View allAll Photos Tagged Refinance
Norsk Hydro Rjukan is an industrial facility operated by Norsk Hydro at Rjukan in Tinn, Norway, from 1911 to 1991. The plant manufactured chemicals related to the production of fertilizer, initially potassium nitrate from arc-produced nitric acid and later ammonia, hydrogen, and heavy water. The location was chosen for its vicinity to hydroelectric power plants built in the Måna river.
The Telemark power-based industry adventure started in 1902 when Sam Eyde, along with Norwegian and Swedish investors, bought Rjukan Falls—establishing A/S Rjukanfos on 30 April 1903. The same year, on 13 February, Eyde and Kristian Birkeland had met and started working on refining the electric arc to produce an electric flame; allowing Eyde to complete his process of converting air and electricity into fertilizer.
On 2 December 1905 Norsk Hydro was founded, and plans to start a new plant in Rjukan were initialized; moving closer to the source of power would improve efficiency.
On 13 April 1907 Norsk Hydro and the German group Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik (today BASF) made an agreement for the creation of the factory at Rjukan, Rjukan Salpeterfabrik.
Accompanying the plant was housing and public facilities for the workers. Norsk Hydro employed at the most 2,500 people during construction, and many settled and took industrial jobs after the plants were finished.
The first potassium nitrate was shipped out on 8 December 1911, and two years later the plants were making a profit. Production increased from 110,000 tonnes per year to 250,000 tonnes in 1915, after the plant had been expanded, and up to 345,000 tonnes in 1917. The small hamlet of Rjukan had turned into a town, and in 1920 there were 11,651 people in Tinn.
During the 1930s there was a global depression, followed by many lay-offs, and not until 1938 was Norsk Hydro able to make a profit again. During the 1930s other products came into production, including the world's first mass-produced heavy water.
Because of heavy water's critical role in nuclear fission, this became a matter of strategic concern during World War II. The Norwegian Heavy Water Sabotage initiative was a series of Allied-led efforts to quash German heavy water production via hydroelectric plants in Norway, during World War II. These were successfully undertaken by Norwegian commandos, and Allied bombing raids.
During World War II, the Allies sought to inhibit the German development of nuclear weapons through the removal of heavy water, and the destruction of heavy water production plants. The Norwegian Heavy Water Sabotages were specifically aimed at the 60 MW Vemork power station, at the Rjukan waterfall in Telemark, Norway.
The hydroelectric power plant Vemork, was built in 1934. It was the world's first site to mass produce heavy water (as a byproduct of nitrogen fixing), at a capacity of 12 tonnes per year.
Prior to the German invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940, the French Deuxième Bureau removed 185 kilograms (408 lb) of heavy water from the plant in Vemork in then-neutral Norway.
The plant's managing director, Aubert, agreed to lend the heavy water to France for the duration of the war. The French transported it secretly to Oslo, on to Perth, Scotland, and then to France. The plant was still however capable of producing heavy water. Consequently, the Allies were concerned that occupying forces would likely use the facility to produce more heavy water.
Between 1940 and 1944, a sequence of sabotage actions, by the Norwegian resistance movement—as well as Allied bombing—ensured the destruction of the plant and the loss of the heavy water. These operations—codenamed Grouse, Freshman, and Gunnerside—knocked the plant out of production in early 1943.
In Operation Grouse, the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) successfully placed four Norwegian nationals as an advance team in the region of the Hardanger Plateau above the plant in October 1942. The unsuccessful Operation Freshman was mounted the following month by British paratroopers; they were to rendezvous with the Norwegians of Operation Grouse and proceed to Vemork. This attempt failed when the military gliders (along with one of their tugs, a Handley Page Halifax) crashed short of their destination. Excepting the crew of one Halifax bomber, all the participants were killed in the crashes, or, captured, interrogated, then executed by the Gestapo.
In February 1943, a team of SOE-trained Norwegian commandos succeeded in destroying the production facility with a second attempt, Operation Gunnerside. This operation was later evaluated by SOE as the most successful act of sabotage in all of World War II. This was followed by Allied bombing raids. The Germans ceased operations, and went about moving the remaining heavy water to Germany. Norwegian resistance forces then sank the heavy water-laden ferry, SF Hydro, on Lake Tinn.
After the end of the war Norsk Hydro had a strong liquidity, while the Green Revolution and increased industrialization of agriculture in Europe boomed the demand for the products; from 1945 to 1955 production increased eightfold. In 1957 five round trips had to be made by the new ferry MF Storegut each day, while the trains made nine round trips from Rjukan to Mæl; each day transporting 100 wagon with 800 tonnes potassium nitrate and 400 tonnes ammonia; by 1962 723,482 tonnes produced a year.
However, by 1963, Norsk Hydro announced that new technology in the production of ammonia would force closure of the plant at Rjukan.
In 1988 Norsk Hydro terminated the ammonia production, and in 1991 they also closed down the production ammonium nitrate and potassium nitrate, along with the Rjukan Line. Within a few years the number of Norsk Hydro employees in Rjukan had been reduced from 1,760 to 530 people. All the employees were either retired or moved to other areas of Norsk Hydro's enterprise.
In 1988 the Norwegian Industrial Workers Museum was established at Vemork; by 1995 it had become a national museum. After the closing in 1991 the railway and railway ferries were preserved. In 2004 the foundation running the heritage railway was discontinued, and in 2007 the Norwegian Industry Workers Museum was launched as the new operator by the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage. This would allow the plants and Rjukan along with the railway, and equivalent closed plants at Odda to be nominated as a World Heritage Site.
Recently I decided to give it a go and refine my rather old design for my Hogwarts Express MOC, with this new official set coming out this year it offers a great piece to use for the nameboard plus the new 1 x 3 double jumper plate has enabled many previously weak joins to be much stronger since it relies on one piece rather than a few.
I decided to go with the 8-wide build as I feel it offers much more freedom for details and strength as the majority of the loco is no longer made from plates adding up to 7-wide.
The entire drive chassis has been heavily reinforced and has gone from the most fragile part of the loco to I'd say the strongest. It now has a much more solid attachment to the cab area and the running board overall has been strengthened.
I have managed to get the drive wheels set back by half a stud which tucks the rear drive wheels further under the cab than before thus making it closer to the real loco.
One thing I did have to sacrifice in the name of keeping everything genuine was the front drive wheels being set back by half a stud, while this does look closer to the real wheel spacing there are no legal build methods I have been able to come up with that make it so this setup works well and keeps together properly as there was only a 4 long axle in the front half of the rods which caused the rods to either fall apart or get pressed together and disturb the smoothness of the wheels.
The tender is out of frame because it is currently undergoing an overhaul as well to try and get not only more detail but better overall strength as it too is another problem area when it comes to the fragility of this model.
WP’s take:
The subprime mortgage crisis is an ongoing financial crisis characterized by contracted liquidity in global credit markets and banking systems triggered by the failure of mortgage companies, investment firms and government sponsored enterprises which had invested heavily in subprime mortgages. The crisis, which has roots in the closing years of the 20th century but has become more apparent throughout 2007 and 2008, has passed through various stages exposing pervasive weaknesses in the global financial system and regulatory framework.
The crisis began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble[1][2] and high default rates on "subprime" and adjustable rate mortgages (ARM), beginning in approximately 2005–2006. For a number of years prior to that, declining lending standards, an increase in loan incentives such as easy initial terms, and a long-term trend of rising housing prices had encouraged borrowers to assume difficult mortgages in the belief they would be able to quickly refinance at more favorable terms. However, once interest rates began to rise and housing prices started to drop moderately in 2006–2007 in many parts of the U.S., refinancing became more difficult.
Posted 14 minutes ago.
Aft ventral view showing cargo pod clamps and medium drones.
Name: S.S. Bessemer
Registration Number: KCC-1894 (Kolter Construction Contract Number 1,894)
Affiliation: Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel.
Class Name: Bessemer class
Type: Deep Space Mining Operations Flagship
Commissioned: Circa late 2500’s, post recent major conflict
Specifications:
Length: 1,844 meters (184.4 studs, 58.1 inches, 4.83 feet, 147.5 cm model)
Width: 503 meters (50.3 studs, 15.8 inches, 40.2 cm model)
Height: 484 meters, 398 meters without dorsal comms array, (48.4 studs, 15.2 inches, 38.7 cm model)
Crew: 2,950 standard complement + capacity for crew families, as well as smaller guest quarters for up to 2,000 additional personnel to be moved to/from mining operations.
Armament: 1 super-heavy coaxial particle beam cannon, (primarily for asteroid mining, but also more than capable of defensive action,) 4 dual-mounted heavy particle cannon turrets, 8 dual-mounted medium particle cannon turrets, 2 coaxial fore medium particle cannons, 80 quad-mounted 80mm anti-fighter flak railgun turrets.
Defensive systems:
Hull: Super-heavy steel alloy hull with carbon nanotube/buckypaper composite layers as spall lining.
Armor plating: steel, titanium alloy, tungsten, ceramic, and carbon nanotube composite armor layers against asteroids/other space debris, kinetic weapons, kinetic spalling, particle, laser, and plasma fire. Thick composite armor provides excellent survivability, but with very high mass. Some battleships are less armored than this ship.
Bulkheads: Extensive titanium bulkhead support network.
Structural integrity field: High power system designed for significant cargo mass placing stress on the frame, or to withstand asteroid impacts to the hull.
Shielding: Internally housed high power adaptive particle field repulsing shielding system capable of surviving significant punishment. Some older battleships have less robust shielding.
Powerplant: 1 primary matter-antimatter reactor with extensive fuel reserves, 2 secondary fusion reactors with extensive fuel reserves. Multiple massive power capacitors. Extensive heatinks.
Propulsion: 1 massive primary fusion engine for sub-lightspeed travel, 1 internal FTL core capable of moderate FTL speed, long range travel, and 32 large reaction control thrusters for slow but dependable below light speed maneuvering.
Computer systems: Single supercomputer core with onboard Virtual Intelligence system.
Comms and Sensors: Local and FTL comms arrays. Radar, LIDAR, infrared, multi-spectral, and additional other local area sensors systems, along with extensive FTL sensors.
Additional Systems: High power artificial singularity for both artificial gravity generation and inertial dampening, allowing for 1G gravity even when hauling an entire cargo hold full of heavy-metal. 6 massive blast furnaces for refining metal ore, an enormous central cargo hold system, 4 fuel refining tanks, 4 massive fuel storage tanks, and an internal rail system for moving ore and personnel.
Embarked Craft: 2 Thunderbird class super-heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 2 Hurricane class heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 20 heavy mining drones, 24 medium mining drones, 2 gunships of variable class, 2 heavy fighter/bombers of variable class, potential for multiple additional light shuttles and fighters.
Background: After seeing both the devastation to outlying areas of space caused by the recent Great War, and the corruption within the Federal Defense Navy (working title) Admiralty, Captain David Courtland retired honorably from military service and went to helm his family’s generations old mining company, Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel; one of the largest mining companies in United Earth Federation space. (Working title.)
He wanted to take the company, already a reputable and successful business, in a new direction. That direction was the disputed, war-torn, no-man’s-waste-land of space known as The Divide, (working title) situated between the major powers of the galaxy. Life in The Divide was desperate, with little hope for the many people stranded in the ruins, poverty, and crime infested land. None of the major powers could intervene without starting another territorial war, and as such, pirates, gangs, and unscrupulous mega-corporations ruled supreme.
Courtland wanted to make a difference to this sorrowful place, and with trillions of credits and a Fortunes 1,000 company at his control, he had the means to at least begin; although even he lacked the ability to single-handedly remedy the myriad of woes The Divide faced.
David’s plan was simple, to move significant mining operations to The Divide, thus:
1: Creating new, safe, well-paying, good jobs for both an area and an industry that seldom offered such things.
2: Allowing for the placement of company security forces to deter pirate activity around major settlements.
3: Providing tax-free revenue to fund new schools, hospitals, food, water, shetler, and other charitable activities in The Divide.
But to do it, he required a new kind of mining vessel, as well as additional security forces. Thus he contacted Nelson Heavy Industries, who in turn partnered with AxonTech Interstellar Systems for some components, to place an order for a line of custom massive deep space mining operation flagships with enhanced combat capabilities and capable of operating in the remotest reaches of space for months or even years at a time. And so the Bessemer class was born.
The Bessemer class is unlike any mining vessel ever produced before it. Certainly significantly larger mining ships existed, but these were typically little more than unarmed, slow moving things with small engines; closer to a semi-mobile starbase than a combination frontier battleship/mining vessel. But Courtland required something unique. Something that could move faster, survive more punishment, and something that had teeth; not a fragile, barely moving thing that would only sit in safe areas of space. Courtland needed a mighty sheepdog in a world of sheep and wolves.
Bessemer class vessels are 1,844 meters long, and possess more armor, firepower, and shielding than many pre Great War battleship designs. Almost any pirate or local gang would be terrified of the sight of over a mile of steel and particle cannons; clad in Kolter white, green, and yellow.
But the Bessemer, and others of her class, are not merely warships masquerading as civilian craft. They are heavy mining machines that live up to their name; a steel producing process that revolutionized the industry of Earth some seven hundred years earlier. The Bessemer and her sister ships are capable of blasting metal-rich asteroids to bits with their coaxial mining particle beam cannon, and then having swarms of automated mining drones devour any valuable deposits within before unloading the materials into the Bessemer’s ore hold for the internal rail system to run any raw ore through her six corvette sized forges, and then having the refined metal shunted to her cavernous lower hold, while any waste material from the refining process is vented directly into space.
Ships of this class are outfitted with a sizable hangar, advanced sensor suite, extensive internal cargo bays, and large cargo pod clamps that allow it to act in the capacity of miner, defensive ship, operations command center, and even freighter and personnel carrier should usual shipping to outlying mining sites be disrupted.
But capable as they are, these are not the spartan mining vessels with unlivable working conditions that some shady companies have been known to operate. These space-faring cities of steel feature robust safety systems, spacious and comfortable crew quarters, multiple restaurants, multiple mess-halls, multiple shops for clothing, food, electronics, and other items, an arcade, multiple gyms with weights, various weight and cardio machines, martial arts areas, gymnastics equipment, along with a walking track, a small bowling alley, an olympic sized swimming pool, a multi-sport stadium, a greenhouse, hydroponics bays, a small stage/concert area, several computer labs, a library, a small movie theater, crew lounges and break areas, a salon/spa, a bar/club, chapels, classroom/daycare areas, office areas, as well as repair stations, enough dry and frozen storage to keep everyone fed for extended missions, advanced workshops, astrotography, laboratories, guest bunk-rooms, and a starbase grade medical center.
Not everyone is happy about Kolter Mining’s efforts, however. While Courtland founded the Kolter Foundation to aid those in need, he also lobbied for what came to be known as the Kolter Bill to be passed. Mining employees out in the colonies loved the added protections this afforded them. But the executives of Kolter’s rival mining companies operating out of Earth’s colony worlds quickly found themselves facing laws that favored the profits of Kolter and their already developed safety systems and excellent treatment of employees. What’s more, the Federal Defense Navy Admiralty have been continually frustrated that rather than helping to line their pockets as part of the military industrial complex, Courtland has been working tirelessly to reveal their corruption and hidden support of crime in outlying areas of space.
What’s more, there are even rumors that Courtland is now working with, and possibly even helping to fund, a mercenary vigilante unit out in The Divide known as the Phoenix Command Group, founded by Jonathan Scarlett, another former Federal Defense Navy Captain who ran afoul of the Admiralty.
The wealthy and corrupt among the Admiralty, military industrial complex, crime syndicates, and corrupt businesses running shady operations out in The Divide are deeply troubled by these rumors. But those who are now citizens of no nation, and who have known nothing but hopelessness and need for years, have a slight spark of hope rising like a Phoenix.
IRL info: This digital SHIP was made in Bricklink’s Studio software from September 11th to September 30th, 2021. I did not originally plan to participate in SHIPtember, but I couldn’t resist. It is 184 studs (58.1 inches) long, 50 studs wide, and 48 studs high. It is comprised of 23,470 pieces, which I believe makes it my highest piece-count SHIP to date, and means that the model itself has a mass of 973.502 ounces, or 60.843 pounds, or 27.597 kilograms, which most likely makes it my heaviest SHIP as well as my most piece intensive. (I really need to learn to build a little more hollow.) Note that it uses all real pieces/colors that are available for sale on Bricklink. (Albeit at a price that makes attempting to build it in physical bricks highly impractical.) It is 100% connected, and should be at least somewhat stable in real life. I would want to reinforce the fore-end with more Technic, and switch out the longest Lego Technic axle holding the engine for an aftermarket stainless steel version. I cannot guarantee that various sections built out from the main SNOT and Technic frame would be totally stable without slight redesign of a few bits. It would also require a hefty display stand of some kind.
The current pictures are WIP to show the completed status of the build itself. Better renders done by importing the Studio build into Mecabricks, replacing any pieces that fail to load or change position, and then exporting to Blender for higher quality rendering, and finally hopefully doing some cool backgrounds with GIMP, will hopefully follow before whatever October picture deadline is decided on. Please do not use these early pictures in the poster if time remains, as I hope to provide better ones. Thank you for reading this lengthy description. Have a cookie.
