Haluku'ilio Water Tower -- Another Triple O Rehab Project

[Eric_Mueller]

@JRad

When you WANT that effect, it’s hard to get

Yep…we’ve found that out with a rocket or two. Strange, though, as gloss-on-gloss and gloss-on-matted seem to work fine after 24 hours. Anyway, letting the paint cure for week seemed to do the trick. After a coat of clear matte dried, I smeared black acrylic over the lot of it, wiped off the excess, then wetted it a bit to let it get into the cracks.

It is not that shiny in real light! I will hopefully glue it on the roof tomorrow, and, when that dries, I can start carving the “stones” and install the door.

I also continued to plank around the roof. This will, in fact give me a nice, flat working surface, but it will progress at the speed of TiteBond III. I am still debating the roof covering, and I have to find a topper of some sort, but this, at last, is progress.

Updates as merited!

Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

Update:

This interminable project lurched forward. You know it is interminable, because NO ONE wants to help me with it. Good thing I can always count on the 1:24 crew!

The roof is slowly taking shape.

O.D. and I discussed the best way to finish it, and we agreed that “tar paper” from old t-shirts painted black held down with battens made from broken sabre blades are the way to go. I will look for a small funnel to serve as a topper. It will be the first time I’ve repurposed sabre blades for anything other than plant stakes. Yay.

The 1:24 gang helped me turn foam into rocks, gouge out a puka for the door, and test fit it all into place.

!

It was Saturday, and I was tired of paying weekend pay, so I sent the 1:24 Triple O gang home, masked off the exposed roof beams myslef, and gave the lot a good bath of black latex.

It’s finally starting to look like something more than an ugly piece of foam! It’ll get another heavy wash this week to hide any pink spots, after which I can start dry brushing this to make it look like our other “stone” structures. Then I can start fiddling with getting the tank on its new pumphouse even as I contemplate how to detail the finished project to the exacting standards of 1:24-ish PLAYMOBIL scale.

I am almost excited about this project now. Almost…

Eric

[David_Marconi_FOGCH (David Marconi CHHNNG)]

Coming along nicely

[Eric_Mueller]

A belated “Thank you!” @David_Marconi_FOGCH ! I have since given it another wash of black acrylic and glued on the remaining roof material. I should be able to shape the roof this weekend. I might be able to drybrush those walls, too.

Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

Update:

The sub-roof is done and awaiting “tar paper” (old t-shirt painted with black acrylic) roofing.

I still have to find / craft a peak. Battens will be craft sticks, my thinking that the tarpaper would go over the subroof to minimze evaporation and then nailed down with battens for looks and durability. That’s my story, and I am sticking with it! The broken sabre blades will wait for another project…

Meanwhile, I also stained the door and roofbeams and dry brushed the “rocks.”

Given the humidity, I should not have attempted to use the concrete patch on the lowest inch, the standard Triple O simulated concrete foundation. It was so slow to dry, it was hard to use, and it was still soft today, precluding further progress. It is going to requires some clever washes and weathering to fix some of the mess, but it’ll pass.

I am now at the point of thinking how much work to put into making the water tower look better without losing too much of my father-in-law’s folk artistry or detailing it beyond the demanding requirements of 1:24-ish PLAYMOBIL scale. Food for thought…

I don’t like the bands, as they hardly show. The simulated counterweights are cool. I figure at least a level gage and pull-down chain are appropriate.

We’ll see.

Have a great week!

Eric

[Hines (Bill)]

Eric,

I’m loving look of the volcanic rock of your building!

Depending your ability to hide the locking mechanism, you might consider cable ties. So far they’ve lasted one season outside. Easy to remove as well. Difficult to paint though.

[Eric_Mueller]

@Hines

I’m loving look of the volcanic rock of your building!

Thanks! We came up with it a few MIKs ago as a way to make walls expeditiously. Lava stone was used pre-contact to make heiau / temples among other things, and, based on pictures, served for at least part of early sugar plantation construction and other buildings.

As for banding, thanks. I think “cable ties” are synonymous with “zip ties.” I can arrange them such that the locks are out of sight of when viewed from the primary viewing angles.

