Imagine That Laser Art Pulp Mill Building

 A modeler featured in Model Railroading had used some ITLA (Imagine That Laser Art) products for his Southern pulp and paper mill, so I thought I would take a look at it.  The York Industries kit came close to what I was looking for in the way of a pulp digester building.  Many mills seem to have their digestors (or digester, if continuous) somewhat out in the weather:

This is the arrangement for the four digestors at Allied Paper Company in the late 1960's.

But, the International Paper Company mill in Panama City, in the mid-1950's seemed to have the digestors in a building "behind" the paper machine.  The building was a bit taller and might have been constructed of different brick in a different architectural style than the paper mill building:

Maybe the building just to the left behind the longer paper machine building, not far from the right smokestack.

Besides, a laser cut kit was not something that I had really tried before -- the company store was close. . . .  Just after I ordered the York Construction kit, Trump started messing with tariffs and ITLA is a Canadian company.  So, the order was held up several days at the border!!

The ITLA kits tend to yield OLD, worn buildings with a good bit of "character" -- not what I was looking for but by placing the panels carefully, most of what is in view looks fairly nice.

Started with painting some of the concrete, windows, and cider blocks; then installing windows; followed by test-fitting the four sides:

Looking OK.  Added pilasters then glued cornice pieces on.  It wasn't obvious until cornice pieces were cut that there needed to be some allowance for thickness in cutting the length!  The Wife had already asked how the water was going to get off of the roof so that was enough of an excuse to fabricate a couple of downspouts to fill the gaps in the cornices.

Not the final edition, yet, since ITLA included a number of details like vents, and HVAC unit, and ladders, and trash cans, and rooftop access, etc.  Waiting until piping is installed for pulp and chemicals to put on the details.  A couple of views on the layout. Mocked up chip chute -- oops, someone blocked the chip entrance with a window!?!?

Again, missed a little planning ahead; don't know why you'd need doors on the same corner of the building?!

Bottom line, the building meets the expectations with some other equipment to be customized and installed.

Tanks for the TwoFer

Needing some tankage for the paper mill, I purchased the Tichy Trains Steel Tank kit.  I'm still fighting with the three pulpwood rack cars and tank car I purchased from Tichy.  I don't find their kits very easy to assemble.  But, since the Steel Tank kit provide a domed top AND a flat top, and there were enough sections for the body of the tank to make TWO medium sized tanks instead of one (that might have been too big for the layout), I came away with two structures instead of one.

The "spiral staircase" was difficult enough to attach that I'm glad I didn't have to go the full six sections for one tank.  But I think the two will work well somewhere near the paper mill -- water, slush pulp, or something. . . 

So far, pretty easy.  45 degree angle for spiral stairs is marked and steps are cut.  Used one access from the kit and one from the Walthers piping kit; will wait until final positioning on layout to make the top entrance.

Four Tichy kits (two tanks for the price of one!) along with two small tanks and a pay phone on a post from the 3D printing mentioned in prior post.  Water tank has upper ladder attached.  Ended up purchasing new pen vise and set of drill bits to drill holes on frame to put 0.012 inch wire rungs.  Used same bit to drill out holes for grab irons on pulpwood rack (only one, so far, fit with grab irons).

Shorter tank has (almost) vertical ladder which was a little easier than spiral staircase, but still difficult with safety cage installation.

Chalk dust weathering has been attempted for both tanks.  Don't want to spray with dull coat so hope the dust sticks OK as is.  (Picture not available; maybe when placed on track.)

3D Printing!

3D printing looks like fun, but not for me, yet.  However, an ebay offer was so enticing that I had to have some 3D printed exterior details.  The offer was for 270 for about $30.  I got, instead, about 400 pieces:

The HVAC ducting/systems were of most interest, but several other items like trash cans, pay phones, crates, and small tanks will undoubtedly find a place on the layout.

Paper Mill, No Clamps!

Still needing the details, but tried the paper mill on the layout without clamps.  Gee, seems it takes up a lot of space.  Some readjustments for woodyard to digesters will be needed, but like the look in general!

Paper Mill Roof Repair

Nope, Plastruck glue did not work.  Two parts of roof with long edges did not stay glued.  So, pulled out the old fashioned tube of model glue and tried again.  Even added a couple of clamps to keep things together.  Hope this works. . . .

Final Assembly of Paper Mill

Well, not exactly final assembly of the paper mill -- lots of detail still to be determined and affixed.  But, this seems to be a major step!

Gluing end walls was not quite as straightforward as anticipated.  First try the walls were so lightly glued that they came apart on first movement.  Still, just added lots of cement and adhesion seemed much better; also may have given more time to "dry" than first go-around.

Ensuring walls were perpendicular was not as easy as suggested in the instructions.  The balusters or columns on the exterior and gluing reinforcements on the interior did not leave a large flat surface to work with.  Still, seemed to be some plumb.

Used flat sheet styrene for rooftop.  Inside dimension turned out to be just about 5 9/16 inch.  Turns out, this left a piece that exactly fit between two widths of sheet.  Plastruck glue doesn't seem to stay wet quite long enough on the extended sides of the roof.  When things dry a bit will probably try to turn the building upside down and add some glue from the inside.  Hoping the roof pieces will help stabilize the whole mill.

Flat black and glued in. . . with some weight to help!

Blackened Windows

 Windows are not really that important for a paper mill, so let's blacken them as well as interior walls of the mill.  No real need to be able to see out of the windows nor to see into the windows so we can "hide" the interior.

Looking pretty good with walls just leaning against each other.  Next step is gluing walls together and then adding a roof.  The roof should add some stability to the structure.

Sure hope it fits the layout, even though it still comes up short (in two ways) versus the actual paper mill in Panama City.

Picture quality is not so good, but the length of the paper mill is evident.  Actually, the last part of the building is probably warehousing, so we can work around that a bit.