Tomytec Refinery

[Hobby Dreamer]

oh well. they are still a good deal over all. some items hurt a bit more than others.

 

I'm involved in another hobby where items are not even made so many would kill to have X, Y or Z. The only thing worse than an expensive refinery is no refinery at all, if that is the item you want!

 

Maybe the price will deter everyone from having the same layout!

 

I see structures such as the refinery as having hidden value. If you bought office towers then you would need a road, sidewalks maybe street lights etc. (Plus vehicles and figures).

 

But you can stick a refinery by a track - done!

 

Maybe not as expensive as it seems... and you don't have to get the whole refinery!!

[cteno4]

oh no if you plop a refinery down then you really needs lots of pretty lights blinking all over, lots of pipes (they never have enough in most of the refinery models), trucks and roads! thats the fun of them, they can be extremely dense scenes to detail out well!

 

the actual fun of modeling a refinery is its one of the few structures you can do a lot of kitbashing or scratch building for w/o a lot of modeling skill as there are a lot of very basic shapes and then just lots of pipes. you can model a lot of the piping from your old model sprews from larger kits. these make great pipes, elbow joints, Ts, Valve stems, etc

 

jeff

[Hobby Dreamer]

One cannot argue that a refinery is easy to add on to and Plastruct (or whatever its called) make a lot of plastic tubing. The thing about the roads etc is that you can have them going off-layout and maybe the piping fills the tanks but then gets sent to tanker train cars so you can skip the road...

 

I have a fuel refinery/storage place about 5 miles away and the fuel comes by train (and maybe pipeline) and the road is on one side of the refinery... Actually, if you look at this prototype and then the Tomytec models the latter look amazing!!!

 

I'm still thinking a tram layout with a small rail section and something like this refinery, or a few pieces are quite cool. The sphere tanks look great! The cylindrical tanks in N scale don't look nearly as good IMHO. I priced them recently and they were about the same as Tomytec but I don't think pre-built!

[rpierce000]

Let's see, short on oil to make plastic to make models....

 

Does anyone know where I could find a refinery? 

[rpierce000]

I had mine arrive today!

 

I will get shots up on bttrains.com by the end of the week.  It is in a box about 14" by 5" by 7" and contains two (A) cracking towers, one set of two (B) condensers, two © spherical tanks, one (D) loading area, One (E) guardhouse and fence and one (F) set of connector piping. There are also a BUNCH of bonus pipes, 4mm, 44 straights, 26 elbows, 4 T's, 4 U's, 8 45 degree bends and 26 pipe supports, in 5mm there are 28 straights, 16 elbows, 4 45 degree bends and 24 supports.

There are also 16 additional fence pieces to surround this larger storage facility.

 

With all of the bonus piping this will build a HUGE gas storage area.

 

Like many TomyTec sets each of the A-F items are in complete sub boxes inside the outer box.

 

Some other features from looking at the back shots: 

 

1) The gate is a sliding gate. I do not know if it is functional

2) There is a light post with the guard tower

3) Part of the loading area is for a tank car, the other for a truck

4) Parts of the model, pipe supports in F and the bases of the cracking towers in A are blue

5) The spherical tanks are green

 

One other thing I find interesting about the back shot is that the "bonus" piping is not shown. I wonder why?

 

I hope one of you buys this, I want to see what it looks like put together!!

[Martijn Meerts]

So, in your opinion, is it worth the rather high cost? (I mean, high compared to previous TomyTec models.. When compared to Faller, Vollmer etc. it's obviously cheap ;))

[rpierce000]

It depends on the parts you want. The spherical tanks are not as "refineryish" as the cylindrical ones so to me this is more of a distribution point for gas, but it is an excellent value for what it is. I can easily see combining it with with GreenMax Factory Series (37, 37-1, 37-2, 37-3)

 

The bonus piping and fences are a good deal as well with the two sizes and extensive length you could connect a lot of other sets to this one.

 

I wish they had included some branding stickers, even for a "mythical" oil company. I find this set a bit bland.

[Martijn Meerts]

I'm thinking of adding some industry on the new layout, since we're starting from scratch (again ... :)) I can plan ahead and figure out what I want to add.