If this ship had a theme song, this magnificent piece by Clamavi De Profundis would be it: youtu.be/Xm96Cqu4Ils
When I was refining the design, I tried to think of some accessories for the robot. Here's a ukulele, an electric guitar with an amp and a cable, and a music face. Like the flower pot, the amp is square with rounded edges to match the style of the robot.
The instruments may very well look like other people's work - that's not intentional, there aren't a lot of ways to build proper music instruments at this scale.
Instructions will be released on rebrickable in the coming months, and I will show more accessories in the next few weeks.
W.A.L.T. will be available for preorder on bricklink starting February 16th. :)
Port central side view showing armor planel with heavy mining drone docking, main docking tube, and a pair of heavy particle cannon turrets, all over the central cargo holds for ore and refined metal.
Name: S.S. Bessemer
Registration Number: KCC-1894 (Kolter Construction Contract Number 1,894)
Affiliation: Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel.
Class Name: Bessemer class
Type: Deep Space Mining Operations Flagship
Commissioned: Circa late 2500’s, post recent major conflict
Specifications:
Length: 1,844 meters (184.4 studs, 58.1 inches, 4.83 feet, 147.5 cm model)
Width: 503 meters (50.3 studs, 15.8 inches, 40.2 cm model)
Height: 484 meters, 398 meters without dorsal comms array, (48.4 studs, 15.2 inches, 38.7 cm model)
Crew: 2,950 standard complement + capacity for crew families, as well as smaller guest quarters for up to 2,000 additional personnel to be moved to/from mining operations.
Armament: 1 super-heavy coaxial particle beam cannon, (primarily for asteroid mining, but also more than capable of defensive action,) 4 dual-mounted heavy particle cannon turrets, 8 dual-mounted medium particle cannon turrets, 2 coaxial fore medium particle cannons, 80 quad-mounted 80mm anti-fighter flak railgun turrets.
Defensive systems:
Hull: Super-heavy steel alloy hull with carbon nanotube/buckypaper composite layers as spall lining.
Armor plating: steel, titanium alloy, tungsten, ceramic, and carbon nanotube composite armor layers against asteroids/other space debris, kinetic weapons, kinetic spalling, particle, laser, and plasma fire. Thick composite armor provides excellent survivability, but with very high mass. Some battleships are less armored than this ship.
Bulkheads: Extensive titanium bulkhead support network.
Structural integrity field: High power system designed for significant cargo mass placing stress on the frame, or to withstand asteroid impacts to the hull.
Shielding: Internally housed high power adaptive particle field repulsing shielding system capable of surviving significant punishment. Some older battleships have less robust shielding.
Powerplant: 1 primary matter-antimatter reactor with extensive fuel reserves, 2 secondary fusion reactors with extensive fuel reserves. Multiple massive power capacitors. Extensive heatinks.
Propulsion: 1 massive primary fusion engine for sub-lightspeed travel, 1 internal FTL core capable of moderate FTL speed, long range travel, and 32 large reaction control thrusters for slow but dependable below light speed maneuvering.
Computer systems: Single supercomputer core with onboard Virtual Intelligence system.
Comms and Sensors: Local and FTL comms arrays. Radar, LIDAR, infrared, multi-spectral, and additional other local area sensors systems, along with extensive FTL sensors.
Additional Systems: High power artificial singularity for both artificial gravity generation and inertial dampening, allowing for 1G gravity even when hauling an entire cargo hold full of heavy-metal. 6 massive blast furnaces for refining metal ore, an enormous central cargo hold system, 4 fuel refining tanks, 4 massive fuel storage tanks, and an internal rail system for moving ore and personnel.
Embarked Craft: 2 Thunderbird class super-heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 2 Hurricane class heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 20 heavy mining drones, 24 medium mining drones, 2 gunships of variable class, 2 heavy fighter/bombers of variable class, potential for multiple additional light shuttles and fighters.
Background: After seeing both the devastation to outlying areas of space caused by the recent Great War, and the corruption within the Federal Defense Navy (working title) Admiralty, Captain David Courtland retired honorably from military service and went to helm his family’s generations old mining company, Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel; one of the largest mining companies in United Earth Federation space. (Working title.)
He wanted to take the company, already a reputable and successful business, in a new direction. That direction was the disputed, war-torn, no-man’s-waste-land of space known as The Divide, (working title) situated between the major powers of the galaxy. Life in The Divide was desperate, with little hope for the many people stranded in the ruins, poverty, and crime infested land. None of the major powers could intervene without starting another territorial war, and as such, pirates, gangs, and unscrupulous mega-corporations ruled supreme.
Courtland wanted to make a difference to this sorrowful place, and with trillions of credits and a Fortunes 1,000 company at his control, he had the means to at least begin; although even he lacked the ability to single-handedly remedy the myriad of woes The Divide faced.
David’s plan was simple, to move significant mining operations to The Divide, thus:
1: Creating new, safe, well-paying, good jobs for both an area and an industry that seldom offered such things.
2: Allowing for the placement of company security forces to deter pirate activity around major settlements.
3: Providing tax-free revenue to fund new schools, hospitals, food, water, shetler, and other charitable activities in The Divide.
But to do it, he required a new kind of mining vessel, as well as additional security forces. Thus he contacted Nelson Heavy Industries, who in turn partnered with AxonTech Interstellar Systems for some components, to place an order for a line of custom massive deep space mining operation flagships with enhanced combat capabilities and capable of operating in the remotest reaches of space for months or even years at a time. And so the Bessemer class was born.
The Bessemer class is unlike any mining vessel ever produced before it. Certainly significantly larger mining ships existed, but these were typically little more than unarmed, slow moving things with small engines; closer to a semi-mobile starbase than a combination frontier battleship/mining vessel. But Courtland required something unique. Something that could move faster, survive more punishment, and something that had teeth; not a fragile, barely moving thing that would only sit in safe areas of space. Courtland needed a mighty sheepdog in a world of sheep and wolves.
Bessemer class vessels are 1,844 meters long, and possess more armor, firepower, and shielding than many pre Great War battleship designs. Almost any pirate or local gang would be terrified of the sight of over a mile of steel and particle cannons; clad in Kolter white, green, and yellow.
But the Bessemer, and others of her class, are not merely warships masquerading as civilian craft. They are heavy mining machines that live up to their name; a steel producing process that revolutionized the industry of Earth some seven hundred years earlier. The Bessemer and her sister ships are capable of blasting metal-rich asteroids to bits with their coaxial mining particle beam cannon, and then having swarms of automated mining drones devour any valuable deposits within before unloading the materials into the Bessemer’s ore hold for the internal rail system to run any raw ore through her six corvette sized forges, and then having the refined metal shunted to her cavernous lower hold, while any waste material from the refining process is vented directly into space.
Ships of this class are outfitted with a sizable hangar, advanced sensor suite, extensive internal cargo bays, and large cargo pod clamps that allow it to act in the capacity of miner, defensive ship, operations command center, and even freighter and personnel carrier should usual shipping to outlying mining sites be disrupted.
But capable as they are, these are not the spartan mining vessels with unlivable working conditions that some shady companies have been known to operate. These space-faring cities of steel feature robust safety systems, spacious and comfortable crew quarters, multiple restaurants, multiple mess-halls, multiple shops for clothing, food, electronics, and other items, an arcade, multiple gyms with weights, various weight and cardio machines, martial arts areas, gymnastics equipment, along with a walking track, a small bowling alley, an olympic sized swimming pool, a multi-sport stadium, a greenhouse, hydroponics bays, a small stage/concert area, several computer labs, a library, a small movie theater, crew lounges and break areas, a salon/spa, a bar/club, chapels, classroom/daycare areas, office areas, as well as repair stations, enough dry and frozen storage to keep everyone fed for extended missions, advanced workshops, astrotography, laboratories, guest bunk-rooms, and a starbase grade medical center.
Not everyone is happy about Kolter Mining’s efforts, however. While Courtland founded the Kolter Foundation to aid those in need, he also lobbied for what came to be known as the Kolter Bill to be passed. Mining employees out in the colonies loved the added protections this afforded them. But the executives of Kolter’s rival mining companies operating out of Earth’s colony worlds quickly found themselves facing laws that favored the profits of Kolter and their already developed safety systems and excellent treatment of employees. What’s more, the Federal Defense Navy Admiralty have been continually frustrated that rather than helping to line their pockets as part of the military industrial complex, Courtland has been working tirelessly to reveal their corruption and hidden support of crime in outlying areas of space.
What’s more, there are even rumors that Courtland is now working with, and possibly even helping to fund, a mercenary vigilante unit out in The Divide known as the Phoenix Command Group, founded by Jonathan Scarlett, another former Federal Defense Navy Captain who ran afoul of the Admiralty.
The wealthy and corrupt among the Admiralty, military industrial complex, crime syndicates, and corrupt businesses running shady operations out in The Divide are deeply troubled by these rumors. But those who are now citizens of no nation, and who have known nothing but hopelessness and need for years, have a slight spark of hope rising like a Phoenix.
IRL info: This digital SHIP was made in Bricklink’s Studio software from September 11th to September 30th, 2021. I did not originally plan to participate in SHIPtember, but I couldn’t resist. It is 184 studs (58.1 inches) long, 50 studs wide, and 48 studs high. It is comprised of 23,470 pieces, which I believe makes it my highest piece-count SHIP to date, and means that the model itself has a mass of 973.502 ounces, or 60.843 pounds, or 27.597 kilograms, which most likely makes it my heaviest SHIP as well as my most piece intensive. (I really need to learn to build a little more hollow.) Note that it uses all real pieces/colors that are available for sale on Bricklink. (Albeit at a price that makes attempting to build it in physical bricks highly impractical.) It is 100% connected, and should be at least somewhat stable in real life. I would want to reinforce the fore-end with more Technic, and switch out the longest Lego Technic axle holding the engine for an aftermarket stainless steel version. I cannot guarantee that various sections built out from the main SNOT and Technic frame would be totally stable without slight redesign of a few bits. It would also require a hefty display stand of some kind.
The current pictures are WIP to show the completed status of the build itself. Better renders done by importing the Studio build into Mecabricks, replacing any pieces that fail to load or change position, and then exporting to Blender for higher quality rendering, and finally hopefully doing some cool backgrounds with GIMP, will hopefully follow before whatever October picture deadline is decided on. Please do not use these early pictures in the poster if time remains, as I hope to provide better ones. Thank you for reading this lengthy description. Have a cookie.
If this ship had a theme song, this magnificent piece by Clamavi De Profundis would be it: youtu.be/Xm96Cqu4Ils
Starboard view showing forges and fuel refining tanks. Note forge dorsal input pipes that use conduits and rail system to shunt ore from the raw metal ore dorsal cargo hold, to the forges. Ore is then refined. Usable metal is then shunted via the ventral pipes and rail system/conduits back to the ventral cargo hold for refined metal, located in the center of the ship. Scrap material is vented through ventral ports directly into space.
Name: S.S. Bessemer
Registration Number: KCC-1894 (Kolter Construction Contract Number 1,894)
Affiliation: Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel.
Class Name: Bessemer class
Type: Deep Space Mining Operations Flagship
Commissioned: Circa late 2500’s, post recent major conflict
Specifications:
Length: 1,844 meters (184.4 studs, 58.1 inches, 4.83 feet, 147.5 cm model)
Width: 503 meters (50.3 studs, 15.8 inches, 40.2 cm model)
Height: 484 meters, 398 meters without dorsal comms array, (48.4 studs, 15.2 inches, 38.7 cm model)
Crew: 2,950 standard complement + capacity for crew families, as well as smaller guest quarters for up to 2,000 additional personnel to be moved to/from mining operations.
Armament: 1 super-heavy coaxial particle beam cannon, (primarily for asteroid mining, but also more than capable of defensive action,) 4 dual-mounted heavy particle cannon turrets, 8 dual-mounted medium particle cannon turrets, 2 coaxial fore medium particle cannons, 80 quad-mounted 80mm anti-fighter flak railgun turrets.
Defensive systems:
Hull: Super-heavy steel alloy hull with carbon nanotube/buckypaper composite layers as spall lining.
Armor plating: steel, titanium alloy, tungsten, ceramic, and carbon nanotube composite armor layers against asteroids/other space debris, kinetic weapons, kinetic spalling, particle, laser, and plasma fire. Thick composite armor provides excellent survivability, but with very high mass. Some battleships are less armored than this ship.
Bulkheads: Extensive titanium bulkhead support network.
Structural integrity field: High power system designed for significant cargo mass placing stress on the frame, or to withstand asteroid impacts to the hull.
Shielding: Internally housed high power adaptive particle field repulsing shielding system capable of surviving significant punishment. Some older battleships have less robust shielding.
Powerplant: 1 primary matter-antimatter reactor with extensive fuel reserves, 2 secondary fusion reactors with extensive fuel reserves. Multiple massive power capacitors. Extensive heatinks.
Propulsion: 1 massive primary fusion engine for sub-lightspeed travel, 1 internal FTL core capable of moderate FTL speed, long range travel, and 32 large reaction control thrusters for slow but dependable below light speed maneuvering.
Computer systems: Single supercomputer core with onboard Virtual Intelligence system.
Comms and Sensors: Local and FTL comms arrays. Radar, LIDAR, infrared, multi-spectral, and additional other local area sensors systems, along with extensive FTL sensors.
Additional Systems: High power artificial singularity for both artificial gravity generation and inertial dampening, allowing for 1G gravity even when hauling an entire cargo hold full of heavy-metal. 6 massive blast furnaces for refining metal ore, an enormous central cargo hold system, 4 fuel refining tanks, 4 massive fuel storage tanks, and an internal rail system for moving ore and personnel.
Embarked Craft: 2 Thunderbird class super-heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 2 Hurricane class heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 20 heavy mining drones, 24 medium mining drones, 2 gunships of variable class, 2 heavy fighter/bombers of variable class, potential for multiple additional light shuttles and fighters.
Background: After seeing both the devastation to outlying areas of space caused by the recent Great War, and the corruption within the Federal Defense Navy (working title) Admiralty, Captain David Courtland retired honorably from military service and went to helm his family’s generations old mining company, Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel; one of the largest mining companies in United Earth Federation space. (Working title.)
He wanted to take the company, already a reputable and successful business, in a new direction. That direction was the disputed, war-torn, no-man’s-waste-land of space known as The Divide, (working title) situated between the major powers of the galaxy. Life in The Divide was desperate, with little hope for the many people stranded in the ruins, poverty, and crime infested land. None of the major powers could intervene without starting another territorial war, and as such, pirates, gangs, and unscrupulous mega-corporations ruled supreme.
Courtland wanted to make a difference to this sorrowful place, and with trillions of credits and a Fortunes 1,000 company at his control, he had the means to at least begin; although even he lacked the ability to single-handedly remedy the myriad of woes The Divide faced.
David’s plan was simple, to move significant mining operations to The Divide, thus:
1: Creating new, safe, well-paying, good jobs for both an area and an industry that seldom offered such things.
2: Allowing for the placement of company security forces to deter pirate activity around major settlements.
3: Providing tax-free revenue to fund new schools, hospitals, food, water, shetler, and other charitable activities in The Divide.
But to do it, he required a new kind of mining vessel, as well as additional security forces. Thus he contacted Nelson Heavy Industries, who in turn partnered with AxonTech Interstellar Systems for some components, to place an order for a line of custom massive deep space mining operation flagships with enhanced combat capabilities and capable of operating in the remotest reaches of space for months or even years at a time. And so the Bessemer class was born.
The Bessemer class is unlike any mining vessel ever produced before it. Certainly significantly larger mining ships existed, but these were typically little more than unarmed, slow moving things with small engines; closer to a semi-mobile starbase than a combination frontier battleship/mining vessel. But Courtland required something unique. Something that could move faster, survive more punishment, and something that had teeth; not a fragile, barely moving thing that would only sit in safe areas of space. Courtland needed a mighty sheepdog in a world of sheep and wolves.
Bessemer class vessels are 1,844 meters long, and possess more armor, firepower, and shielding than many pre Great War battleship designs. Almost any pirate or local gang would be terrified of the sight of over a mile of steel and particle cannons; clad in Kolter white, green, and yellow.
But the Bessemer, and others of her class, are not merely warships masquerading as civilian craft. They are heavy mining machines that live up to their name; a steel producing process that revolutionized the industry of Earth some seven hundred years earlier. The Bessemer and her sister ships are capable of blasting metal-rich asteroids to bits with their coaxial mining particle beam cannon, and then having swarms of automated mining drones devour any valuable deposits within before unloading the materials into the Bessemer’s ore hold for the internal rail system to run any raw ore through her six corvette sized forges, and then having the refined metal shunted to her cavernous lower hold, while any waste material from the refining process is vented directly into space.
Ships of this class are outfitted with a sizable hangar, advanced sensor suite, extensive internal cargo bays, and large cargo pod clamps that allow it to act in the capacity of miner, defensive ship, operations command center, and even freighter and personnel carrier should usual shipping to outlying mining sites be disrupted.
