Walthers Champion Packing Plant


I waited until I had determined the final positioning of the structures on the layout before I did the ladder and hand railings, to ensure that I had them facing the aisle. You may already know how you want to position it. The scratched glass probably doesn't matter in an industrial building. Just my .02¢.

Willie
 
It looks like the kit was modified from the one I have with railings around the top of what I called the power house. Is this something you added, Willie?
 
NP2626, the ladder and railings are in the kit. The directions show them being installed, both in the written instructions and the diagram. It's just that the box art doesn't have them. I wonder if the box art is from an earlier kit, and the ladder and railings were included in later versions?
Also, the instructions show the smokestack being assembled from 4 side pieces, an inner ring, and a ring on top. The one that was included in the kit (which was still factory sealed) is one piece, no inner ring, but does have the ring for the top.
I'm thinking some things got changed along the way, but the box art stayed the same.
 
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Does Walthers still add the hanging beef for your loading platform and the butchers pushing the beef on the overhead trolley? If they cut the cattle from the stock yards, my guess is they dropped these detail, also! How do people get down to the power house roof, is there a door, or a ladder coming down from the big building's roof?
 
My kit has 4 hanging sides of beef. There are no workers for the loading dock, though. As far as access to the boiler house roof, I can't find any details regarding that. There is a small shed on the roof of the main plant where the access door is. But nothing for the boiler house roof.
 
I can't find any details regarding that.
Welcome to the world of Walther's instructions.
For access to the boilerhouse roof, I just used a roof hatch from a DPM modular kit; a rectangular piece of styrene would work as well. I don't know of any Walther's kit with figures, but I did get the four sides of beef with mine.

Willie
 
I finally got all the windows and doors installed in their respective walls. I finished the cooling tower. I'm going to wait until I know how things are going to be oriented on the layout before I install the ladder and railings.
I'm working on the smokestack building right now. I have two of the walls glued together, and I have the other two clamped and drying as I type this. I painted the roof flat black Rustoleum, and after it dried I used the smokestack to get the paint off the roof where the stack will be glued. I just pressed down hard while holding the roof on my workbench and turned the smokestack. The bottom of the smokestack rubbed a circle of paint off quite nicely, the i finished the job with a #11 Exacto blade. I also scraped the paint off the top and side of the locating ring. After the roof is glued in place I will glue the smokestack on.
I think i will leave the base as it is to simulate a concrete pad.

I think next I will paint the window ledges and brickwork ornamentation. Then glue on the window glazing (I bought some .010 and .015 clear styrene for that job). After that I will glue the walls together.
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I've been working on this as time permits, which isn't much!
I finished the boiler house. The trim above the windows was a trip to paint! I first tried it freehand with out a magnifying aid, but I just couldn't see the edges of the trim clear enough. So looked for a lighted magnifier that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. I found this at Harbor Freight:
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Wally was a bit jealous until I asked him "Hey, Wally, show the new guy the ropes, will ya?"
Then he perked up. I think they'll get along fine together.
Being finally able to see the trim well enough to paint it, I got that done. I used some .015 clear PVC from Midwest for the window glazing.
Tip: do not try to install the individual panes. Just cut a piece of your glazing large enough to cover all the windows in a wall at once, then glue it to outer edges of the outer frames It doesn't even have to be glued to each frame. Weight it down, and once it's dry no one will be able to tell that they aren't individual panes. Save your sanity!
Once the glazing was installed, I glued the walls together. Before I added the roof, I used some black construction paper ($2.49 for 50 sheets from Michael's craft store) to line the inside of the building. This will prevent being able to look in one side of the building and out the other at the same time. I used regular cellophane tape to tape it in place. The base and roof were then glued in place.
After the glue had dried, I placed it on the layout in the general vicinity of where it will go. After I get the main building done, I'll go back and add the ladder and railings for the cooling tower.
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If I recall correctly, Walthers stopped offering the smoke stack that came in four sections and now the are sold as a one piece unit.