 

I have the Greenmax factory (only the main kit, no extra's) but that's about it so far. Might consider adding the refinery, but it'll be "a while" before I can start adding buildings :)

[rpierce000]

http://www.bttrains.com/tomytec-078-refinery-complex/

 

The pictures are up now for those who wish to take a look. They include all of the bonus items and the instruction pamphlet.

 

Does anyone know what we are doing wrong that gives us the curves when we shoot the boxes?

[Hobby Dreamer]

Does anyone know what we are doing wrong that gives us the curves when we shoot the boxes?

 

Smoke smell?

 

(Just kidding), Are you using a wide angle?  Very small lenses in a cell can distort at close up..

 

Thanks for posting this - it took a while to realize there is a zoom..

 

As mentioned the whole kit is expensive but each piece seems well priced... A lot of the kit is duplicates that wouldn't be missed...

 

Its a great piece to distinguish a layout, especially the sphere tanks...

[cteno4]

I just picked up some plastic balls at the dollar store that looks to be about the right size for a spherical tank like this. want to play with it to see what can be done.

 

the condensers look great and a good price. interesting to put a little motor in there and make the big fan blades rotate.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[nik_n_dad]

Nik and I just got the set.  There's about 3-gazillion parts, and unlike previous Tomytec kits, this isn't a 5-minute build, it's not snap-together and it's not weathered.  Some parts of the set require glue not to make it more secure, but just to keep it together.  There is certainly a lot of pipe!

 

Not saying we're disappointed by what we got, just that it's not typical Tomytec.  It will look cool.... when it gets built...

[cteno4]

have to agree, i just started putting the ball tank together, you need 3 hands to get the legs and braces together! they will need glue like you said as well. the tank is quite substantial actually. might actually pick up a second.

 

also picked up a set of condensers and looking for some little motors to make the fan spin.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

ok youll have to add this to some of your tomytec tanks!

 

http://www.sodahead.com/fun/only-in-japan-decorated-gas-tanks----should-everything-be-a-canvas/question-1570475/?slide=0

 

no so fun trying to apply a decal to a sphere though!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[rpierce000]

I have seen some really cool water towers in Western NY that have decorations on them.  Our school painted ours in the school colors with the school Mustang and the letters underneath.

 

I think if you make anything big enough, and blank, someone will see it as a blank canvas.

 

Bob

[cteno4]

I had bought a small ball at the dollar store last month to look at using it for a gas tank and last night after seeing these it dawned on me that there are little balls like 3"-6" in dia that are painted as soccer balls, perfect! could do one as a huge baseball as well, would work well in japan!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[linkey]

I can see it now a smiling gas sphere on a module layout.

[rpierce000]

If you did a smiling gas tank in the USA someone would say you were promoting huffing!  (Inhaling fumes from a paper bag to get high)

 

I know they do smaller versions of most sports balls for K and Pre-K sports. Putting legs on a basketball, or whatever, would be fairly easy. I can just see a tank park now made of little balls. Then I can see the devestation when the first 4 year old visits!  Kick the ball! Kick the ball!

 

Here you go: http://www.ssww.com/item/magic-playballs-W8919/cmc=SRCH/v=cGxhc3RpYyBiYWxscw%3D%3D/va=1/ 100 of them for $0.25 apiece!  You could have a tank farm that would belong in Galveston! They also have hockey pucks if you want cylindrical tanks...

 

Bob

[cteno4]

check out your local dollar store, lots to choose from in the 3-6" range.

 

jeff

[macdon]

Here's an add-on to the set:

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10201719

 

How about adding a Walther's refinery into this set? Different scales?

[cteno4]

I doubt you would notice the few percent difference. Only difference would be style as the Walthers is a bit more detailed, but throw in a bunch of pipes going all over from old model sprews and it should all blend together. There's also a model power of this old style has tank. I think a lot of these are gone nowadays as they have moved to LNG tanks (ball shaped ones).

 

I just set aside a few small to large spray paint can lids with the idea of using them in the small refinery scene eventually. There are lots of smaller tanks in addition to the huge ones in refinerirs I think to hold some byproducts for processing.

 

Jeff

Edited March 1, 2013 by cteno4