6
6: Close-up of Stewart’s Gap beehives showing open and
closed ovens. The yellow color represents firebrick used
to seal the ovens.
The Lite and Narrow Column - 6
just a hobby knife. There are eight yard wall castings and eight
oven castings (sixteen ovens) for my battery. The basic kit comes
with wooden retaining walls that are optional to use. These are
also cast in LabStone and take stain very nicely. Depending on
your space limitations, you can have more or less. Scale Model
Masterpieces has an expansion kit with just the oven and yard
wall casting with the trunnel pieces.
Construction began by cutting the left column from each cast-
ing, leaving the left end casting complete. This was on both
the yard wall and the oven castings. Each casting was butted
together, then rubbed back and forth until they fit tightly
together. The castings were glued together using a combina-
tion of yellow glue and CA. I stained the castings with Dr. Ben’s
“worn concrete.” After drying, the castings were given a wash
of Builder’s in Scale blackwood stain to highlight the stones.
Chalks were used over the oven doors to indicate sootiness
from the coal.
Extruded foam board was cut to proper height, and using a
NMRA gauge, track was into place and a line drawn locat-
ing the yard wall. The yard wall was attached to this piece of
foam board. For my battery, I’m using the dimensions from the
Sewell, WV coke battery. These are referenced on pages 76-81
of “West Virginia Narrow Gauge, Mann’s Creek Railway,” writ-
ten by Ron Lane and Ted Schnepf. It states that the “coke dock”
or “coke wharf” was 15’ wide. This is a big saving in space for
a model railroad over the 32’ from the Connellsville measure-
ments. I marked a line 15’ from the front edge and glued the
oven fronts into place.
5: Stewart’s Gap beehives diorama. Larry car track and
loading tipple are to be added. Details to be added are
tools, mortar barrel, ladders and loading boards. The
ovens are constructed using Scale Model Masterpiece’s
coke oven castings.
5
MRH-Dec 2013