But capable as they are, these are not the spartan mining vessels with unlivable working conditions that some shady companies have been known to operate. These space-faring cities of steel feature robust safety systems, spacious and comfortable crew quarters, multiple restaurants, multiple mess-halls, multiple shops for clothing, food, electronics, and other items, an arcade, multiple gyms with weights, various weight and cardio machines, martial arts areas, gymnastics equipment, along with a walking track, a small bowling alley, an olympic sized swimming pool, a multi-sport stadium, a greenhouse, hydroponics bays, a small stage/concert area, several computer labs, a library, a small movie theater, crew lounges and break areas, a salon/spa, a bar/club, chapels, classroom/daycare areas, office areas, as well as repair stations, enough dry and frozen storage to keep everyone fed for extended missions, advanced workshops, astrotography, laboratories, guest bunk-rooms, and a starbase grade medical center.
Not everyone is happy about Kolter Mining’s efforts, however. While Courtland founded the Kolter Foundation to aid those in need, he also lobbied for what came to be known as the Kolter Bill to be passed. Mining employees out in the colonies loved the added protections this afforded them. But the executives of Kolter’s rival mining companies operating out of Earth’s colony worlds quickly found themselves facing laws that favored the profits of Kolter and their already developed safety systems and excellent treatment of employees. What’s more, the Federal Defense Navy Admiralty have been continually frustrated that rather than helping to line their pockets as part of the military industrial complex, Courtland has been working tirelessly to reveal their corruption and hidden support of crime in outlying areas of space.
What’s more, there are even rumors that Courtland is now working with, and possibly even helping to fund, a mercenary vigilante unit out in The Divide known as the Phoenix Command Group, founded by Jonathan Scarlett, another former Federal Defense Navy Captain who ran afoul of the Admiralty.
The wealthy and corrupt among the Admiralty, military industrial complex, crime syndicates, and corrupt businesses running shady operations out in The Divide are deeply troubled by these rumors. But those who are now citizens of no nation, and who have known nothing but hopelessness and need for years, have a slight spark of hope rising like a Phoenix.
IRL info: This digital SHIP was made in Bricklink’s Studio software from September 11th to September 30th, 2021. I did not originally plan to participate in SHIPtember, but I couldn’t resist. It is 184 studs (58.1 inches) long, 50 studs wide, and 48 studs high. It is comprised of 23,470 pieces, which I believe makes it my highest piece-count SHIP to date, and means that the model itself has a mass of 973.502 ounces, or 60.843 pounds, or 27.597 kilograms, which most likely makes it my heaviest SHIP as well as my most piece intensive. (I really need to learn to build a little more hollow.) Note that it uses all real pieces/colors that are available for sale on Bricklink. (Albeit at a price that makes attempting to build it in physical bricks highly impractical.) It is 100% connected, and should be at least somewhat stable in real life. I would want to reinforce the fore-end with more Technic, and switch out the longest Lego Technic axle holding the engine for an aftermarket stainless steel version. I cannot guarantee that various sections built out from the main SNOT and Technic frame would be totally stable without slight redesign of a few bits. It would also require a hefty display stand of some kind.
The current pictures are WIP to show the completed status of the build itself. Better renders done by importing the Studio build into Mecabricks, replacing any pieces that fail to load or change position, and then exporting to Blender for higher quality rendering, and finally hopefully doing some cool backgrounds with GIMP, will hopefully follow before whatever October picture deadline is decided on. Please do not use these early pictures in the poster if time remains, as I hope to provide better ones. Thank you for reading this lengthy description. Have a cookie.
If this ship had a theme song, this magnificent piece by Clamavi De Profundis would be it: youtu.be/Xm96Cqu4Ils
View from the East River Ferry, East River, New York City, New York, United States
Summary
Sugar production was Brooklyn's most important industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Of various factories that once lined the East River, the former Havemeyers & Elder Refinery, later known as the Domino Sugar Refinery, is the largest and most significant structure to survive. The three conjoined properties - the Filter House, Pan House, and Finishing House - are located on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, between South 2nd Street and South 3rd
Street. The Filter House, which was once the tallest structure on the Brooklyn waterfront, rises to a height of approximately 155 feet. The processing of the raw sugar began in this building, where it was mixed with water and filtered through canvas and charcoal. As foreign materials were removed, the solution flowed to the Pan House, a nine-story structure at the southwest corner of Kent Avenue and South 2nd Street. Then reduced to syrup, it was pumped to the Finishing House to be dried and graded for sale.
Frederick C. Havemeyer, Jr., son of the company's founder, first began operating a refinery in Williamsburg during 1856. Raw sugar was supplied from America's deep south, mainly Louisiana, and the Caribbean, where it was primarily harvested by slaves. Though slavery ended in the United States in 1865, it continued in Cuba, the world's largest exporter of raw sugar, until 1886. Most accounts of the refinery state that the Filter, Pan & Finishing House were built to replace an earlier facility that was destroyed by fire. Research, however, indicates that plans for the Filter House had already been filed with the Brooklyn Bureau of Buildings two months earlier, in November 1881. This building, as well as the Pan & Finishing House, was designed by Frederick's eldest son, Theodore A. Havemeyer, in association with Thomas Winslow and J. E. James, who are variously listed in contemporary journals as architects and builders.
Like many contemporary industrial buildings, it was designed in the American round-arch style, a variant of the German Rundbogenstil and the Romanesque Revival style. Rooted in practical needs, the new refinery was conceived to be as fireproof as possible, with iron columns, beams and girders, as well as four hundred electric lights. A large oval smokestack dominates the west fa9ade of the Filter House, facing Manhattan. Though the base of the chimney is original, most of the section that rises above the roof was added following a major expansion during the 1920s. Planned to produce at least 1,200 tons of sugar each day, the refinery's capacity gave the company a considerable competitive edge, allowing it to dominate the American market for several decades. This leverage also led to the creation of the Sugar Refineries Company in 1887.
Originally consisting of as many as twenty firms, it was a monopoly that sought to control labor costs and prices. Renamed the American Sugar Refining Company in 1891, the "Domino" brand name was introduced in 1901. The Williamsburg refinery was sold to Tate & Lyle in 1988 and renamed the Domino Sugar Corporation in 1991. In subsequent years, the company ceased refining raw sugar at this location and the three buildings became vacant. The plant closed in 2004 and the site was acquired by C. P. C. Resources, the development arm of the Community Preservation Corporation.
DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS
The Havemeyers and Sugar Refining in the United States
At the start of the twentieth century, the Havemeyer family was said to control ninety-eight per cent of sugar production in the United States. Headquartered in Manhattan's financial district, the business was based in Brooklyn where an immense refinery dominated the Williamsburg waterfront. The largest buildings, the Filter, Pan & Finishing House - sometimes collectively called the Processing House - stood steps from the East River and were visible from much of Manhattan's East Side. Active day and night, these large brick structures were powerful symbols of industry in Brooklyn and the accomplishments of the Havemeyer family.
As a predecessor to the American Sugar Refining Company, later called the Domino Sugar Corporation and Amstar, Havemeyers & Elder helped develop the sugar refining techniques used today. As early as 1876, it was reported:
The history of sugar refining in the western hemisphere is completely epitomized in giving the history of the founding, rise and growth of the house of Havemeyers & Elder, now the largest in the world.
The Williamsburg refinery traces its roots to Manhattan in the early nineteenth century. Born in Germany, cousins William (1770-1851) and Frederick Christian Havemeyer (1774-1841) worked as sugar bakers in London before immigrating to the United States in 1799. After a brief period with Edmund Seaman and Company, the city's first sugar boiler, they established their own refinery in c. 1807, on Budd (now Van Dam) Street, between Greenwich and Hudson Streets, just south of Greenwich Village. The original building was small compared to later refineries, only 30 by 40 feet, but by the 1840s it stood ten stories tall and filled the entire block. Sugar became an important industry in the metropolitan area and by mid-century there were more than twenty refineries in New York and New Jersey.
Sugar cane was supplied from America's deep south, mainly Louisiana, and the Caribbean, where the labor of enslaved Africans made it profitable to grow and harvest. Though slavery ended in the United States in 1865, it continued in Cuba, a leading exporter of raw sugar, until 1886, and in Brazil until 1888. Sugar mills were among the earliest factories in North America. Initially operated close to plantations, by the early nineteenth century most were located in major commercial centers. Here, owners could be close to consumers and distance themselves from the conditions under which raw sugar was harvested. William F. Havemeyer, Jr. (1804-1874), who headed the Van Dam Street refinery from 1828 to 1842, was elected mayor of New York City three times, in 1845, 1848 and 1872. Though he publicly criticized slavery and strongly opposed its expansion, like many New Yorkers he maintained that "no forcible interference" should occur "in states which it already existed."
Frederick C. Havemeyer, Jr. (1807-91) played a key role in the company's early development. He joined the firm in c. 1823 and was later described as "the venerable head of the well-known Havemeyer family of this city and the founder of the great sugar-refining industry in this country." He lived on West 14th Street and after 1862 moved to Throg's Neck on the Long Island Sound. With Samuel Tilden and Andrew Green, he also invested in a local ferry company. Though he and cousin William retired in 1842, Frederick rejoined the family business when his nephew John C. Havemeyer (1833-1922) and Charles Bertrand began operating a small refinery in Williamsburg. In subsequent years, the company was known as: Havemeyer & Bertrand (c. 1856); Havemeyer, Townsend & Company (1858); and Havemeyer & Elder (1863). Though Joseph Lawrence Elder, Frederick's son-in-law, died in 1868, the partnership's name was maintained well into the twentieth century.
Theodore A(ugustus) Havemeyer (1839-1897), Frederick Jr.'s eldest son, began working in the Manhattan refinery during the 1850s. He recalled:
We were taught our business thoroughly. After leaving school I was sent to Europe to learn all I could concerning the business I was to follow for a livelihood. In 1857 I went to the Hamburg refineries, and thence, after quite a lengthy experience, I went to other cities in Germany, where I gained the most advanced methods of that day.
An important figure in the company's continued growth; he was associated with the business for more than thirty years. Promoted to partner in Havemeyer, Townsend & Co. in February 1862, he was identified as the plant's manager in 1868, and was later called "America's great sugar king." Theodore lived with his wife Emilie de Loosey at 244 Madison Avenue (demolished), at the corner of East 38 th Street in Manhattan, in a house that was described as "one of the most beautiful in New York." Though sugar was the primary source of his fortune, he also invested in banks and real estate, erecting the Havemeyer Building (George B. Post, 1891-93, demolished) on Church Street, between Dey and Cortlandt Streets.
Theodore worked beside his father, Frederick, during the expansion of the refinery in the late 1860s and had an intimate knowledge of the entire operation. He proudly claimed:
There was no part of the manufactory or no part of the refining business with which we were not thoroughly familiar. I knew how to fire up under the boilers, how to run the engine. I built an engine once myself. I knew how to refine the sugar and how to market it . . . We were always on the lookout for some better way to do a thing and our success is largely owing to invention brought out by observation and experiment.
After Theodore became partner, his youngest brother, Henry Osborne (also called Harry or H. O., 1847-1907) joined the firm in 1865, as did his cousins, Hector (1840-99) and Charles (c. 1845-95). Following several years in the Manhattan office, in 1869 Henry became a full partner. Whereas Theodore's concerns were generally practical, focusing on the manufacturing end of the business, Henry "mastered the mercantile side [devoting himself to] a study production and markets." He commissioned a large mansion with interiors by Louis Comfort Tiffany at 1 East 66th Street (demolished) in 1889-90. He and his wife, Louisine Waldron Elder, were leading art collectors and the bulk of their collection, especially their nineteenth-century French paintings, was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art upon her death in 1929.
Hector and Charles left the Williamsburg plant in the mid-1870s to operate a refinery at North 2nd
Street, co-owned by the Decastro & Donner Sugar Refining Company. Theodore and Henry Osborne also worked closely with another cousin, Charles H(enry) Senff (1841-1911), who managed the plant and was later described as one of "the refinery builders."
Industrial Williamsburg
New York City established itself as a major port in the first half of the nineteenth century, with ship- building facilities, cargo terminals, and piers serving the harbor. Though John Jackson's shipyard (later known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard) was located on Wallabout Bay by the 1790s, it was not until the 1850s that a substantial number of businesses had moved to, or were established in, Brooklyn, where the waterfront stretches from Newtown Creek in Greenpoint to Jamaica Bay.
Businesses began to relocate to Williamsburg during the 1850s. Land costs were relatively low, the population was increasing, and the East River was well-served by passenger ferries and commercial fleets. Founded as part of the town of Bushwick in the mid-1600s, Williamsburg was incorporated as a village in 1827. A gridiron plan was soon adopted, with named and numbered streets running perpendicular from the river. Most industrial and commercial activity was concentrated here, with residential blocks to the east. Williamsburg grew rapidly; by 1851 it was the twentieth largest city in the nation and in 1854, along with neighboring Bushwick, it became part of greater Brooklyn.
By 1874 five major sugar refineries were active in Brooklyn: Havemeyers & Elder, Greenpoint Sugar Refining Company, Decastro & Donner, Brooklyn Sugar Refining Company, and Dick & Meyer. Two of these firms would later come under Havemeyer control, Decastro & Donner in 1874, and Greenpoint in 1880. They also owned a "vast" cooperage on North 5th Street to manufacture wood barrels for packing sugar, as well as the Eastern District Terminal, a waterfront rail facility that extended from North 3rd Street to North 10th
Street. Established in 1867, for nearly a century it linked local businesses to New Jersey and points west. Served by tugs, floats, lighters and locomotives, the terminal was the ideal location for a sizeable warehouse, which Henry's son, Horace Havemeyer (1886-1956), built and leased to Austin, Nichols & Company, one of the world's largest wholesale grocers, in 1914-15.
The Havemeyers & Elder Sugar Refinery
Within the network of businesses owned by the Havemeyer family, the Williamsburg sugar refinery was the largest and most important. At about the same time that Williamsburg became part of Brooklyn, the family began to lease property on the west side of Kent Avenue, between South 3rd Street and South 4th
Street. It has not been determined whether the original refinery was located in a leased warehouse or a new structure financed by Frederick C. Havemeyer, Jr. An undated image from the Brooklyn Daily Times portrayed it as consisting of a five-story building with rectangular windows and shutters, a pair of single-story structures with round-arched window openings, and a free-standing chimney.
Sugar had been especially scarce during the Civil War and a surge in demand was widely anticipated. Toward the end of the conflict, steps were taken by the Havemeyers to expand the refinery. They purchased the parcel on which the original refinery stood, as well as lots between South 3rd Street and South 4th Street (c. 1863) and South 2nd Street and South 3rd Street (1865). These sites had been previously used as brick, lumber and shipping yards.
The Havemeyers & Elder refinery is located between Wallabout Bay and Bushwick Creek. At this location, the river is deep and most types of vessels could be accommodated. Raw sugar, consequently, was delivered directly to the refinery, without hauling it to a custom's house for inspection. The Brooklyn Eagle later reported:
In securing a water front for their operations the refiners effect a great economy, for not only do they ship the sugar directly on steamers and freight cars, but the raw material is brought to their doors from Pernambuco, Manila, Hawaii, Cuba, Egypt and Java and poured into their melting pans after a single handling, hardly thirty steps from the wharf where it landed.
Water was also important in the refining process, used to clean the raw sugar and cool the machinery.
Havemeyers & Elder acquired the block where the Filter, Pan & Finishing House was built in two separate transactions; purchasing the first parcel, about one third of the site, in 1865, and a larger parcel in November 1881. The latter parcel had been owned by John Minturn who since the 1860s had leased it to a rival refiner, Wintjen, Dick & Harms. Later known as Dick & Meyer, they also operated a refinery on Kent Avenue, between North 7th Street and North 8th Street.
On the evening of January 8, 1882, much of the Havemeyers & Elder refinery was destroyed by fire, especially the block between South 3rd Street and South 4th Street, where the refinery had originated more than two decades earlier. The loss, valued at more than $1.5 million, included the 200-by-150-foot-long refinery and finishing house, as well as machinery and structures devoted to storage and shipping. Insurance was estimated to cover about half the value of what was lost. Enormous crowds gathered in New York and Brooklyn to watch the blaze and the event gained national attention. According to Theodore A. Havemeyer, who handled most media inquiries, 1,200 men had been employed in the refinery, as well as 2,500 to 3,000 men in related jobs.
Most historical accounts state that the Filter, Pan & Processing House was built to replace structures destroyed by the fire. Research, however, indicates that this was not completely true and that Theodore A. Havemeyer was already planning to expand the refinery. On November 19, 1881 - less than two months before the fire - he filed plans with the Brooklyn Bureau of Buildings for a "ten-story brick sugar house," probably the Filter House. The estimated cost was $100,000. Construction began at once and accounts described the site as already "in the course of development" when the fire occurred.
Plans for a second structure were filed with the Bureau of Buildings less than two months later, in March 1882. Described as a "nine story brick sugar house," it would become the Pan & Finishing House. Measuring 250 by 70 feet, the estimated cost was the same as the Filter House. In most refineries, the Filter House and the Finishing House stand side by side, suggesting that Havemeyer intended to construct them together, in close succession, or as soon as economic circumstances permitted. Urban factories were often built this way. Master plans were rarely prepared and refineries grew as demand increased and nearby properties became available.
