RC Sci Fi: industrial

Friday, 11 September 2026

Sci-Fi Industrial Structure part 1

I have had, for some many months, a pile of large diameter PVC plumbing parts and a commercial grade toilet roll holder loitering around the door to my garage/workshop, all of which I fished out of the bin at work. It occured to me that one day I could make an interesting industrial tower out of these parts. Well I got sick of nearly tripping over them all the time and so that day has now come.

The main support structure is made from some 150mm PVC pipe with a 150-100mm reducer on top. The base of this larger cylinder is bottom part of a crayola toy. The large support is paired with a secondary cylinder made from some 90mm pipe. On top of this is the toilet roll holder with another piece of 150mm pvc pipe on top. Added to the top is a truss from a crane toy and a shiskabob of electrical conduit over which is slid a pile of round shapes, one of which is the top of a soy sauce bottle, to make an interestingly varied tower.

The large pipe is mated to the crayola base with a disc cut from 20mm foamed PVC sheet. The top 150-100mm reducer is joined to the toilet roll holder in the same way. The disks are superglued to the base and top and the pipe fittings are a secure press fit. They are not glued so I could remove them at some point if desired. The smaller pipe is fitted to a 100-90 reducer at rhe botom and has a similar disc of 10mm foamed pvc at the top where it mates to the toilet roll holder.

Disc of 20mm foamed PVC.

Press fit into the 100-150 reducer.

With the main construction sorted I have started on the extensive detailing process with an emphasis on pipes, lots of pipes. So far these are mostly made from solid ABS rod heat bent where necessary. The larger diameter pipes are from a pipes construction toy.

Some of the smaller pipes are the corners from model kit part sprues. I save all the cut off the corners of the sprue trees for pipes as they give you a nicely radiused 90 degree bend. There is a Doctor Who sonic screwdriver toy in the pictures below.

This is the back side of the upper structure.

I decided to add a cantilevered platform leading to an interior. The platform is made from the internal CD tray of a small Hifi system.

Some detailing has begun to be added to the support columns. The grey ribs on the large diameter pipe are the railway sleepers from a 1/35 scale railway gun. A piece of 20mm foamed PVC was added as a base to tie the two coulumns together.

12 Volt led strip lighting has been added to the interior. The lighting has been placed so you can see the effect of the lighting not the light source itself. The interior is yet to recieve any major detailing. The odd looking translucemt orange wall was from a submarine toy.