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Backdating the Walther's Blast Furnace

As you probable already know, the Walthers HO scale Blast furnace is "selectively compressed" by about 40%. What this means is that the furnace is quite a bit too small for the design of the furnace they are depicting. Here is an example of the prototype.

This was McClough Steel in the Detroit area. The piping at the top is of the “McKee” design and this feature gives a pretty good indication of the time period of the furnace. (40’s – 50’s)

If you made it to scale it would be this big:

And if you want to make it to scale you can use one of Mike Rabbitt’s basic blast furnace kits:

Big! So if you want to use the Walthers blast furnace kit, but you still want something that is closer to scale you can simply build a furnace from an earlier period. Here again, it’s good to contact Mike Rabbitt and purchase a set of his plans for a a 1915 blast furnace. Furnaces of that time period were considerably smaller than more modern furnace and the Walthers furnace is just about perfect for the 1915 era. To make the furnace “correct” for this earlier era you will have to change the top works. The finished result should look something like this:

Here is the diagram showing parts and placement:

(revised 3 March 2010)

The diagram shows the top platform located high on the uptakes whereas the photo show the platform located further down. Both placements are correct. Real furnaces were built either way.

Assembly can be a bit tricky. I found that if I built the top platforms and walkways in one piece it could be used as an assembly fixture. A similar piece with four holes was made to act as a lower jig. After the piece is cut to size and the four holes drilled remove the outer half of the area around the holes. This way it can be placed between the four uptakes to hold the uptakes square. A rubber band is then placed around the assembly and all the parts glued firmly into place.

Since most of the pieces are Plastruct Butyrate tubing you will need a special adhesive if you want it to stay together. Styrene cement will not work and the Plastrut glue in the orange bottle makes a marginal bond. I chose to use one of the exotic ACCs. My preference is Sinbad, but Cyanopoxy works as well. These adhesives will securely hold the butyrate tubing and parts together.

The two downcomers can be joined to a common collector pipe which goes to the dust catcher, or they can each go to the dust catcher separately. Piping from the downcomers varied widely from one furnace to the next.

REQUIRED PARTS [you can purchase the entire list at a discount by clicking here]:

Parts needed to backdate the Walthers Blast Furnace

The following is a list of the major parts needed to backdate the Walthers Blast Furnace to a 20’s era furnace. Additional detail can be added, such as staircases, railings, cranes, etc.