The Filter, Pan & Finishing House were most likely designed by Theodore A. Havemeyer, the firm's senior partner. Contemporary listings identify both "T. H" and "F. A." Havemeyer as the architect. This was a probable misspelling, or misreading, of T. A. Havemeyer. There is no evidence that he trained as an architect, but he did have twenty-five years experience working with this type of structure and many nineteenth-century factories were constructed under similar circumstance. The Brooklyn Eagle, reported that the "plans were perfected under [his] immediate direction and supervision."
In terms of the builder, different individuals were credited. The November 1881 application lists "Thos. Winslow and J. E. James" as builders, but the March 1882 application has "J. James" (along with Havemeyer) as architect, with no builder. Havemeyer collaborated with them at least tree times during the early 1880s. Little is known about Woodruff or James, though James may be J. K. (John King) James, who was part of the architectural firm James & James, active in New York, Kansas City, and other locations, from the 1880s to the early 1900s.
His brother, Arthur, was trained in England and moved to the United States in 1878. For a brief period, he worked in the Boston office of H. H. Richardson. It seems likely that Havemeyer planned the layout and interiors and a builder was hired to address structural issues, or perhaps, prepare renderings for submission to the Bureau of Buildings. They were also assisted by the engineer John Van Vorst Booraem (1838-1923), who worked for Decastro & Donner from 1870 to 1882, and long-time refinery superintendent Ernest Gerbracht.
Insurance paid some of the costs but other expenses were covered by Frederick C. Havemeyer, Jr. who sold stocks, bonds, and property to finance reconstruction. At the time of the fire, it was estimated that the work would take twelve to eighteen months to complete. This estimate proved accurate; the "monster chimney" reached a height of one hundred feet in October 1882 and the rest of the refinery was nearing completion, less than a year later, in July 18 83. The Brooklyn Eagle reported that Theodore:
. . . personally superintended the erection of the present structure, which Phenix [sic] like arose from the ashes of the old one . . . When the refineries were completed Mr. Havemeyer in May [1884], departed for the continent to take a needed rest.
At this time, his younger brother, Henry Osborne, became the firm's chief partner. Refinery Design
New York City was a bustling port in the nineteenth century and various types of utilitarian structures were built to support the maritime trade, including store and loft buildings, warehouses, and factories. Store and loft buildings were the most common and many distinctive examples can be found in the Tribeca and SoHo Cast-Iron Historic Districts. Built to serve retail and wholesale functions, the upper stories were frequently used for storage and related commercial purposes. While some early examples were located in converted dwellings, most date from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Schemerhorn Row, part of the South Street Seaport Historic District, is an early group of warehouses, also called "counting houses." Built in 1811-12, these simple brick buildings resemble Federal-style residences but were used as offices and commercial storage. A significant group of later examples can also be found in Brooklyn: the Empire Stores (1865-85) in the Fulton Ferry Historic District and the quarter-mile-long Beard Street warehouse (1864-73) in Red Hook. Constructed on piers or alongside the East River, these large brick buildings have arched window openings through which goods could be easily hoisted.
Sugar refining became a significant local industry during the mid-nineteenth century. In New York City, the earliest known surviving structure is 79-101 Laight Street (now apartments), between Washington Street and West Street, in the Tribeca North Historic District. Built in 1853-54, it is the last remaining component in the Grocers Steam Sugar Refinery. Nine and ten stories tall, it has thick brick walls, regularly- spaced round-arched windows, and iron shutters - common features in subsequent refineries.
New York City prospered in the 1880s, attracting a great number of large factories to the waterfront, where delivery and shipment of goods was convenient. Twelve thousand factories were in operation by the mid-1890s, scattered along Manhattan's west side, and in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. King's Handbook of New York observed:
But perhaps few people recognize that a prime distinction of New York is its preeminent position as a manufacturing city, crowded with ingenious artificers, and pouring its multifarious products all over the Great Republic. While one section of the city includes its financial powers . . . several sections are given up to manufactories.
Sugar and food production was important, as was publishing and the manufacture of clothing and musical instruments. Most companies occupied low-rise horizontal structures, often distinguished by a single vertical element that identified the owner. Clock towers were popular and notable examples include: Joseph Loth & Company Silk Ribbon Mill (Hugo Kafka, 1885-86) in Washington Heights, Manhattan, Estey Piano Company Factory (A. B. Ogden, begun 1886-86) in Mott Haven, the Bronx, and the Sohmer & Company Piano Factory (Berger & Baylies, begun c. 1886) in Astoria, Queens. All are designated New York City Landmarks. Other substantial complexes that survive from this period include the Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory (begun 1870s) in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the former New-York Biscuit Company (now retail and offices, later known as Nabisco, begun 1880s) in Chelsea, Manhattan, and the Ansonia Clock Company (now apartments, begun 1880s) in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
The Filter, Pan & Finishing House were designed to give the appearance of a single, monumental structure. The Brooklyn Eagle called the new facility "colossal" and claims were made that it had "the largest capacity of any refinery on either continent." Of various factories that survive from the 1880s, the Filter, Pan & Finishing House stands out, not for only its massive, approximately 250 by 150 foot, dimensions, but for its height. One hundred and fifty five feet tall (plus chimney), in 1883 it was said to be the tallest building on the Brooklyn waterfront, approaching the height of early skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan's financial district. Refineries were normally taller than factories; owners not only wished to maximize storage potential but this vertical arrangement allowed them to exploit gravity as part of the refining and packing process. In Philadelphia, the Havemeyer & Company Refinery was ten stories tall, and in St. Louis, the twelve-story Belcher Sugar Refinery (1882) incorporated six million bricks and was said to be the "strongest and highest building of its kind in the nation."
The reddish brick elevations tower above the narrow Williamsburg streets. Without setbacks, there are relatively few horizontal elements and most of the ornamental brickwork is concentrated on the upper floors. This type of treatment was practical, allowing construction to proceed with a minimum of delay and handiwork. Russell Sturgis, the noted architectural critic, admired this straightforward aesthetic, writing in 1904 that "one cannot but care for these [structures] because every great surface of hard, rough, well-burned bricks of dusky red color is attractive." To demonstrate this point, he used a photograph of a similar refinery in Greenpoint, Brooklyn - also owned by the Havemeyers - and designed by Theodore in the late 1880s.
Along Kent Avenue, smooth shallow pilasters rise from the ground story, dividing each floor into wide and narrow bays. Above the fifth floor, a small vertical recess divides each pilaster, creating a shadow that accentuates the upper part of the fa?ade. It draws the eye to the roof, especially toward the simple arches that crown two bays, as well as the corners. The elevation that faces west (toward Manhattan) is the more decorative one, especially near the base of the chimney. Less expensive than cast iron or carved stone, the bricks are set at different depths, forming rows, rectangles, squares, and chevrons. The corners were originally capped with pyramidal roofs, constructed with black brick, a variant of red brick that gained popularity in the 1870s and 1880s. Occasionally, bluestone was used to accent the brick - dirty though visible - as keystones, belt courses and simple triangular forms that rest above the arched window openings at the top story.
Aligned in long rows, the relatively wide spacing of the windows strengthens the visual impact of the walls, creating a subtle yet insistent rhythm. Like the Estey and Sohmer piano factories, the windows in the Williamsburg refinery are small, evenly spaced and round arched, similar to the kind that Theodore A. Havemeyer might have seen in buildings that he visited during his trips to Germany. Based on classical and medieval sources, this kind of treatment was an American variant of the German Rundbogenstil, also called the Romanesque Revival style. Known through pattern books and other illustrated sources; it influenced the design of all refineries built by the Havemeyers, from Van Dam Street in the 1840s to Williamsburg and Greenpoint in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Brick was the material of choice in most industrial buildings. It was inexpensive, durable, and easily supplied. More importantly, brick was resistant to fire. The walls were four feet thick at the bottom and two feet thick at the top. Most windows were deliberately crowned by brick arches, permitting the elimination of potentially flammable wood lintels. Similar goals shaped the design of the interiors. While many local factories continued to be built with wood joists and brick bearing walls, Havemeyer made extensive use of iron. The structure was quite sophisticated:
The floors are of brick, being a series of flat topped arches of 5 feet sweep, and they are supported by a labyrinth of cast iron columns and wrought iron beams and girders which are braced to sixty-six cast iron columns, each capable of standing a strain of 400 tons . . . In order to make the building as fireproof as possible all material of a flammable nature was eliminated in its construction. The entrance archways are secured with double iron doors and the hundreds of windows are supplied with doors of the same material. So well assured is Mr. Havemeyer of the safety of his building from fire that he will not insure them.
Other safety features included fire hoses and fire escapes, as well as more than four hundred electric lights. Less dangerous than gas lighting, there was considerable enthusiasm for the new technology and the buildings in the refinery were some of earliest in Brooklyn to be lit by electricity. Since no central generating plant existed in Brooklyn at this time, it seems likely that Havemeyers & Elder produced its own power.
From Manhattan, the most visually prominent feature was, and remains, the chimney. Originally one of the tallest in the metropolitan area, it was surpassed by only the twin chimneys of the New York Steam Company (demolished), constructed the same year. Fueled by coal, the height of the chimney was determined by the type of coal used and the need to vent smoke safely. Enormous quantities were used to power the plant and the refinery operated a fleet of ten barges to transport the fuel, each named for a different sugar producing country. Built as the centerpiece of the west fa?ade, the chimney was flanked by corner towers, which were of a similar shape, height and width. Like clock towers, it served both a functional and promotional purpose. Near the base, just above the top floor, was a prominent sign, visible from the East River and Manhattan, identifying the refinery and the date of construction. The chimney and the sign, however, were altered in the 1920s. About one third taller than the original, the upper section is constructed from curved, radial brick. Larger in size than conventional brick, such chimneys were introduced around 1900 and were stronger and less expensive to build.
Processing Sugar
These connecting buildings formed the nucleus of the Havemeyers & Elder sugar refinery. At the time of completion, the daily capacity was estimated to be 1,200 tons. Directly west of the Filter House was the boiler house (demolished), a two-story facility that powered the plant, as well as piers, where incoming "hogsheads" of raw sugar and deliveries of coal were unloaded into large bins throughout day and night. Immediately east was Kent Avenue, a street served by various street car routes. Workers entered the plant here, through a series of archways that lined the ground story of the Pan House & Finishing House, using stairs and elevators to reach their steamy posts.
The first stage of processing occurred in the Filter House where the raw sugar was combined with water to create a dirty sweet solution. It was then strained and pumped to the uppermost floor to fill a "metal tank ten feet high and eight feet in diameter." These circular containers were called blow-ups. During the next stage, aided by gravity, the liquid ran downward, filtering through canvas into more than one hundred cast-iron tanks with a "layer of boneblack at the bottom." Twenty-feet-tall and nine feet in diameter, these filters could be automatically filled and emptied.
Next, the solution flowed into the Pan House, at the southwest corner of Kent Avenue and South 2nd
Street. Planned for nine or ten floors, it had one set of stairs and reached a height of approximately one hundred feet, with a twenty-foot deep cellar. This structure accommodated six or eight vacuum pans, each measuring sixteen feet in diameter. At $25,000 per unit, it was the most costly machine in the complex.
Heated by copper coils, the solution was boiled and reduced to the thickness of honey and emptied into sixty- four centrifugal machines that spun and separated the molasses and sugar.
The final stage occurred in the Finishing House, a structure that was designed to be virtually indistinguishable from the neighboring Pan House. At the northwest corner of Kent Avenue and South 3rd
Street, it was also planned for nine or ten floors and has a footprint that is approximately square in shape. In this building the sugar passed onto granulating machines where the grains were separated, roasted and dried. A reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle wrote in 1884, that he:
Examined and [ate] some of it and was satisfied that however filthy it had first been and however revolting some of the mixtures to which it was subjected were [,] it had been last become quite pure enough to be eaten by the most fastidious.
The refining process was now complete and the sugar was moved by conveyor to nearby buildings for storage, packing, and sale. These structures were located on both sides of Kent Avenue, as far south as South 4th Street.
Workers and Working Conditions
The Havemeyers & Elder refinery was an immense operation. It covered approximately eleven acres and required thousands of workers. All types of sugar were produced "from the dominoes and cubes of cut loaf, through the various grades of hard sugars, down to the cheaper grades of yellow, or straw-colored sugars." It was a major Brooklyn employer, hiring primarily untrained labor. The great majority were men and recent immigrants. They worked around the clock, in ten-hour shifts, at minimum. The New York Tribune strongly criticized conditions in the plant, writing in 1894:
. . . the severity of their labors is shown by the fact that they are nearly all thin and stooped and rarely above middle age, it being a well-known fact that men employed in the refineries rarely live to old age. They are nearly all new immigrants when first employed, and before work is given them, they must be found perfectly docile and obedient . . . Then begins a life of perpetual torture as long as he remains in the refinery, and not infrequently death comes quickly to his relief.
The earliest group, like the owners, came from Germany and "notices from management were printed in both English and German." Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the workforce became increasingly diverse, with recent arrivals from Ireland, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Greece, and later, the West Indies. The Brooklyn Eagle observed in 1900:
There is little about the manufacture of sugar that calls for skilled labor, and the work has been lightened and conditions modified within fifteen or twenty years by improved machinery . . . the Pole has, therefore, arrived in time to benefit by these changes, though he would have taken the work just the same had it been twice as hot or hard.
Many workers lived in the vicinity of Kent Avenue, or along trolley lines that led to the waterfront, occupying former single-family residences that had been converted to boarding houses and tenements. Despite low wages, approximately $13 per week, the average length of service in 1900 was more than eight years. Such wages, one writer observed, would insure "a good living" elsewhere, but not in Brooklyn.
Refinery workers also had hardly any job security. Thousands were temporarily laid off due to the 1882 fire (and during subsequent conflagrations), as well as during periods when raw materials were in short supply. Increasing labor unrest, especially in the mid-1880s and after 1900, eventually led to wage increases and the creation of a pension plan in 1912 for disabled and retired workers. By 1920, approximately ten percent of the workforce was female, with many involved in clerical positions or packaging. Compared to their male colleagues, their working conditions were portrayed as comfortable:
In the final packing for grocery orders a number of girls find employment. They attend the machines that automatically pour, weigh, and seal small packages of sugar, enabling two girls to do the work recently done by eight, and do it more accurately. Some of the sugar is put up by them in bags and some in paper boxes. These girls have most of a room to themselves, with good dressing rooms, and free from heat.
The American Sugar Refinery Company was one of Brooklyn's largest employers. With 4,500 workers on the payroll in 1919, threats to move to New Jersey in the late 1910s and early 1920s were taken seriously and the government permitted the closing of two streets, between Kent Avenue and the river, as part of a major expansion. The number employed, however, fell steadily after the Second World War. By 1959 there were 1,500 workers, 450 in 1996, and less than 300 in 2001. Not only was the demand for sugar hurt by the increasing popularity of corn syrup and other sweeteners, but to increase efficiency, only liquid sugar - first processed in Baltimore - was refined in the Williamsburg plant during the 1990s.
Subsequent History
The great capacity of the Filter, Pan & Finishing House gave the Havemeyer family a significant competitive edge and it was soon able to negotiate a merger of historic proportions. Rather than rebuild what existed before 1882, a much more ambitious structure was created, one that positioned Havemeyers & Elder as the dominant American firm for decades to come. Though published estimates of the cost of reconstruction and machinery were reportedly $2.5 million, Theodore A. Havemeyer later admitted that almost three times that amount, $7 million, was spent.
The Sugar Refineries Company, also known as the Sugar Trust, was established in October 1887. Henry Osborne Havemeyer was the first president and most members of the board of directors were drawn from the Havemeyer family or long-time business associates. It was renamed the American Sugar Refining Company in 1891 and King's Handbook of New York called it "without doubt . . . the greatest and most important manufacturing industry in the United States." Originally consisting of as many as twenty firms, it was a monopoly - similar to that of the Standard Oil Company or the American Tobacco Company - that sought to control labor costs and sugar prices, as well as to influence government policy.
Efficiency was critical to the new organization and following a six-month assessment only the five most productive refineries, including the recently-constructed Williamsburg plant, were allowed to operate. This strategy proved to be a great success, and within two decades the company controlled 98 per cent of the refined sugar produced in the United States. Though claims were made that such techniques substantially lowered consumer prices, the trust immediately began to attract the attention of state and federal investigators. Antitrust legislation, followed by litigation and related scandals, would damage American Sugar's reputation, and ultimately, its market share.
The "Domino" brand name was introduced in 1901. Though Havemeyers & Elder continued to manufacture their popular "H & E - Eagle" brand for many years, Domino became the company's best-known product and by 1974 all other labels had been retired. The Williamsburg refinery complex was modified continuously throughout the twentieth century, including, under chair Earl D. Babst, a major reconstruction program in 1926-27. Costing $3 million, these improvements had relatively little impact on the exterior of the Filter, Pan & Finishing House. Increased productivity was the primary goal and according to the Brooklyn Eagle, the older manufacturing buildings were remodeled and "reequipped."
