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Building the Union Ice Company

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  • Member since
    August 2010
  • From: Columbia, IL
  • 394 posts
Building the Union Ice Company
Posted by wdcrvr on Monday, August 7, 2017 7:51 PM

I purchased Tru-scale Structures Union Ice Company Kit.  I love the look of the finished structure but I am having some difficulty with the old kit.  The cooling tower is constructed from pieces of card stock which the instructions say to tape together.  The tape in the kit is old and in sad shape.  I could use some other tape but I am wondering if it would not be better to just glue the four sides of the baffles together?  I would probably need to use some removable tape, like painters tape to hold the baffles in shape while the glue dries.  I think this was a popular kit back in the day(probably way back) so I thought there would be some people around who have had experience with this kit.  If anyone can offer any advice (no, I will not toss it) I would be most grateful.

Thanks

wdcrvr 

  • Member since
    December 2015
  • From: Shenandoah Valley
  • 9,094 posts
Posted by BigDaddy on Monday, August 7, 2017 8:15 PM

There are several on Ebay, variously identified as Suydam, Alpine Division and California Models.  The best shot of the cooling tower is here

http://tinyurl.com/y8r6hz7c

My only advice is painters tape can stick very aggressively.  A trick I saw on Off the Tracks is to stick it to something, like a counter and remove it, re-stick it and remove multiple times until it's less sticky.

Henry

COB Potomac & Northern

Shenandoah Valley

  • Member since
    January 2010
  • From: Chi-Town
  • 7,712 posts
Posted by zstripe on Tuesday, August 8, 2017 10:31 AM

Wdcrvr,

I would not use any kind of tape at all......instead, glue it together without any need for the tape. Glue a long side and short side together, do the same for the other side, then glue together to form one piece. You can do more than one at a time...once cured...put together. The adhesive I highly recommend for doing that is Northeastern Flamingo Glue......drys in 5 minutes, goes on pink, but drys clear and is very strong. I use it all the time for any scratch building requiring the use of wood and or cardstock.....I use Illustration board 1/16'' thick...looks like poster board/Mat board. The link for the glue:

https://northeasternscalelumber.com/shop/glue.html

In the pic's below everything that is wood or cardstock/poster board was glued with Flamingo Glue...it is fast and strong.

A side porch entrance for a row of businesses with apartments on second floor.

The green styrene and stairs I used ZAP CA, the rest was Flamingo glue.

This next pic' is the scratch building with white pine and poster board glued together with Flamingo glue for the overpass in the next pic'.

Give it a shot.....I don't believe You will be disappointed.

I wish they had that type of glue back in the 50's when I built a bunch of suydam kits.

Take Care! Big Smile

Frank

  • Member since
    August 2006
  • 1,519 posts
Posted by trainnut1250 on Sunday, August 13, 2017 2:02 PM

WDCRVR,

 

Love this building design. However,these kits are old technology. Cardstock parts are famous for warping over time. I would suggest that you cut out the cardstock parts in styrene and build a styrene version. The model will still need internal  bracing, but (IMHO), the outcome will be better.

 

If you decide to use the original cardstock parts for the ventilator, I suspect they will warp pretty quickly (depending on the climate) as there aren’t many places to brace them. In general, I seal both side of the cardstock with paint before assembly and then brace the heck out of the structure to minimize the warping issue. I wouldn’t use tape to permanently hold the ventilator together.

 

I chose to scratch build an icing dock ventuilator building from styrene:

 

 

 

 

Have fun with the kit,

 

Guy

see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site

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