The Continuing Saga of Walkways and Stairs, Side One

Having finished the stairs on the one side of the Bunker, it was time to work on the opposite side. The plan was to connect the upper walkway to the long walkway that sat above the exhaust manifold. This would take a stairway with several landings and returns. But I ran into a slight problem. I had intended for the long walkway to actually sit on top of the pipes. When I tried attaching the stairs to it, this is......... well, take a look.



Yeah, the stairs block the Charging Larry , keeping it out from under the Bunker. (Actually, Walthers blocked the Larry on their own . If built as intended, the Larry will not fit under the Bunker; I had to raise it about a ½" .) So, I needed to raise the walkway several scale feet above the pipe. As you can see, the walkway is long, going nearly the whole length of the ovens. Fortunately, there were four evenly-spaced places where support columns could be located.

 These are the main pieces for the support columns. The uprights  are H-beams, and are cut longer than neccessary. The other two pieces are I-beams that fit in the web of the H-beam. The block keep everything square through assembly.

 The more I considered it, I felt a removable walkway would be advantageous, at least through the construction phase, not to mention how much easier it would be to paint. I found some round styrene tubing that the H-beam would fit in snugly. The tubing would be sunk into the oven deck, then the column could be slid inside. A small section of square tubing would be glued to the column to act as a depth stop.

 The concept was correct, but there was just a little too much slop in the fit. These shims would take care of  that problem. Once glued on the fit was nice and tight.

This jig locates the center-point for the drill, so all the columns will be evenly spaced from the edge.

Once the tubes were in, it was time to determine where to locate the square stop to give the walkway the proper height. An alligator clip is helpful during this step.  (Yeah, you caught me. This shot was taken before the shims were applied. Actually it was this step that made it evident that shims were needed.)

The placement of the columns.

With the walkway attached.

End Side One. Please turn over and play Side Two.