After the Second World War, the sugar business experienced considerable change, impacting both the American Sugar Refining Company and its Williamsburg branch. Paper cartons were introduced in 1915 and the shipping of sugar in wood barrels ceased in 1946, causing the closure of the cooperage. The research and development division moved to Philadelphia in 1958, but the company remained committed to operating in Brooklyn, and several new structures, costing $16 million, were erected during the early 1960s. American Sugar changed its name to the Amstar Sugar Corporation in 1970 and a year later moved the New York City office from 120 Wall Street, where it had been since 1930, to 1251 Sixth Avenue in Rockefeller Center. Tate & Lyle acquired the American Sugar Division of Amstar, consisting of the Williamsburg, Baltimore and Chalmette refineries, as well as other facilities, in 1988. It was renamed the Domino Sugar Corporation in 1991. Florida Crystals Corp., headed by Alfonso and J. Pepe Fanjul, purchased the company in 2001. The Williamsburg refinery closed in 2004 and the property was acquired by C. P. C. Resources, the development arm of the Community Preservation Corporation.
Description
The former Havemeyers & Elder Filter, Pan & Finishing House is located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on a block bounded by the East River, Kent Avenue, South 2nd Street and South 3rd Street. Each is a separate building connected by common party walls. The facades are built of reddish brick, patched with both historic and non-historic brick. Most of the windows are crowned by projecting brick segmental arches and some are trimmed with bluestone. The wood-framed windows, mostly painted blue or green, are historic, while the brown and silver aluminum windows are non-historic. At each corner, the brickwork is arranged to create tower-like forms. Each corner bay frames a pair of windows. Immediately below the top floor, the windows are rectangular. Here, the brickwork becomes more dense and lively, with keystones, multiple belt courses, and crenellated forms.
The west elevation of the Filter House faces Manhattan. The base is partially obscured by the former Boiler House (not part of the designation). A large chimney projects from the center of the fa?ade. The upper oval section, above the roof, is not original but historic, probably dating from before the 1930s. The base of the chimney is rectangular and embellished with decorative brickwork on all sides. A rusting metal sign, set below a wide brick arch near the eleventh story, displays the name: "HAVEMEYERS & ELDER."
The letters have been almost entirely lost, but screws or pegs that once held them remain. To the north, from South 2nd Street to the chimney, four bays are visible, divided by projecting brick piers into groups of 2/3/2 window openings. The northernmost bay is crowned by a windowless red brick box, possibly a parapet. At the base, the lower three stories are obscured by the former Power House (not part of this designation). To the south, from the chimney to South 3rd Street, four bays are visible, separated by projecting brick piers into groups of 3/2/3/2 window openings. The base of this section is separated from the former syrup station (not part of this designation) by a passage that leads toward the base of the chimney stack. On the right side (east), the lower floors are visible. The north and south ends of the fa?ade suggest towers, with window openings grouped in pairs.
The Pan House & Finishing House are located on Kent Avenue and face east. This fa?ade is symmetrical and divided into three sections. The north and south sections are divided by projecting piers into three bays, each with a pair of round-arch window openings. The center section has nine round-arched window openings. At the south end (above the Finishing House) are brick bulkheads, as well as an iron frame. A single row of non-historic white metal ventilating units are located on the roof of the Pan House, arranged from north to south. The east fa?ade of the Filter House, visible above the Pan & Finishing House, incorporates non- historic brick and four floors of non-historic fenestration. Some windows, especially at the lowest floor, appear to be sealed. Viewed from the east, the rear of the chimney is visible, as well as brick parapets at the north and south ends.
The north elevation faces South 2nd Street. The nine-story east section is divided by projecting brick piers into three bays. The wide center bay has three windows at each floor. The eleven-story west section is separated by projecting brick piers into three bays. The east bay has a single window opening at each floor. The center and west bays have a pair of window openings. From the base to the roof, the windows diminish in size.
The south elevation, facing South 3rd Street, has been altered with non-historic roll-down gates, metal conveyer tubes connected at 5th and 6th floors, and additions to the base. Above the west tube, at the 7th and 8th
floors, the fa?ade has been opened and filled with wood. To the west of these openings, a pair of openings has been sealed with brick. The taller section, to the west, is divided by projecting brick piers into three bays, with, from west to east, 2/2/1 window openings. Like the south bay of the west elevation, it resembles a tower with brick courses dividing it into four vertical sections. From base to roof, the windows diminish in size. A substantial number of windows are historic, though many have been modified or sealed, and one has been enlarged. At the south end of the roof, a large non-historic blue and white metal cylinder is visible.
- From the 2007 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
Recently I decided to give it a go and refine my rather old design for my Hogwarts Express MOC, with this new official set coming out this year it offers a great piece to use for the nameboard plus the new 1 x 3 double jumper plate has enabled many previously weak joins to be much stronger since it relies on one piece rather than a few.
I decided to go with the 8-wide build as I feel it offers much more freedom for details and strength as the majority of the loco is no longer made from plates adding up to 7-wide.
The entire drive chassis has been heavily reinforced and has gone from the most fragile part of the loco to I'd say the strongest. It now has a much more solid attachment to the cab area and the running board overall has been strengthened.
I have managed to get the drive wheels set back by half a stud which tucks the rear drive wheels further under the cab than before thus making it closer to the real loco.
One thing I did have to sacrifice in the name of keeping everything genuine was the front drive wheels being set back by half a stud, while this does look closer to the real wheel spacing there are no legal build methods I have been able to come up with that make it so this setup works well and keeps together properly as there was only a 4 long axle in the front half of the rods which caused the rods to either fall apart or get pressed together and disturb the smoothness of the wheels.
The tender is out of frame because it is currently undergoing an overhaul as well to try and get not only more detail but better overall strength as it too is another problem area when it comes to the fragility of this model.
Work in progress: refining details & sanding of the unfired porcelain face.
Рабочий процесс: уточнение деталей и шлифовка необожжённого фарфорового лица.
101 Oil Studies, No. 34
Objective: Refine life-size figure painting (applied with brush), experiment with dark but analogous abstract background (applied with palette knife).
Painted in 3 sessions: 30 July to 02 August 2024
Pigments (Winsor & Newton Artists' oil colour unless noted otherwise): yellow ochre, Naples yellow, transparent earth red (Gamblin), warm gray (Rembrandt), permalba white (Weber), ivory black, French ultramarine. Mediums: Gamsol, linseed oil.
Centurion OP DLX oil primed linen, 30.5 x 22.9 (12 x 9 inches)
Process: This moved from a photograph of my own hands to a pencil drawing. When satisfied with that, I transferred via charcoal pencil on tracing paper to the linen, which already had a wash of yellow ochre given time to dry. My river of skin-tone gradation came from the red, yellow ochre, white, and black. To the edge of this stream I added the ultramarine to desaturate where needed.
After Action Evaluation: Be mindful of how palette knives are changed and then stroked across the canvas. There is technique to be developed here.
Yesterday evening, 2 April 2018, I finally finishing backing up exactly one year's worth of my photos. Yes, I know, I should back up my images far more often than that!! My intention had been to see to it during the last few winter months. However, this winter has been one 'bad' thing after another, including someone hacking into my credit card and causing my card to be shut down and taking about five weeks to sort everything out; dealing with the hassle of a camera that is now in for "repair" a second time because it wasn't fixed the first time; worrying about my daughter's upcoming surgery; and going through a frightening cancer scare (which very thankfully turned out to be OK). Blink ... and the winter has almost gone!
This photo was taken two days ago, on 1 April 2018 (Easter Sunday). I decided to join four friends for an afternoon walk in Fish Creek Park, despite the overcast sky, cold temperature and a forecast for yet more snow. We only had a few snowflakes and the following morning, there was just a light dusting over everything. The forecast for this week shows snow on several days.
One of our stops was to see the male Great Horned Owl, perched where he was almost impossible to see, his camouflage was so good. From a distance, I could only shoot through the tangle of branches that was in front of him. His eyes looked tightly shut and he was no doubt getting some sleep after a busy night of hunting.
We were also lucky to see two Coyotes together, at first way off in the distance and then they came somewhat closer. Beautiful animals, though we were concerned to see them in the area, having been asked by a family if we had seen their puppy that had run off from the parking lot. We kept our eyes open for the two and a half hours that we were walking, but we saw the family still searching. To spot a white dog against all the snow would have been difficult, and it wasn't answering to its name being called. I do hope this had a happy ending!
Migrating birds are beginning to be seen in and around Calgary - but, let's face it, who in their right mind would want to come to a place where spring is still an ongoing time of cold and snow?!
After braving the cold, coffee at Tim Horton's was the perfect ending to our afternoon of birding. On the way there, we stopped to look at a new birding blind that we had heard about. Made from rusty metal with several holes cut out of it, it was certainly a rather unusual sight. There are eight windows at varying heights, the lowest of which are at a height suitable for young children, viewers who may want to bring a folding chair and sit for a while, or those who use a wheelchair. It was built by Steve Sozniuk of Refining MetalWorks. Thanks, Bernie and Janet, for leading the walk - always appreciated.
One of the upper floors at Millennium Mills abandoned and derelict flour factory. (Correction on my description). I thought these were some sort of grinder originally but corrected below by Matt's detective work, I now know they are purifiers which separate the flour from the bran (cheers Matt).
A shot from the archives, taken about a year ago on a hike in the Twin falls area, Washington Cascades.
Sassy and I signed papers for a refinance last week. We're saving a ton of money taking advantage of the crazy low interest rates. Sad though, come into some extra cash and what do I do with it? Go out and buy a friggin' lawn mower. Yard work .....yuck. I'm not young and buff anymore so purchasing a self propelled walk behind mower kind of made sense. Sassy said that her kind of self propelled lawn mower was a goat, and they were cheaper. In fact we could have gotten four goats for the price of this lawn mower.
Well that's about all that's new and exciting in my world.....tomorrow's THAT day again.
signed,
Goatless in Seattle.
Zechariah 13:9
“And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.”
King James Version (KJV)
Hazel Blake model P6170144
Paper set 1 - Paper6
Kelvin ink-and-tea-stained-paper-texture-6
My fire images, fractals 9 (fuzzy hair 1, spritzer 1)
MagicalReality_RealisticFlamesSet2_5, 6, 7, 9; set3_11
nicolesy-vintage-paper-14
GTD_GRUNGE_COLL_BG_02
FS_Strange Behavior_Smoke; TR_Cloud1
Pngtree smoke
100_Light_Leaks_Overlay 72
Nuestros complejos industriales cuentan con un sistema de refino eficiente e integrado, de los mejores de Europa que destaca por su excelencia operativa. Más info en
Our industrial complexes have an efficient and integrated system that have been qualified as the best in Europe for its operational excellence refining . More info at
Calumet San Antonio Refining has crude oil throughput capacity of approximately 14,500 barrels per day.
The refinery currently produces ultra-low sulfur diesel, jet fuel, specialty solvents, reformates, naphtha, and vacuum gas oil.
Calumet Specialty Products Partners, L.P. Location: 7811 South Presa Street San Antonio, TX 78223
Refine edge + Lens blur = Great pictures :D Amazingly creamy bokeh!
Playing around with various shizz in CS5, god I love it :)
Lit entirely naturally, added a lens flare in at the top right :)
Refining technique, getting closer to that "money shot" with the bottomless / naked portafilter. I've pulled perhaps 100 shots of coffee at this point.
This was roughly 19 grams of Roastco coffee, temperature set at 200° and a shot running approximately 30 seconds. I couldn't find details of optimal settings, so I guessed. Worked out nicely.
Note a little section I missed near the right, perhaps due to slightly uneven distribution of grounds.
Fore ventral view showing mining particle beam cannon and sensor suite.
Name: S.S. Bessemer
Registration Number: KCC-1894 (Kolter Construction Contract Number 1,894)
Affiliation: Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel.
Class Name: Bessemer class
Type: Deep Space Mining Operations Flagship
Commissioned: Circa late 2500’s, post recent major conflict
Specifications:
Length: 1,844 meters (184.4 studs, 58.1 inches, 4.83 feet, 147.5 cm model)
Width: 503 meters (50.3 studs, 15.8 inches, 40.2 cm model)
Height: 484 meters, 398 meters without dorsal comms array, (48.4 studs, 15.2 inches, 38.7 cm model)
Crew: 2,950 standard complement + capacity for crew families, as well as smaller guest quarters for up to 2,000 additional personnel to be moved to/from mining operations.
Armament: 1 super-heavy coaxial particle beam cannon, (primarily for asteroid mining, but also more than capable of defensive action,) 4 dual-mounted heavy particle cannon turrets, 8 dual-mounted medium particle cannon turrets, 2 coaxial fore medium particle cannons, 80 quad-mounted 80mm anti-fighter flak railgun turrets.
Defensive systems:
Hull: Super-heavy steel alloy hull with carbon nanotube/buckypaper composite layers as spall lining.
Armor plating: steel, titanium alloy, tungsten, ceramic, and carbon nanotube composite armor layers against asteroids/other space debris, kinetic weapons, kinetic spalling, particle, laser, and plasma fire. Thick composite armor provides excellent survivability, but with very high mass. Some battleships are less armored than this ship.
Bulkheads: Extensive titanium bulkhead support network.
Structural integrity field: High power system designed for significant cargo mass placing stress on the frame, or to withstand asteroid impacts to the hull.
Shielding: Internally housed high power adaptive particle field repulsing shielding system capable of surviving significant punishment. Some older battleships have less robust shielding.
Powerplant: 1 primary matter-antimatter reactor with extensive fuel reserves, 2 secondary fusion reactors with extensive fuel reserves. Multiple massive power capacitors. Extensive heatinks.
Propulsion: 1 massive primary fusion engine for sub-lightspeed travel, 1 internal FTL core capable of moderate FTL speed, long range travel, and 32 large reaction control thrusters for slow but dependable below light speed maneuvering.
Computer systems: Single supercomputer core with onboard Virtual Intelligence system.
Comms and Sensors: Local and FTL comms arrays. Radar, LIDAR, infrared, multi-spectral, and additional other local area sensors systems, along with extensive FTL sensors.
Additional Systems: High power artificial singularity for both artificial gravity generation and inertial dampening, allowing for 1G gravity even when hauling an entire cargo hold full of heavy-metal. 6 massive blast furnaces for refining metal ore, an enormous central cargo hold system, 4 fuel refining tanks, 4 massive fuel storage tanks, and an internal rail system for moving ore and personnel.
Embarked Craft: 2 Thunderbird class super-heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 2 Hurricane class heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 20 heavy mining drones, 24 medium mining drones, 2 gunships of variable class, 2 heavy fighter/bombers of variable class, potential for multiple additional light shuttles and fighters.
Background: After seeing both the devastation to outlying areas of space caused by the recent Great War, and the corruption within the Federal Defense Navy (working title) Admiralty, Captain David Courtland retired honorably from military service and went to helm his family’s generations old mining company, Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel; one of the largest mining companies in United Earth Federation space. (Working title.)
He wanted to take the company, already a reputable and successful business, in a new direction. That direction was the disputed, war-torn, no-man’s-waste-land of space known as The Divide, (working title) situated between the major powers of the galaxy. Life in The Divide was desperate, with little hope for the many people stranded in the ruins, poverty, and crime infested land. None of the major powers could intervene without starting another territorial war, and as such, pirates, gangs, and unscrupulous mega-corporations ruled supreme.
Courtland wanted to make a difference to this sorrowful place, and with trillions of credits and a Fortunes 1,000 company at his control, he had the means to at least begin; although even he lacked the ability to single-handedly remedy the myriad of woes The Divide faced.
David’s plan was simple, to move significant mining operations to The Divide, thus:
1: Creating new, safe, well-paying, good jobs for both an area and an industry that seldom offered such things.
2: Allowing for the placement of company security forces to deter pirate activity around major settlements.
3: Providing tax-free revenue to fund new schools, hospitals, food, water, shetler, and other charitable activities in The Divide.
But to do it, he required a new kind of mining vessel, as well as additional security forces. Thus he contacted Nelson Heavy Industries, who in turn partnered with AxonTech Interstellar Systems for some components, to place an order for a line of custom massive deep space mining operation flagships with enhanced combat capabilities and capable of operating in the remotest reaches of space for months or even years at a time. And so the Bessemer class was born.
The Bessemer class is unlike any mining vessel ever produced before it. Certainly significantly larger mining ships existed, but these were typically little more than unarmed, slow moving things with small engines; closer to a semi-mobile starbase than a combination frontier battleship/mining vessel. But Courtland required something unique. Something that could move faster, survive more punishment, and something that had teeth; not a fragile, barely moving thing that would only sit in safe areas of space. Courtland needed a mighty sheepdog in a world of sheep and wolves.
Bessemer class vessels are 1,844 meters long, and possess more armor, firepower, and shielding than many pre Great War battleship designs. Almost any pirate or local gang would be terrified of the sight of over a mile of steel and particle cannons; clad in Kolter white, green, and yellow.
But the Bessemer, and others of her class, are not merely warships masquerading as civilian craft. They are heavy mining machines that live up to their name; a steel producing process that revolutionized the industry of Earth some seven hundred years earlier. The Bessemer and her sister ships are capable of blasting metal-rich asteroids to bits with their coaxial mining particle beam cannon, and then having swarms of automated mining drones devour any valuable deposits within before unloading the materials into the Bessemer’s ore hold for the internal rail system to run any raw ore through her six corvette sized forges, and then having the refined metal shunted to her cavernous lower hold, while any waste material from the refining process is vented directly into space.
