Monday, October 15, 2012

Conductor Heads and Downspouts

As the in window air conditioners were obviously not original with the building it is not surprising that there is quite a bit of external electrical conduit on the freight office walls.  But before I can do any modeling of the electrical conduit I need to tackle the noodle at the bottom of the spaghetti: the downspout.

It still amazes me the things I learn on this project. I had to look up what the thingie was that is at the top of the downspout.  It's called a conductor head, or sometimes a leader head and it collects the rainwater, in this case from whatever drainage sloping on the otherwise flat roof, before going down the downspout.

My conductor head is just a shaped chunk of plastic square rod.  I say "just" but it took me several hours before was happy with what you see- or happy enough to stop. I'm not a sculptor, Jim! 

I even hollowed as much out of the top as I dare ---  Hopefully the top of conductor heads were open... I'm not sure if I've ever seen one from the top.  My conductor head is a little bit shorter and squater than the original but I still think it looks good. 

On the original downspout on the offices north wall it empties into a pipe with disappears in the elevated concrete walkway. I managed to find a piece of suitable pipe from my spares that, after a bit of sanding seemed to fit the bill. 

2 comments:

  1. Tom:

    Been a while since I visited your blog. Great job on the WP/SN/CCT Freight house! You put way more detai into your model than the one I did for SMRHS. I wish I had the photo of the north wall when I built ours. Hope all is well with you. Jeff Loose

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  2. Thanks Jeff! Now it's just a matter of continuing work on it. I seem to have a string of half-finished buildings that are not so patiently awaiting work. (I sense a New Year's Resolution on its way...)

    I do need to visit again and see what's new! It's been too long.

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