Greg
 
The going is slow, due to outdoor jobs and increased hours at work, but I'm plugging away at it. I'm a Plugger, after all. http://www.gocomics.com/pluggers/
I have 3 of the 4 walls painted. The large walls are being done in sections. I paint about half the trim, giving the areas a 'primer' coat. This is then allowed to dry. After that I do the rest of the trim, and let it dry. Once the trim has been primed, I go back with a second coat, doing 1/2 at a time. It takes a while, but the results look pretty good and I don't start seeing double from looking in the magnifier for extended periods of time! :D
That magnifier is a very handy tool to have, well worth the money!
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Well, the big day has finally arrived! I have begun gluing the walls of the main building together. I finished painting the trim, though a bit of touch up will be needed when gluing is complete, and installed the .015 PVC glazing and black construction paper view blocks. I should finish getting the walls glued tomorrow, and then I can figure out how I'm going to do the cattle loading chute.
Because the chute is going to be facing the opposite direction from the kit design, the inner wall will become the outer wall and the outer will be the inner. This could prove interesting.

The loading dock wall and the chute wall glued together. I am using a cheap corner clamp from Harbor Freight. Since there's not much stress on it, it's holding up fine so far! Lots of spring clamps help hold things square.
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The plastic springs clamps (the small ones) are from Harbor Freight as well. I discovered (quite by accident) that when the pads are swiveled backwards they do a good job of holding the wall sections together, provided there is a lip for them to grab onto. They are holding the wall sections without putting stress on the window frames.
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I am using a couple of different sized joist angles to help hold the top wall square. The long black skinny clamps are from Menard's.
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At this rate I should be done in a few years. With the packing plant anyway!;)
 
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I decided to start on the water tower while the second wall assembly dries. I got the two tank halves glued together without incident. The tower supports, well..........
I went looking for them and discovered what was left of them laying in the box with all the other "de-sprued" fiddly bits!I pieced them back together and got all 4 to come out properly. 3 of them were only broken into 2 pieces, while one of them is 3 pieces. Jig saw puzzle time! This really shouldn't be too bad. This kit was a train show find, so who knows how many times it's been moved, bumped, dropped, etc. Once I get these pieces glued back together, I'm going to airbrush the tank, along with it's top and bottom. The supports are supposed to be glued together along their edges and cap strips glued to them before gluing to the tank bottom. I'll glue the supports together and airbrush the assembly before gluing it to the tank bottom.
Oh, the adventures of model railroading! :rolleyes:

The tank support jig saw puzzle:
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The remainder of the "de-sprued" fiddly bits in the box:
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I have to do 10 hour days at work next week, so I may not get much done before the weekend, but what happens happens.
 
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I have a Model Railroading friend who used to sell some type of products to the actual Packing Plant in Dubuque Iowa that this kit was modeled after. He has built this same kit, also. I'm just glad to see people just even building models!
 
Thanks, guys! I prefer to build kits when possible (for both model railroading and RC planes) rather than just buy what someone else has assembled. 10 hour days do cut into the workshop time, though!
I just glued the last corner of the main building together. One of the legs on the tank support just isn't gluing up too well. I think I'll reinforce that with a thin piece of styrene glued to the back and call it an in-the-field repair! I'm kind of bouncing back and forth between the two projects right now.
 
Thanks, guys! I prefer to build kits when possible (for both model railroading and RC planes) rather than just buy what someone else has assembled. 10 hour days do cut into the workshop time, though!
I just glued the last corner of the main building together. One of the legs on the tank support just isn't gluing up too well. I think I'll reinforce that with a thin piece of styrene glued to the back and call it an in-the-field repair! I'm kind of bouncing back and forth between the two projects right now.

A man after my own heart, Mr. Flyboy! I love kits, both in Model Railroading and R/C Airplanes, too!
 



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