Ships of this class are outfitted with a sizable hangar, advanced sensor suite, extensive internal cargo bays, and large cargo pod clamps that allow it to act in the capacity of miner, defensive ship, operations command center, and even freighter and personnel carrier should usual shipping to outlying mining sites be disrupted.
But capable as they are, these are not the spartan mining vessels with unlivable working conditions that some shady companies have been known to operate. These space-faring cities of steel feature robust safety systems, spacious and comfortable crew quarters, multiple restaurants, multiple mess-halls, multiple shops for clothing, food, electronics, and other items, an arcade, multiple gyms with weights, various weight and cardio machines, martial arts areas, gymnastics equipment, along with a walking track, a small bowling alley, an olympic sized swimming pool, a multi-sport stadium, a greenhouse, hydroponics bays, a small stage/concert area, several computer labs, a library, a small movie theater, crew lounges and break areas, a salon/spa, a bar/club, chapels, classroom/daycare areas, office areas, as well as repair stations, enough dry and frozen storage to keep everyone fed for extended missions, advanced workshops, astrotography, laboratories, guest bunk-rooms, and a starbase grade medical center.
Not everyone is happy about Kolter Mining’s efforts, however. While Courtland founded the Kolter Foundation to aid those in need, he also lobbied for what came to be known as the Kolter Bill to be passed. Mining employees out in the colonies loved the added protections this afforded them. But the executives of Kolter’s rival mining companies operating out of Earth’s colony worlds quickly found themselves facing laws that favored the profits of Kolter and their already developed safety systems and excellent treatment of employees. What’s more, the Federal Defense Navy Admiralty have been continually frustrated that rather than helping to line their pockets as part of the military industrial complex, Courtland has been working tirelessly to reveal their corruption and hidden support of crime in outlying areas of space.
What’s more, there are even rumors that Courtland is now working with, and possibly even helping to fund, a mercenary vigilante unit out in The Divide known as the Phoenix Command Group, founded by Jonathan Scarlett, another former Federal Defense Navy Captain who ran afoul of the Admiralty.
The wealthy and corrupt among the Admiralty, military industrial complex, crime syndicates, and corrupt businesses running shady operations out in The Divide are deeply troubled by these rumors. But those who are now citizens of no nation, and who have known nothing but hopelessness and need for years, have a slight spark of hope rising like a Phoenix.
IRL info: This digital SHIP was made in Bricklink’s Studio software from September 11th to September 30th, 2021. I did not originally plan to participate in SHIPtember, but I couldn’t resist. It is 184 studs (58.1 inches) long, 50 studs wide, and 48 studs high. It is comprised of 23,470 pieces, which I believe makes it my highest piece-count SHIP to date, and means that the model itself has a mass of 973.502 ounces, or 60.843 pounds, or 27.597 kilograms, which most likely makes it my heaviest SHIP as well as my most piece intensive. (I really need to learn to build a little more hollow.) Note that it uses all real pieces/colors that are available for sale on Bricklink. (Albeit at a price that makes attempting to build it in physical bricks highly impractical.) It is 100% connected, and should be at least somewhat stable in real life. I would want to reinforce the fore-end with more Technic, and switch out the longest Lego Technic axle holding the engine for an aftermarket stainless steel version. I cannot guarantee that various sections built out from the main SNOT and Technic frame would be totally stable without slight redesign of a few bits. It would also require a hefty display stand of some kind.
The current pictures are WIP to show the completed status of the build itself. Better renders done by importing the Studio build into Mecabricks, replacing any pieces that fail to load or change position, and then exporting to Blender for higher quality rendering, and finally hopefully doing some cool backgrounds with GIMP, will hopefully follow before whatever October picture deadline is decided on. Please do not use these early pictures in the poster if time remains, as I hope to provide better ones. Thank you for reading this lengthy description. Have a cookie.
If this ship had a theme song, this magnificent piece by Clamavi De Profundis would be it: youtu.be/Xm96Cqu4Ils
I tried one method of using it. It’s the same one as Lawrence Principe uses in his book, and indeed I asked him about it a year before the book was published. He said the secret was in the temperature, or words to that effect. I had previously tried it this way but had either left it in too long or made it too hot, or maybe not had a very good quality of ‘water’. It is worth nothing that the Leyden papyrus doesn’t specify how to use this water.
So first I dipped the silver into the liquid when it was cold, and not a lot happened except that over 10 minutes in it, the silver turned slightly yellow, but left for longer and it went black. Whilst black is an alchemical colour, it isn’t the one we want here, at the end of the process.
So I heated the golden liquid until it became more red, although nowhere near boiling. Say about hand hot. A few seconds immersed in it gave this, shown with some untreated silver:
Note the shine of the metal and the apparent depth of colour.
I stuck another sample in for longer, it turned black. I’d killed it! (Silver sulphides are black, but a thin layer of them is, as you can see, gold coloured)
Which is of course a possible aim, since much reference is made to the death of metals and their resurrection in Graeco-Egyptian alchemy.
The next step in the use of this substance would probably be to seal the colour in using some kind of varnish, because now, three weeks later, the colour on the silver has faded to a slight yellow as the sulphides have evaporated or oxidised.
The next step after turning the silver black would be to melt it with other ingredients, but exactly what I am not sure.
The funny thing is that I haven’t found any later mention of this recipe than a 9/10th century Arabic text. I suspect that might be because by that time and after, both in Arabic countries and in Europe, such a superficial colour change was nothing special and had no value, since it did not lead to anything really like gold. Whereas the Egyptian alchemists were more interested in the specific colour change using divine/ sulphurous substances, themselves of important colours and unusual behaviour and so it was of great use to them.
Some of the world's most famous scientists did indeed believe iron could be turned into gold, and several of them tried desperately to make it happen for hundreds of years. Long before much of modern science became known, many early scientists were fascinated by a practice called alchemy.
Alchemy was a secret and mysterious practice that reflected a spiritual worldview very different from our modern view of science. The metals we know today as individual elements were believed by alchemists to be alive and growing underground. Metals like iron and lead were thought to be merely immature and undeveloped “early" versions of precious metals, like silver and gold.
Alchemists believed they could refine base metals into precious metals if they could just find the mythical substance they called philosopher's stone. The philosopher's stone they searched for wasn't an actual rock. Instead, it was supposedly a magical wax, liquid, or powder that could heal ailments and prolong life, as well as change base metals into precious metals.
Knowing what we do today about science, alchemy sounds crazy, doesn't it? After all, it's no surprise that alchemists ultimately failed in their quest, since the very idea of alchemy contradicts the basic laws of chemistry and physics. Rather than the atoms and elements we know today, alchemists believed everything in the world was made up of four elements: air, earth, fire, and water.
We now know that air, earth, fire, and water are not actual elements. Therefore, it's not possible to adjust the percentages of those elements within iron to turn it into gold. Despite the utter failure of alchemy to transform iron into gold, it wasn't a completely worthless pursuit. Scientists and historians now credit ancient alchemists for developing the groundwork for what would become modern chemistry.
In fact, you're probably already familiar with one of the more famous alchemists from ancient history. Ever heard of a guy named Sir Isaac Newton? That's right! Sir Isaac Newton, the guy who invented calculus and is considered the father of modern physics, was a devoted alchemist who believed at one time that he had discovered the mythical philosopher's stone.
Newton's dedication to alchemy has made modern scientists reconsider its importance in the history of the development of modern science. Many experts now agree that alchemy was an important natural step in laying the foundation for modern science. Instead of superstitious witchcraft, alchemy is now often seen as an ancient practice of early scientists trying to make sense of the world around them.
Other experts point out the many scientific advancements that can be traced back to alchemy. For example, alchemists created new alloys and manufactured acids and pigments for the first time. They also invented distillation apparatuses and conceived of atoms hundreds of years before modern atomic theory. Perhaps most importantly, though, they helped to forge the basis for the modern scientific method by repeating controlled experiments over and over.
For hundreds of years alchemists toiled in their laboratories to produce a mythical substance known as the philosopher’s stone. The supposedly dense, waxy, red material was said to enable the process that has become synonymous with alchemy—chrysopoeia, the metamorphosis, or transmutation, of base metals such as lead into gold.
Alchemists have often been dismissed as pseudoscientific charlatans but in many ways they paved the way for modern chemistry and medicine. The alchemists of the 16th and 17th centuries developed new experimental techniques, medicines and other chemical concoctions, such as pigments. And many of them "were amazingly good experimentalists,” says Lawrence Principe, a chemist and science historian at Johns Hopkins University. “Any modern professor of chemistry today would be more than happy to hire some of these guys as lab techs.” The alchemists counted among their number Irish-born scientist Robert Boyle, credited as one of the founders of modern chemistry; pioneering Swiss-born physician Paracelsus; and English physicist Isaac Newton.
But despite the alchemists’ intellectual firepower and experimental acumen, the philosopher’s stone lay forever out of reach. The problem, Principe says, is that the alchemists did not yet know that lead and gold were different atomic elements—the periodic table was still hundreds of years away. Believing them to be hybrid compounds, and therefore amenable to chemical change in laboratory reactions, the alchemists pursued the dream of chrysopoeia to no avail.
With the dawn of the atomic age in the 20th century, however, the transmutation of elements finally became possible. Nowadays nuclear physicists routinely transform one element to another. In commercial nuclear reactors, uranium atoms break apart to yield smaller nuclei of elements such as xenon and strontium as well as heat that can be harnessed to generate electricity. In experimental fusion reactors heavy isotopes of hydrogen merge together to form helium. (An element is defined by the number of protons in its nucleus whereas an isotope of a given element is determined by the quantity of neutrons.)
But what of the fabled transmutation of lead to gold? It is indeed possible—all you need is a particle accelerator, a vast supply of energy and an extremely low expectation of how much gold you will end up with. More than 30 years ago nuclear scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California succeeded in producing very small amounts of gold from bismuth, a metallic element adjacent to lead on the periodic table. The same process would work for lead, but isolating the gold at the end of the reaction would prove much more difficult, says David J. Morrissey, now of Michigan State University, one of the scientists who conducted the research. “We could have used lead in the experiments, but we used bismuth because it has only one stable isotope,” Morrissey says. The element’s homogeneous nature means it is easier to separate gold from bismuth than it is to separate gold from lead, which has four stable isotopic identities.
Using the LBNL’s Bevalac particle accelerator, Morrissey and his colleagues boosted beams of carbon and neon nuclei nearly to light speed and then slammed them into foils of bismuth. When a high-speed nucleus in the beam collided with a bismuth atom, it sheared off part of the bismuth nucleus, leaving a slightly diminished atom behind. By sifting through the particulate wreckage, the team found a number of transmuted atoms in which four protons had been removed from a bismuth atom to produce gold. Along with the four protons, the collision-induced reactions had removed anywhere from six to 15 neutrons, producing a range of gold isotopes from gold 190 (79 protons and 111 neutrons) to gold 199 (79 protons, 120 neutrons), the researchers reported in the March 1981 issue of Physical Review C.
The amount of gold produced was so small that Morrissey and his colleagues had to identify it by measuring the radiation given off by unstable gold nuclei as they decayed over the course of a year. In addition to the several radioactive isotopes of gold, the particle collisions presumably produced some amount of the stable isotope gold 197—the stuff of wedding bands and gold bullion—but because it does not decay the researchers were unable to confirm its presence. “The stable isotope would have to be observed in a mass spectrometer,” Morrissey says, “but I think that the number of atoms was, and is still, below the level of detection by mass spec.”
Isolating the minute quantities of gold would be even more difficult using lead as a starting material, but smashing high-speed nuclei into a lead target would indeed complete the long-sought transmutation. Some of the collisions would be expected to remove three protons from lead, or one proton from mercury, to produce gold. “It is relatively straightforward to convert lead, bismuth or mercury into gold,” Morrissey says. “The problem is the rate of production is very, very small and the energy, money, etcetera expended will always far exceed the output of gold atoms.”
In 1980, when the bismuth-to-gold experiment was carried out, running particle beams through the Bevalac cost about $5,000 an hour, “and we probably used about a day of beam time,” recalls Oregon State University nuclear chemist Walter Loveland, one of the researchers on the project. Glenn Seaborg, who shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work with heavy elements and who died in 1999, was the senior author on the resulting study. “It would cost more than one quadrillion dollars per ounce to produce gold by this experiment," Seaborg told the Associated Press that year. The going rate for an ounce of gold at the time? About $560.
If you had lived hundreds of years ago, do you think you would've wanted to be an alchemist? Be sure to explore the following interesting activities with a friend or family member:
You might not be able to turn iron into gold, but you can change the form of a simple compound you use every day. What are we talking about? Water, of course! Get an ice cube out of your refrigerator and turn it to liquid water. You can do that a number of ways. You could simply let it melt on the kitchen countertop, or you could put it in a pan and heat it up to watch it melt quickly. You will definitely need that pan if you want to turn your liquid water into a gas. Keep heating some water in a pan until it reaches the boiling point. When it does, you'll see the water in the pan turning into water vapor right before your eyes. Have fun exploring the different states of water!Want to learn more about Isaac Newton's Experiments with Alchemy? Just follow the link to watch videos of some of Isaac Newton's most famous alchemy experiments. How do you think these experiments helped Newton become the famous scientist he was? Was all of alchemy a waste of time? Why or why not?If you could turn one element into another, what would you do? Think about what elements or things you have plenty of. Then think about things that you don't have much of, but would like more of. For example, if you could do it, would you invent a machine that could change air into soda? How about vegetables into ice cream? Let your imagination run wild and write a short story about what you would do as a modern-day alchemist. Have fun and be sure to share your story with a friend or family member!
distillatio.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/how-to-use-the-divin...
Here is the story that has prompted me to post this photo, though any of you guys who know me know I don’t do this kind of shot, as a rule, but this time . . . yeah, I’m doing it. This is going to be a diatribe for justice, so skip right over this if you want. It’s probably boring to anyone who’d never had to deal with this kind of thing.
This photo was taken back in December of 2002, in Decatur, AL, with a little Sony Mavika, so it's pretty poor quality. This particular branch actually had key lights out on their sign, which prompted us to drive back by for a second disbelieving look and a shot!
Many of you know that Ken & I have been working day and night with our home remodel, trying to get a refinance for the last year – roll some loans together, do a payoff and have money to finish work on the house, since I have not worked since Jamie passed away, and things are tight. We’ve done almost ALL of the work ourselves- like tiling. (HA! in spite of a broken arm AND sitting in grout!) We have persevered; we have worked hard. We finally finished work on the kitchen and on the small bathroom that we totally gutted. FINALLY met the details demanded by the appraiser and the bank. (3rd time’s a charm, right?)
SO! Here’s the deal- almost a year later and we closed on our refinance loan last week. We expected we would be taking a check with us at closing, or at least a deposit slip - instead, we were told No, the bank (“ass Bank”- aka “Compass Bank”) would not release the funds for several days- yes, AFTER Christmas – well how nice . . . SO . . . We requested a direct deposit. Ken checked our account online again yesterday- a deposit had been made but the amount was short by almost $4000!! WTF??!
They have held up our money already, and now the amount is wrong?! Our funds and loans are insignificant to them; they are monumental to us.
Ken emailed and called our bank representative to tell her that the payoff amount was incorrect, which made the deposit to us incorrect. She agreed that it seemed like a large difference and we should check with the closing attorney’s office. Yes, we DID! The closing attorney said the amount deposited was what the bank had sent through them due to a change in one of the figures- that our loan payoffs were more than what was shown, so the deposit amount to us was less. HUH? Our loan payoff amount had NOT changed!!
Are you sensing further scuffling? We were advised to call another lady in another part of the bank. She said she had no idea where the lawyer’s office had gotten the figure. Hmmmm- they got it from the bank! Of course! (Read “ass bank” here!)
Ken checked our account again- checked what the payoff for our loan consolidations showed there- yet a different number appeared as the payoff amount! NO JOKE!
Making a further call to the payoff departmen, Ken was advised that yes, that appeared to be some error “somewhere,” and probably with the attorney’s office . . . Are you getting this? and then this guy gave Ken a 4th and different amount!!
We try to be careful with our money, try to be aware of what goes where and how much it was. Aren’t banks PAID for that sort of thing? Numbers, amounts?
Now, I don’t know about you guys, but if I shorted the bank by $4000, you can bet they would have their money back, collect interest AND double interest in the quickest manner possible! If you were a teller or window clerk at the bank and made a mistake of that size, your job would be in jeopardy. But if they short you, you will have to battle for money that was already YOURS! You will NOT pass GO- you will NOT Collect $100 (or $4000) until the “ass Bank” says you will!
OH! And yes, a correction “of some sort” will be made by the “ass Bank.” Yes, they will cut a check this time and mail it- no direct deposit for errors- even of $4000 worth. And Oh Yeah- it should get to us within three weeks, or please let us know . . . !! You have got to be kidding me! I am sure there will be no "I'm really sorry we don't have our act together" message. No shame in doing a shoddy crappy job at what they are paid to do! Just amazing!
