| Assembly |
 The gate valves are made from ..
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 Here they are assembled. Note that the valve stem is actually two screws. I looked for threaded rod that size .. and found it but was CRAZY expensive. These were so ‘fiddly’ to build that I ended up slightly (more) mad then when I started.
Notice that the little bits that support that upper piece are not attached. I found that it was easier to add those afterwards. |
 With the little vertical braces added the gate valves are pretty much completed. All they lack is a handwheel. That, I got from Vector Cut – one of the handwheels that are on the O scale “Steam Age Industrial Gears and Handwheels” which you can find on his O Scale Accessories Page.
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 Here they are finished, complete with hand-wheel. Those are toothpicks they are mounted on for painting .. which gives you a good idea of their size. Not satisfied with that I had to add the ubiquitous penny for the photo .. just in case the toothpicks were not good enough.
Note that the gate valve on the far left is open while the other two are closed. The open valve will connecting to the piping that runs to the water tank on the On18 level. The two closed valves will run directly to the coke ovens and to the line running to the outside and back into the river. |
 Finally, here are two of the gate valves mounted. The pipes are pieced together using Plastruct elbows. The elbows are fine but I ended up making my own flanges from Evergreen tubing as the Plastruct stuff is simply oversized. I’m pretty much satisfied with how it came out. Looking at this photo there are many places I could improve the mechanisms – if I were totally nuts.
Luckily for me all of this is pretty much hard to see with the building installed and what I did is ‘Good Nuff’ |
