This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
Scratchbuilding a small D&RGW-style water tank


bossed nail holes with a Vintage Repro- ductions tool. When the paper was set, I traced along the joints with a black Sharpie®


pen, covered the roof with a


coat of Floquil Grimy Black and fin- ished up with a spray coat of Testors Dullcote. I have used this method for years and it produces a beautiful weathered effect. A dusting of rust-col- ored pastel chalk finished the roof. The hatch is strip and sheet wood with a handle of thin blackened wire secured by small nut-bolt-washer castings. The fascia boards are stripwood trimmed to fit each panel (I did get them all pretty close to each other), glued in place and painted with Reefer Gray. An- ticipating having to be accurate in the placement of the finished roof, I had pre- viously scribed a circle matching the tank onto the bottom of the roof base. I applied a coat of Reefer Gray up to and just inside that line. When it was dry I glued the roof in place making sure the panels were parallel to the frost box and timber frame. Using stripwood, I fabri- cated a channel for the depth gauge, painted it white and glued it over the gap in the tank staves. Thick, gap-filling cyanoacrylate cement was used for this. The face of the gauge was cut from a wa- ter tank plan published in the 2010 Nar- row Gauge Annual from Westlake Pub- lishing. With the tank itself completed, all that remained was to attach the spout, build the ladder and create a base for the model.


Water tank drawn by Chris Lane


Based on the Denver & Rio Grande Western’s Jack’s Cabin and Villa Grove water tanks.


10′-0″


In his plans, Chris Lane suggests us- ing Grandt Line’s spout and hardware set No. 3104. I had a couple of slightly smaller spouts that I bashed out of styrene tube and angle and considered using one of those, but I did ultimately employ the Grandt Line spout. I had a few issues with it, however. The O scale spout is cast metal, unlike the styrene HO versions, and I was a bit leery that its weight might “overpower” the cast metal counterweights. In addition, the mounting ears for wire at the rear of the casting and all of the attachment points along the length of the spout broke when I tried to drill them out with a pin vise and No. 78 bit. I ended up using Detail Associates eyebolts in- serted into holes drilled at the points where the breaks occurred to fasten the spout to the tank and rig the chains and counterweights.


The


sheaves to attach the spout to the tim- ber supports also broke, so I built new ones from some brass pulleys I found in my parts box, mounting them on bent wire.


Before I installed the spout I cut the support timbers to length, weathered and stained them, then glued them into place. I also replaced the Grandt Line delivery pipe with a length of blackened brass tubing glued between the center support timbers and through a plate made of styrene “bolt- ed” in place. Finally, I threaded a piece of wire through the eyebolts at the


Full size for HO scale: 3.5mm=1′-0″; 1:87.1


base of the spout, bent it into a “U” shape, and inserted the assembly into matching holes in the plate, bending things slightly to line up with the de- livery pipe. With the spout in place, I began the tedious task of forming thin wire loops to attach lengths of Blue- jacket Shipcrafters chain to the coun- terweights and spout and to provide for grabbing and lowering the spout and starting the flow of water. In the end, it all came together and the re- sults look fine. The ladder was a lot easier to build.


I cut two lengths of scale 3″×6″ to


length, and, along with rungs cut from scale 1″×3″’s, stained and weathered them. I laid a piece of double-sided


Bill of materials


O scale wood or equivalent 1″×3″ Stripwood 3″×6″ Stripwood 3″×12″ Stripwood 8″×8″ Stripwood 12″×12″ Stripwood Scale 9″ scribed sheet


Grandt Line No. 98 N.B.W. castings No. 23 N.B.W. castings No. 3104 Spout/hardware set No. 48 Water tank hoop fasteners No. 3508 Hinge assortment


Detail Associates No. 2206 Eyebolts


Bluejacket Shipcrafters No. FO977 Brass chain


Floquil Paint No. 10009 Primer Gray No. 10012 Reefer Gray No. 110013 Grimy Black


Miscellaneous .010″ Dia. brass wire Black construction paper


11′-0″


Cross section showing roof outline, tank and wood supports


Track side


Grandt Line hardware 44 JULY 2013


11′-6″


11′-0″


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100