Do you know how much money financial institutions must be making in interest from money they withhold from costumers EVERY day, for a day, a week, 3 weeks? If they are doing it to us, they are doing it to many more people, and though we’re a drop in the bucket, drops add up to streams and rivers and FLOODS, and that adds up to millions of dollars they are stealing from us all!
Know the figures in your accounts, know what documents you sign, what you owe, what you pay, because the “ass Banks” of the world will not hesitate to make the mistake in their favor EVERY time! Be aware, be wary, and be SURE.
I mean, I’m just saying . . .
Aft angled view.
Name: S.S. Bessemer
Registration Number: KCC-1894 (Kolter Construction Contract Number 1,894)
Affiliation: Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel.
Class Name: Bessemer class
Type: Deep Space Mining Operations Flagship
Commissioned: Circa late 2500’s, post recent major conflict
Specifications:
Length: 1,844 meters (184.4 studs, 58.1 inches, 4.83 feet, 147.5 cm model)
Width: 503 meters (50.3 studs, 15.8 inches, 40.2 cm model)
Height: 484 meters, 398 meters without dorsal comms array, (48.4 studs, 15.2 inches, 38.7 cm model)
Crew: 2,950 standard complement + capacity for crew families, as well as smaller guest quarters for up to 2,000 additional personnel to be moved to/from mining operations.
Armament: 1 super-heavy coaxial particle beam cannon, (primarily for asteroid mining, but also more than capable of defensive action,) 4 dual-mounted heavy particle cannon turrets, 8 dual-mounted medium particle cannon turrets, 2 coaxial fore medium particle cannons, 80 quad-mounted 80mm anti-fighter flak railgun turrets.
Defensive systems:
Hull: Super-heavy steel alloy hull with carbon nanotube/buckypaper composite layers as spall lining.
Armor plating: steel, titanium alloy, tungsten, ceramic, and carbon nanotube composite armor layers against asteroids/other space debris, kinetic weapons, kinetic spalling, particle, laser, and plasma fire. Thick composite armor provides excellent survivability, but with very high mass. Some battleships are less armored than this ship.
Bulkheads: Extensive titanium bulkhead support network.
Structural integrity field: High power system designed for significant cargo mass placing stress on the frame, or to withstand asteroid impacts to the hull.
Shielding: Internally housed high power adaptive particle field repulsing shielding system capable of surviving significant punishment. Some older battleships have less robust shielding.
Powerplant: 1 primary matter-antimatter reactor with extensive fuel reserves, 2 secondary fusion reactors with extensive fuel reserves. Multiple massive power capacitors. Extensive heatinks.
Propulsion: 1 massive primary fusion engine for sub-lightspeed travel, 1 internal FTL core capable of moderate FTL speed, long range travel, and 32 large reaction control thrusters for slow but dependable below light speed maneuvering.
Computer systems: Single supercomputer core with onboard Virtual Intelligence system.
Comms and Sensors: Local and FTL comms arrays. Radar, LIDAR, infrared, multi-spectral, and additional other local area sensors systems, along with extensive FTL sensors.
Additional Systems: High power artificial singularity for both artificial gravity generation and inertial dampening, allowing for 1G gravity even when hauling an entire cargo hold full of heavy-metal. 6 massive blast furnaces for refining metal ore, an enormous central cargo hold system, 4 fuel refining tanks, 4 massive fuel storage tanks, and an internal rail system for moving ore and personnel.
Embarked Craft: 2 Thunderbird class super-heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 2 Hurricane class heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 20 heavy mining drones, 24 medium mining drones, 2 gunships of variable class, 2 heavy fighter/bombers of variable class, potential for multiple additional light shuttles and fighters.
Background: After seeing both the devastation to outlying areas of space caused by the recent Great War, and the corruption within the Federal Defense Navy (working title) Admiralty, Captain David Courtland retired honorably from military service and went to helm his family’s generations old mining company, Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel; one of the largest mining companies in United Earth Federation space. (Working title.)
He wanted to take the company, already a reputable and successful business, in a new direction. That direction was the disputed, war-torn, no-man’s-waste-land of space known as The Divide, (working title) situated between the major powers of the galaxy. Life in The Divide was desperate, with little hope for the many people stranded in the ruins, poverty, and crime infested land. None of the major powers could intervene without starting another territorial war, and as such, pirates, gangs, and unscrupulous mega-corporations ruled supreme.
Courtland wanted to make a difference to this sorrowful place, and with trillions of credits and a Fortunes 1,000 company at his control, he had the means to at least begin; although even he lacked the ability to single-handedly remedy the myriad of woes The Divide faced.
David’s plan was simple, to move significant mining operations to The Divide, thus:
1: Creating new, safe, well-paying, good jobs for both an area and an industry that seldom offered such things.
2: Allowing for the placement of company security forces to deter pirate activity around major settlements.
3: Providing tax-free revenue to fund new schools, hospitals, food, water, shetler, and other charitable activities in The Divide.
But to do it, he required a new kind of mining vessel, as well as additional security forces. Thus he contacted Nelson Heavy Industries, who in turn partnered with AxonTech Interstellar Systems for some components, to place an order for a line of custom massive deep space mining operation flagships with enhanced combat capabilities and capable of operating in the remotest reaches of space for months or even years at a time. And so the Bessemer class was born.
The Bessemer class is unlike any mining vessel ever produced before it. Certainly significantly larger mining ships existed, but these were typically little more than unarmed, slow moving things with small engines; closer to a semi-mobile starbase than a combination frontier battleship/mining vessel. But Courtland required something unique. Something that could move faster, survive more punishment, and something that had teeth; not a fragile, barely moving thing that would only sit in safe areas of space. Courtland needed a mighty sheepdog in a world of sheep and wolves.
Bessemer class vessels are 1,844 meters long, and possess more armor, firepower, and shielding than many pre Great War battleship designs. Almost any pirate or local gang would be terrified of the sight of over a mile of steel and particle cannons; clad in Kolter white, green, and yellow.
But the Bessemer, and others of her class, are not merely warships masquerading as civilian craft. They are heavy mining machines that live up to their name; a steel producing process that revolutionized the industry of Earth some seven hundred years earlier. The Bessemer and her sister ships are capable of blasting metal-rich asteroids to bits with their coaxial mining particle beam cannon, and then having swarms of automated mining drones devour any valuable deposits within before unloading the materials into the Bessemer’s ore hold for the internal rail system to run any raw ore through her six corvette sized forges, and then having the refined metal shunted to her cavernous lower hold, while any waste material from the refining process is vented directly into space.
Ships of this class are outfitted with a sizable hangar, advanced sensor suite, extensive internal cargo bays, and large cargo pod clamps that allow it to act in the capacity of miner, defensive ship, operations command center, and even freighter and personnel carrier should usual shipping to outlying mining sites be disrupted.
But capable as they are, these are not the spartan mining vessels with unlivable working conditions that some shady companies have been known to operate. These space-faring cities of steel feature robust safety systems, spacious and comfortable crew quarters, multiple restaurants, multiple mess-halls, multiple shops for clothing, food, electronics, and other items, an arcade, multiple gyms with weights, various weight and cardio machines, martial arts areas, gymnastics equipment, along with a walking track, a small bowling alley, an olympic sized swimming pool, a multi-sport stadium, a greenhouse, hydroponics bays, a small stage/concert area, several computer labs, a library, a small movie theater, crew lounges and break areas, a salon/spa, a bar/club, chapels, classroom/daycare areas, office areas, as well as repair stations, enough dry and frozen storage to keep everyone fed for extended missions, advanced workshops, astrotography, laboratories, guest bunk-rooms, and a starbase grade medical center.
Not everyone is happy about Kolter Mining’s efforts, however. While Courtland founded the Kolter Foundation to aid those in need, he also lobbied for what came to be known as the Kolter Bill to be passed. Mining employees out in the colonies loved the added protections this afforded them. But the executives of Kolter’s rival mining companies operating out of Earth’s colony worlds quickly found themselves facing laws that favored the profits of Kolter and their already developed safety systems and excellent treatment of employees. What’s more, the Federal Defense Navy Admiralty have been continually frustrated that rather than helping to line their pockets as part of the military industrial complex, Courtland has been working tirelessly to reveal their corruption and hidden support of crime in outlying areas of space.
What’s more, there are even rumors that Courtland is now working with, and possibly even helping to fund, a mercenary vigilante unit out in The Divide known as the Phoenix Command Group, founded by Jonathan Scarlett, another former Federal Defense Navy Captain who ran afoul of the Admiralty.
The wealthy and corrupt among the Admiralty, military industrial complex, crime syndicates, and corrupt businesses running shady operations out in The Divide are deeply troubled by these rumors. But those who are now citizens of no nation, and who have known nothing but hopelessness and need for years, have a slight spark of hope rising like a Phoenix.
IRL info: This digital SHIP was made in Bricklink’s Studio software from September 11th to September 30th, 2021. I did not originally plan to participate in SHIPtember, but I couldn’t resist. It is 184 studs (58.1 inches) long, 50 studs wide, and 48 studs high. It is comprised of 23,470 pieces, which I believe makes it my highest piece-count SHIP to date, and means that the model itself has a mass of 973.502 ounces, or 60.843 pounds, or 27.597 kilograms, which most likely makes it my heaviest SHIP as well as my most piece intensive. (I really need to learn to build a little more hollow.) Note that it uses all real pieces/colors that are available for sale on Bricklink. (Albeit at a price that makes attempting to build it in physical bricks highly impractical.) It is 100% connected, and should be at least somewhat stable in real life. I would want to reinforce the fore-end with more Technic, and switch out the longest Lego Technic axle holding the engine for an aftermarket stainless steel version. I cannot guarantee that various sections built out from the main SNOT and Technic frame would be totally stable without slight redesign of a few bits. It would also require a hefty display stand of some kind.
The current pictures are WIP to show the completed status of the build itself. Better renders done by importing the Studio build into Mecabricks, replacing any pieces that fail to load or change position, and then exporting to Blender for higher quality rendering, and finally hopefully doing some cool backgrounds with GIMP, will hopefully follow before whatever October picture deadline is decided on. Please do not use these early pictures in the poster if time remains, as I hope to provide better ones. Thank you for reading this lengthy description. Have a cookie.
If this ship had a theme song, this magnificent piece by Clamavi De Profundis would be it: youtu.be/Xm96Cqu4Ils
Paratroopers from the 6th Engineer Battalion (Combat Airborne), U.S. Army, pull security after exiting a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from 1-207th Aviation Regiment, Alaska Army National Guard, during exercise Arctic Pegasus near Deadhorse, Alaska, May 1, 2014. Arctic Pegasus is a multi-component, joint exercise that will further refine planning and mission capabilities between U.S. Army Alaska, the U.S. Air Force, the Alaska National Guard, and the state of Alaska. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Edward Eagerton)
Fore angled view.
Name: S.S. Bessemer
Registration Number: KCC-1894 (Kolter Construction Contract Number 1,894)
Affiliation: Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel.
Class Name: Bessemer class
Type: Deep Space Mining Operations Flagship
Commissioned: Circa late 2500’s, post recent major conflict
Specifications:
Length: 1,844 meters (184.4 studs, 58.1 inches, 4.83 feet, 147.5 cm model)
Width: 503 meters (50.3 studs, 15.8 inches, 40.2 cm model)
Height: 484 meters, 398 meters without dorsal comms array, (48.4 studs, 15.2 inches, 38.7 cm model)
Crew: 2,950 standard complement + capacity for crew families, as well as smaller guest quarters for up to 2,000 additional personnel to be moved to/from mining operations.
Armament: 1 super-heavy coaxial particle beam cannon, (primarily for asteroid mining, but also more than capable of defensive action,) 4 dual-mounted heavy particle cannon turrets, 8 dual-mounted medium particle cannon turrets, 2 coaxial fore medium particle cannons, 80 quad-mounted 80mm anti-fighter flak railgun turrets.
Defensive systems:
Hull: Super-heavy steel alloy hull with carbon nanotube/buckypaper composite layers as spall lining.
Armor plating: steel, titanium alloy, tungsten, ceramic, and carbon nanotube composite armor layers against asteroids/other space debris, kinetic weapons, kinetic spalling, particle, laser, and plasma fire. Thick composite armor provides excellent survivability, but with very high mass. Some battleships are less armored than this ship.
Bulkheads: Extensive titanium bulkhead support network.
Structural integrity field: High power system designed for significant cargo mass placing stress on the frame, or to withstand asteroid impacts to the hull.
Shielding: Internally housed high power adaptive particle field repulsing shielding system capable of surviving significant punishment. Some older battleships have less robust shielding.
Powerplant: 1 primary matter-antimatter reactor with extensive fuel reserves, 2 secondary fusion reactors with extensive fuel reserves. Multiple massive power capacitors. Extensive heatinks.
Propulsion: 1 massive primary fusion engine for sub-lightspeed travel, 1 internal FTL core capable of moderate FTL speed, long range travel, and 32 large reaction control thrusters for slow but dependable below light speed maneuvering.
Computer systems: Single supercomputer core with onboard Virtual Intelligence system.
Comms and Sensors: Local and FTL comms arrays. Radar, LIDAR, infrared, multi-spectral, and additional other local area sensors systems, along with extensive FTL sensors.
Additional Systems: High power artificial singularity for both artificial gravity generation and inertial dampening, allowing for 1G gravity even when hauling an entire cargo hold full of heavy-metal. 6 massive blast furnaces for refining metal ore, an enormous central cargo hold system, 4 fuel refining tanks, 4 massive fuel storage tanks, and an internal rail system for moving ore and personnel.
Embarked Craft: 2 Thunderbird class super-heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 2 Hurricane class heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 20 heavy mining drones, 24 medium mining drones, 2 gunships of variable class, 2 heavy fighter/bombers of variable class, potential for multiple additional light shuttles and fighters.
Background: After seeing both the devastation to outlying areas of space caused by the recent Great War, and the corruption within the Federal Defense Navy (working title) Admiralty, Captain David Courtland retired honorably from military service and went to helm his family’s generations old mining company, Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel; one of the largest mining companies in United Earth Federation space. (Working title.)
He wanted to take the company, already a reputable and successful business, in a new direction. That direction was the disputed, war-torn, no-man’s-waste-land of space known as The Divide, (working title) situated between the major powers of the galaxy. Life in The Divide was desperate, with little hope for the many people stranded in the ruins, poverty, and crime infested land. None of the major powers could intervene without starting another territorial war, and as such, pirates, gangs, and unscrupulous mega-corporations ruled supreme.
Courtland wanted to make a difference to this sorrowful place, and with trillions of credits and a Fortunes 1,000 company at his control, he had the means to at least begin; although even he lacked the ability to single-handedly remedy the myriad of woes The Divide faced.
David’s plan was simple, to move significant mining operations to The Divide, thus:
1: Creating new, safe, well-paying, good jobs for both an area and an industry that seldom offered such things.
2: Allowing for the placement of company security forces to deter pirate activity around major settlements.
3: Providing tax-free revenue to fund new schools, hospitals, food, water, shetler, and other charitable activities in The Divide.
But to do it, he required a new kind of mining vessel, as well as additional security forces. Thus he contacted Nelson Heavy Industries, who in turn partnered with AxonTech Interstellar Systems for some components, to place an order for a line of custom massive deep space mining operation flagships with enhanced combat capabilities and capable of operating in the remotest reaches of space for months or even years at a time. And so the Bessemer class was born.
The Bessemer class is unlike any mining vessel ever produced before it. Certainly significantly larger mining ships existed, but these were typically little more than unarmed, slow moving things with small engines; closer to a semi-mobile starbase than a combination frontier battleship/mining vessel. But Courtland required something unique. Something that could move faster, survive more punishment, and something that had teeth; not a fragile, barely moving thing that would only sit in safe areas of space. Courtland needed a mighty sheepdog in a world of sheep and wolves.
Bessemer class vessels are 1,844 meters long, and possess more armor, firepower, and shielding than many pre Great War battleship designs. Almost any pirate or local gang would be terrified of the sight of over a mile of steel and particle cannons; clad in Kolter white, green, and yellow.
But the Bessemer, and others of her class, are not merely warships masquerading as civilian craft. They are heavy mining machines that live up to their name; a steel producing process that revolutionized the industry of Earth some seven hundred years earlier. The Bessemer and her sister ships are capable of blasting metal-rich asteroids to bits with their coaxial mining particle beam cannon, and then having swarms of automated mining drones devour any valuable deposits within before unloading the materials into the Bessemer’s ore hold for the internal rail system to run any raw ore through her six corvette sized forges, and then having the refined metal shunted to her cavernous lower hold, while any waste material from the refining process is vented directly into space.
Ships of this class are outfitted with a sizable hangar, advanced sensor suite, extensive internal cargo bays, and large cargo pod clamps that allow it to act in the capacity of miner, defensive ship, operations command center, and even freighter and personnel carrier should usual shipping to outlying mining sites be disrupted.
