here's an interesting photo from the Goodyear archives at the Univ of Akron.  I found a copy of a JM Huber company newsletter in a folder.  The article within highlighted Huber's long relationship with Goodyear.  This photo particularly caught my attention.  Obviously staged but not staged - Note the Cabot hopper next in line.  Not surprising since interchange reports and BOLs show Goodyear bought carbon black from all the major manufacturers. 

Lots of details are apparent after some study.  I like the chain fall they use for a winch to fine tune hopper outlet placement. 


I've no evidence, photographic or otherwise, General had the ability to unload bulk carbon black from hopper cars.  The certainly did have a conveying system however.  It's possible they received black in bags at the dock and used a bag dumper to get it into the bucket conveyor.  A messy process but with the proper dust collection system in place, a possibility.  EDIT:  The January 79 Spencer Interchange Report data shows 1 CB Hopper and 3 box cars of bagged black going to General.  Probably does not change my direction but interesting nevertheless.

I've chosen to "plausibly imagineer" the system sketched below.  Designing something like this might get one fired at the first review meeting but hey, it will make an interesting model.  Since most of it is below grade only the access covers, screw conveyor drives and assorted cabinets and such will be visible.  This could be a signature scenery element or an absolute cluster ***.  We will see.

[SAH]

I'm calling the ground level unloading conveyor scene done, except for a couple additions to come: A track bumper and a cobbled together thingee to represent the hand winch.  Now it's on to the roof level conveyors and support structure.  The finish line is in sight!

[sirenwerks]

How did they move the bags of black from the box cars?

[SAH]

How did they move the bags of black from the box cars?

It depends on the era of course.  All the tire plants in Akron had their start in the late 1800's, so everything was unloaded and moved by brute force.


By the 1920's most of the big plants were built out.  The product was still unloaded by hand but often moved to storage or the production area with powered assistance.


The loading docks were narrow and did not accommodate modern fork trucks.  Newer plants took fork truck movement into account.  Bagged CB was likely shipped
 stacked on pallets.  Reusable stainless steel totes is the common method of shipping CB today. 

[muktown128]

I worked for a paint manufacturer that used carbon black.  It was normally packaged in bags.  Carbon black can be supplied in different forms - powder or pellet.  During my 35+ year career, I never saw any pigments supplied in tote tanks.  We did receive some pigments like TiO2 and extender pigments in 1000 lbs. or 2000 lbs. supersacks that would fit on a pallet.  Pulling the cord on a 2000 lbs. super sack held over a tank on a fork truck was a whole lot easier than dumping the equivalent amount of 50 lbs. bags by hand.  I'm not sure how you could easily empty a stainless steel tote of dry pigment.  Maybe if it had a conical shaped bottom, but most of the stainless steel totes I've seen were square or rectangular shaped cubes with a flat bottom.  Here is an example of a super sack for carbon black pigments from Orion Carbon.
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[SAH]

Good reference @muktown128 .  Thanks.

A railcar pneumatic unloading system schematic from the Dynamic Air website (many years ago) is shown below.  It's not hard to imagine what is labeled as "transporters" can be movable and shipped to customers.  I gave a presentation about the tire industry and railroads that served them in Akron at the Marion OH RPM a few years back.  I touched on carbon black handling in a general manner.  After the presentation a young gentleman came up to tell me he worked at a small rubber shop and that nearly all their carbon black came in stainless steel totes.  It all came from China of course.  So, it's possible.

When I get to the Goodyear Plant 2 build I'm planning to model a pneumatic unloading system.  I have one good photo that suggests one was installed there. 

[muktown128]

Steve,

Thanks for additional information.  It got me thinking a little more about supplying powders in bulk containers.  The company I worked for also manufactured powder coatings that were supplied in gaylords, which is basically a large box mounted on a pallet.  However, I'm not sure how the powder was emptied out of the box.  I was involved with liquid coatings during my career, so I didn't think of powder coatings supplied in bulk containers until after reading your reply.

Regards,
Scott

[SAH]

I drew the CB conveyor support system using CAD so I could print out templates for an accurate fab.  The template is glued to the work surface (water soluble stick glue), then another layer of stick glue on the template to hold the styrene parts in place while they are glued together.  When the bond is set lay the whole thing into the sink and thoroughly wet the template.  In a few minutes the fabbed part separates from the template and the template separates from the work pad.  Soak the parts in a bowl of water to clean up the glue residue.  This process is nothing new for most of you I'm sure.


I separated the build into the structure below and above the platform.  The front and back are shown in the photo.


I puzzled about how to build the sides and join them to the front or back, so I tried this little high tech get up.  The front and back width is a shade over 3/4", so a 1x3 was pressed into use.  It worked but to make sure all four side mated up properly onto the platform I decided to mount the back and right side onto the platform frame directly.


I got fancy and used a see through mesh for the platform floor.  Here's the platform with the lower support structure and mesh attached.  So far so good.


Armed with what I learned about assembling the structure below the platform I tackled the structure above the platofrm.  Not bad.  A "doghouse" will slip over the top vertical members.  The support structure has been painted and the drawing for the cutter to make the doghouse parts complete.  Getting close!

[SAH]

. . . . .The company I worked for also manufactured powder coatings that were supplied in gaylords, which is basically a large box mounted on a pallet.  However, I'm not sure how the powder was emptied out of the box.  I was involved with liquid coatings during my career, so I didn't think of powder coatings supplied in bulk containers until after reading your reply.

Regards,
Scott

Scott @muktown128 , I should have mentioned the super sacks in my initial reference.  The Dynamic Air site also had diagrams for unloading super sacks.  Slipped my mind.

I'm familiar with gaylords as described, but not for powders.  I worked in the ABS plastic biz for a few years.  High volume resin was shipped in rail cars or pneumatic tanker trucks.  Nearly everything else went out in gaylords, save for some random bagged product.  We were concerned with filling the gaylords but on occasion I had to go to a customer's site for a complaint resolution visit.  I saw two unloading systems in use.  I'm sure there are others.  A box dumper that appeared to be a homemade contraption, powered by hydraulics was memorable.  A more common system was a vacuum wand inserted into the resin supply for filling small hoppers at an injection molding machine.  I think it employed a venturi nozzle to move the resin.  It was noisy.  I can see how something similar could be used for powders.

Steve