But capable as they are, these are not the spartan mining vessels with unlivable working conditions that some shady companies have been known to operate. These space-faring cities of steel feature robust safety systems, spacious and comfortable crew quarters, multiple restaurants, multiple mess-halls, multiple shops for clothing, food, electronics, and other items, an arcade, multiple gyms with weights, various weight and cardio machines, martial arts areas, gymnastics equipment, along with a walking track, a small bowling alley, an olympic sized swimming pool, a multi-sport stadium, a greenhouse, hydroponics bays, a small stage/concert area, several computer labs, a library, a small movie theater, crew lounges and break areas, a salon/spa, a bar/club, chapels, classroom/daycare areas, office areas, as well as repair stations, enough dry and frozen storage to keep everyone fed for extended missions, advanced workshops, astrotography, laboratories, guest bunk-rooms, and a starbase grade medical center.
Not everyone is happy about Kolter Mining’s efforts, however. While Courtland founded the Kolter Foundation to aid those in need, he also lobbied for what came to be known as the Kolter Bill to be passed. Mining employees out in the colonies loved the added protections this afforded them. But the executives of Kolter’s rival mining companies operating out of Earth’s colony worlds quickly found themselves facing laws that favored the profits of Kolter and their already developed safety systems and excellent treatment of employees. What’s more, the Federal Defense Navy Admiralty have been continually frustrated that rather than helping to line their pockets as part of the military industrial complex, Courtland has been working tirelessly to reveal their corruption and hidden support of crime in outlying areas of space.
What’s more, there are even rumors that Courtland is now working with, and possibly even helping to fund, a mercenary vigilante unit out in The Divide known as the Phoenix Command Group, founded by Jonathan Scarlett, another former Federal Defense Navy Captain who ran afoul of the Admiralty.
The wealthy and corrupt among the Admiralty, military industrial complex, crime syndicates, and corrupt businesses running shady operations out in The Divide are deeply troubled by these rumors. But those who are now citizens of no nation, and who have known nothing but hopelessness and need for years, have a slight spark of hope rising like a Phoenix.
IRL info: This digital SHIP was made in Bricklink’s Studio software from September 11th to September 30th, 2021. I did not originally plan to participate in SHIPtember, but I couldn’t resist. It is 184 studs (58.1 inches) long, 50 studs wide, and 48 studs high. It is comprised of 23,470 pieces, which I believe makes it my highest piece-count SHIP to date, and means that the model itself has a mass of 973.502 ounces, or 60.843 pounds, or 27.597 kilograms, which most likely makes it my heaviest SHIP as well as my most piece intensive. (I really need to learn to build a little more hollow.) Note that it uses all real pieces/colors that are available for sale on Bricklink. (Albeit at a price that makes attempting to build it in physical bricks highly impractical.) It is 100% connected, and should be at least somewhat stable in real life. I would want to reinforce the fore-end with more Technic, and switch out the longest Lego Technic axle holding the engine for an aftermarket stainless steel version. I cannot guarantee that various sections built out from the main SNOT and Technic frame would be totally stable without slight redesign of a few bits. It would also require a hefty display stand of some kind.
The current pictures are WIP to show the completed status of the build itself. Better renders done by importing the Studio build into Mecabricks, replacing any pieces that fail to load or change position, and then exporting to Blender for higher quality rendering, and finally hopefully doing some cool backgrounds with GIMP, will hopefully follow before whatever October picture deadline is decided on. Please do not use these early pictures in the poster if time remains, as I hope to provide better ones. Thank you for reading this lengthy description. Have a cookie.
If this ship had a theme song, this magnificent piece by Clamavi De Profundis would be it: youtu.be/Xm96Cqu4Ils
Aft angle view.
Name: S.S. Bessemer
Registration Number: KCC-1894 (Kolter Construction Contract Number 1,894)
Affiliation: Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel.
Class Name: Bessemer class
Type: Deep Space Mining Operations Flagship
Commissioned: Circa late 2500’s, post recent major conflict
Specifications:
Length: 1,844 meters (184.4 studs, 58.1 inches, 4.83 feet, 147.5 cm model)
Width: 503 meters (50.3 studs, 15.8 inches, 40.2 cm model)
Height: 484 meters, 398 meters without dorsal comms array, (48.4 studs, 15.2 inches, 38.7 cm model)
Crew: 2,950 standard complement + capacity for crew families, as well as smaller guest quarters for up to 2,000 additional personnel to be moved to/from mining operations.
Armament: 1 super-heavy coaxial particle beam cannon, (primarily for asteroid mining, but also more than capable of defensive action,) 4 dual-mounted heavy particle cannon turrets, 8 dual-mounted medium particle cannon turrets, 2 coaxial fore medium particle cannons, 80 quad-mounted 80mm anti-fighter flak railgun turrets.
Defensive systems:
Hull: Super-heavy steel alloy hull with carbon nanotube/buckypaper composite layers as spall lining.
Armor plating: steel, titanium alloy, tungsten, ceramic, and carbon nanotube composite armor layers against asteroids/other space debris, kinetic weapons, kinetic spalling, particle, laser, and plasma fire. Thick composite armor provides excellent survivability, but with very high mass. Some battleships are less armored than this ship.
Bulkheads: Extensive titanium bulkhead support network.
Structural integrity field: High power system designed for significant cargo mass placing stress on the frame, or to withstand asteroid impacts to the hull.
Shielding: Internally housed high power adaptive particle field repulsing shielding system capable of surviving significant punishment. Some older battleships have less robust shielding.
Powerplant: 1 primary matter-antimatter reactor with extensive fuel reserves, 2 secondary fusion reactors with extensive fuel reserves. Multiple massive power capacitors. Extensive heatinks.
Propulsion: 1 massive primary fusion engine for sub-lightspeed travel, 1 internal FTL core capable of moderate FTL speed, long range travel, and 32 large reaction control thrusters for slow but dependable below light speed maneuvering.
Computer systems: Single supercomputer core with onboard Virtual Intelligence system.
Comms and Sensors: Local and FTL comms arrays. Radar, LIDAR, infrared, multi-spectral, and additional other local area sensors systems, along with extensive FTL sensors.
Additional Systems: High power artificial singularity for both artificial gravity generation and inertial dampening, allowing for 1G gravity even when hauling an entire cargo hold full of heavy-metal. 6 massive blast furnaces for refining metal ore, an enormous central cargo hold system, 4 fuel refining tanks, 4 massive fuel storage tanks, and an internal rail system for moving ore and personnel.
Embarked Craft: 2 Thunderbird class super-heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 2 Hurricane class heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 20 heavy mining drones, 24 medium mining drones, 2 gunships of variable class, 2 heavy fighter/bombers of variable class, potential for multiple additional light shuttles and fighters.
Background: After seeing both the devastation to outlying areas of space caused by the recent Great War, and the corruption within the Federal Defense Navy (working title) Admiralty, Captain David Courtland retired honorably from military service and went to helm his family’s generations old mining company, Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel; one of the largest mining companies in United Earth Federation space. (Working title.)
He wanted to take the company, already a reputable and successful business, in a new direction. That direction was the disputed, war-torn, no-man’s-waste-land of space known as The Divide, (working title) situated between the major powers of the galaxy. Life in The Divide was desperate, with little hope for the many people stranded in the ruins, poverty, and crime infested land. None of the major powers could intervene without starting another territorial war, and as such, pirates, gangs, and unscrupulous mega-corporations ruled supreme.
Courtland wanted to make a difference to this sorrowful place, and with trillions of credits and a Fortunes 1,000 company at his control, he had the means to at least begin; although even he lacked the ability to single-handedly remedy the myriad of woes The Divide faced.
David’s plan was simple, to move significant mining operations to The Divide, thus:
1: Creating new, safe, well-paying, good jobs for both an area and an industry that seldom offered such things.
2: Allowing for the placement of company security forces to deter pirate activity around major settlements.
3: Providing tax-free revenue to fund new schools, hospitals, food, water, shetler, and other charitable activities in The Divide.
But to do it, he required a new kind of mining vessel, as well as additional security forces. Thus he contacted Nelson Heavy Industries, who in turn partnered with AxonTech Interstellar Systems for some components, to place an order for a line of custom massive deep space mining operation flagships with enhanced combat capabilities and capable of operating in the remotest reaches of space for months or even years at a time. And so the Bessemer class was born.
The Bessemer class is unlike any mining vessel ever produced before it. Certainly significantly larger mining ships existed, but these were typically little more than unarmed, slow moving things with small engines; closer to a semi-mobile starbase than a combination frontier battleship/mining vessel. But Courtland required something unique. Something that could move faster, survive more punishment, and something that had teeth; not a fragile, barely moving thing that would only sit in safe areas of space. Courtland needed a mighty sheepdog in a world of sheep and wolves.
Bessemer class vessels are 1,844 meters long, and possess more armor, firepower, and shielding than many pre Great War battleship designs. Almost any pirate or local gang would be terrified of the sight of over a mile of steel and particle cannons; clad in Kolter white, green, and yellow.
But the Bessemer, and others of her class, are not merely warships masquerading as civilian craft. They are heavy mining machines that live up to their name; a steel producing process that revolutionized the industry of Earth some seven hundred years earlier. The Bessemer and her sister ships are capable of blasting metal-rich asteroids to bits with their coaxial mining particle beam cannon, and then having swarms of automated mining drones devour any valuable deposits within before unloading the materials into the Bessemer’s ore hold for the internal rail system to run any raw ore through her six corvette sized forges, and then having the refined metal shunted to her cavernous lower hold, while any waste material from the refining process is vented directly into space.
Ships of this class are outfitted with a sizable hangar, advanced sensor suite, extensive internal cargo bays, and large cargo pod clamps that allow it to act in the capacity of miner, defensive ship, operations command center, and even freighter and personnel carrier should usual shipping to outlying mining sites be disrupted.
But capable as they are, these are not the spartan mining vessels with unlivable working conditions that some shady companies have been known to operate. These space-faring cities of steel feature robust safety systems, spacious and comfortable crew quarters, multiple restaurants, multiple mess-halls, multiple shops for clothing, food, electronics, and other items, an arcade, multiple gyms with weights, various weight and cardio machines, martial arts areas, gymnastics equipment, along with a walking track, a small bowling alley, an olympic sized swimming pool, a multi-sport stadium, a greenhouse, hydroponics bays, a small stage/concert area, several computer labs, a library, a small movie theater, crew lounges and break areas, a salon/spa, a bar/club, chapels, classroom/daycare areas, office areas, as well as repair stations, enough dry and frozen storage to keep everyone fed for extended missions, advanced workshops, astrotography, laboratories, guest bunk-rooms, and a starbase grade medical center.
Not everyone is happy about Kolter Mining’s efforts, however. While Courtland founded the Kolter Foundation to aid those in need, he also lobbied for what came to be known as the Kolter Bill to be passed. Mining employees out in the colonies loved the added protections this afforded them. But the executives of Kolter’s rival mining companies operating out of Earth’s colony worlds quickly found themselves facing laws that favored the profits of Kolter and their already developed safety systems and excellent treatment of employees. What’s more, the Federal Defense Navy Admiralty have been continually frustrated that rather than helping to line their pockets as part of the military industrial complex, Courtland has been working tirelessly to reveal their corruption and hidden support of crime in outlying areas of space.
What’s more, there are even rumors that Courtland is now working with, and possibly even helping to fund, a mercenary vigilante unit out in The Divide known as the Phoenix Command Group, founded by Jonathan Scarlett, another former Federal Defense Navy Captain who ran afoul of the Admiralty.
The wealthy and corrupt among the Admiralty, military industrial complex, crime syndicates, and corrupt businesses running shady operations out in The Divide are deeply troubled by these rumors. But those who are now citizens of no nation, and who have known nothing but hopelessness and need for years, have a slight spark of hope rising like a Phoenix.
IRL info: This digital SHIP was made in Bricklink’s Studio software from September 11th to September 30th, 2021. I did not originally plan to participate in SHIPtember, but I couldn’t resist. It is 184 studs (58.1 inches) long, 50 studs wide, and 48 studs high. It is comprised of 23,470 pieces, which I believe makes it my highest piece-count SHIP to date, and means that the model itself has a mass of 973.502 ounces, or 60.843 pounds, or 27.597 kilograms, which most likely makes it my heaviest SHIP as well as my most piece intensive. (I really need to learn to build a little more hollow.) Note that it uses all real pieces/colors that are available for sale on Bricklink. (Albeit at a price that makes attempting to build it in physical bricks highly impractical.) It is 100% connected, and should be at least somewhat stable in real life. I would want to reinforce the fore-end with more Technic, and switch out the longest Lego Technic axle holding the engine for an aftermarket stainless steel version. I cannot guarantee that various sections built out from the main SNOT and Technic frame would be totally stable without slight redesign of a few bits. It would also require a hefty display stand of some kind.
The current pictures are WIP to show the completed status of the build itself. Better renders done by importing the Studio build into Mecabricks, replacing any pieces that fail to load or change position, and then exporting to Blender for higher quality rendering, and finally hopefully doing some cool backgrounds with GIMP, will hopefully follow before whatever October picture deadline is decided on. Please do not use these early pictures in the poster if time remains, as I hope to provide better ones. Thank you for reading this lengthy description. Have a cookie.
If this ship had a theme song, this magnificent piece by Clamavi De Profundis would be it: youtu.be/Xm96Cqu4Ils
The covers of the Humble Company's road map of Texas in 1951. Most oil and gas/petrol companies produced a range of map folders either as 'giveways' or for sale at stations and outlets to assist motorists as well as provide for product placement. The mapping in this case was by the General Drafting Company.
The front cover shows Lake Texoma on the state borders of Texas and Oklahoma that was formed by the Denison Dam, completed in 1943 along with a happy family. The rear covers show a period automobile/car along with helpful uniformed attendents at a Humble station.
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Australasian Sugar Refining Company complex 1891, 1899 at conversion to apartments in the 1980s.
Designers: Hyndman and Bates.
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`The site of the factory was included in Section 2B [of the original Port Melbourne survey], which was surveyed into four allotments early in the history of Sandridge. By November 1860 three of these had been purchased by A. Ross, joining William Jones, S.G. Henty and P. Lalor as owners of the section (2)..
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In February 1890, the Melbourne Tram and Omnibus Company Limited, had stables, offices, land and an omnibus repository on the section.(3) [Most of the present buildings on the site date from 1891, when the Australasian Sugar Refining Company established a refinery.(4)] On the MMBW detail plan dated 1894, the section is labelled 'sugar works' and the configuration of buildings approximately conforms with the present layout. [The refinery was closed in 1894 following its purchase by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company as part of a move to strengthen its monopoly.].
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[In 1899, Robert Harper and Company Pty Ltd converted the buildings to a starch factory, and various brick additions were constructed to designs by Hyndman and Bates, architects.(5)] When the sewerage was connected in 1899, a plan was drawn by the architects and this closely resembles the 1894 MMBW detail plan configuration. (6) .
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The buildings .. form the major part of the original factory complex on the site, one of the largest nineteenth century industrial sites in Victoria. The complex as a whole is significant for its large size and range of building types. The dramatic massing and height of the 9 Beach Street buildings gives them additional importance as local landmarks as viewed both from the surrounding streets and the sea..
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COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS.
The former Australasian Sugar Refining Company and Robert Harper starch factory complex can be compared with a number of other large nineteenth century industrial complexes in Melbourne. These include the former Yorkshire Brewery, Wellington Street, Collingwood (from 1876), the former Victoria Brewery, Victoria Parade, East Melbourne (established 1854), the former Kimpton's Flour Mill, Elizabeth Street, Kensington, the Thomas Brunt flour mill and Brockhoff and T.B. Guest biscuit factories complex, Laurens and Munster Streets, North Melbourne (from 1888-9) and the Joshua Bros (now CSR) sugar refinery, Whitehall Street, Yarraville (established 1873). All of these are representative of the development in Victoria of the manufacture of foodstuffs and related raw materials. Of these, the CSR refinery is the most directly comparable in terms of original function and the scale and massing of the buildings. Established significantly earlier than the Port Melbourne refinery, the site is larger and more intact..
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In the local context, the only other surviving industrial site of comparable scale is the Swallow and Ariell Biscuit Factory complex (q.v.). This complex is of state significance, and is considerably earlier, with parts dating from the 1850s. The predominantly two- and three-storey buildings, however, are of a different type to the former refinery and starch factory buildings..
Allom Lovell and Associates 1995 cite Jacobs Lewis Vines. Port Melbourne Conservation Study:.
Croatian oil refining worker contemplating future. Refining in the Europe is slowly becoming dying industry.
Stored since it was taken to Malmo early December 2021 , it may be awaiting renovation once a new home is found for it with 21 MEs placed out on lease and 11 remaining available including ME 1537 which was in the 2nd batch taken ie 7th 8th and 9th of 32 MEs acquired
refining details:
"Now that the clay has dried out and the sculpture is able to support itself I can take the time to carefully refine some details and make it all smoother. If the sculpture was larger, the next task would be to hollow it out, but because of the small size I am going to mount it on a stand as it is." Tomitheos .
Copyright © 2011 Tomitheos Sculpture / Photography - All Rights Reserved
Golly. I've been refining this model for nearly ten years.
The latest iteration, apart from incorporating some newer, more useful parts, borrows a technique for closing off the lower part of the intakes from Caleb Ricks (www.flickr.com/photos/154269403@N05/). However, I came up with a slightly smoother way to attach the tiles that I'm quite happy about. The downside is that this has meant the intakes don't close up as neatly (the locking brick has moved further back). I'll have to see if I can adjust that at some point without losing too much structural stability.