Eric

[Hines (Bill)]

I got my best results by zipping the zip tie whilst on the barrel then slipping the tie off and tightening one click at a time then sliped the zip tie back on the barrel. It got rid of most of gap.

At some point you’ll know you got it right because it won’t want to slide off at all. Go too far and it won’t slide back on.

PS: Do you have a link to how you did your lava stone?

[Rooster]

Zip ties also work great for wrapping around a driveshaft making sure they slap off the muffler and heatshields while paying back a buddy that played a prank on you first!
Just saying…this is why you don’t try an prank an old mechanic.

[Cliff_Jennings]

I love that prank!
We should have a thread on “favorite pranks”…

[Eric_Mueller]

Bill,

Many thanks. I think this is the way forward. Because of where I am in the project, though, and the need to work around what is already in place, I will likely take a zip, tighten, and pray approach rather than the iterative approach you tried!

As for our lava stone, we tried the idea a couple of MIKs ago: Mik 2022 - Hale o Waihona Lanahu. In essence, here are the steps:

1. Use a foam engraver to carve irregular shapes into a sheet of insulation foam. You would be surprised how hard it is to keep things random over time! Our engravings are 1/8"-1/4" deep.
2. Scour the surface with a wire brush.
3. Paint the whole thing with a thick wash of latex paint in the same color as the real lava you are trying to copy (or the rocks in your garden formed from the off-railroad 1:24-ish PLAYMOBIL scale volcano!). We cut the paint about 50/50 with water to ensure it gets into all the crevices and pores. Much thicker, and all the texture will be lost; too much thinner, and you’ll be doing multiple washes!
4. Create a pallet with your base color and white. Dry brush the wall. Take the time to make sure that each stone looks just a little bit different!

It’s pretty easy and it does say “lava stone” which, for us, helps to give a sense of place.

Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

Update:

I found the t-shirt we used when we mixed and spread concrete for the railroad, cut off a bit of sleeve, and used TiteBond III to secure it to the subroof.

A bit of trimming and some black latex later gave me this:

This puts me in a position to add the bands and level gauge as I look for some sort of conical topper. The end of this interminable project is in sight!

• Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

Update:

Sometime since the last update the 1:24 gang and I added the battens, which are leftover bits of craftsticks from various projects:

I also stained the concrete base, touch up the “lava,” and installed the door.

It’s starting to look like something!

The banding still befuddles me. I like Bill’s ( @Hines ) zip-tie idea, but I am not sure if I can slot them under my father-in-law’s rig to hold the pipe and pulley system.

I am still trying to retain as much of the original look as possible, so I’d prefer to avoid removing this. I am considering bands made from a beverage can, painted black, and glued in place. We’ll see.

We have all been scratching our heads on how best to top the tank. While pondering this over a semi-conical liquid holding device, it struck me…

With a bit of hammering, that’ll do, and it’ll provide a nice sight gag, too!

Updates as required!

Eric

[Hines (Bill)]

Eric

This is I thought I would send this video that came up as an ad, just in case you have a friend with one of these metal zip tie tools. Clearly not the budget option.

How to use the Stainless Steel Cable Tie Tensioning Tool With Auto Cut Off

[Eric_Mueller]

Cool! Overkill, but cool! In all seriousness, I had a good “think” on this issue today. The gantry is glued on too well to remove it without making even more work than this project merits. I do think I can safely drill between it and that tank to get the banding through. Zip ties are thus back on the agenda!

I also banged the bottle cap into shape.

Functional and fun. Perfect!

Eric

[Hines (Bill)]

Another water tower topper you might be interested in comes from the clinic. Next time you’re in, consider asking for the disposable ear speculum. They otherwise get tossed out.

The downside, is you’ll probably want a weathervane or a flag as well.

The one I made a long time ago , I topped with a toothpick and a bead.

Here’s a napkin drawing.

[Eric_Mueller]

Puttering continues…

First, Bill ( @Hines ), thanks for that idea! Let the scrounging begin!

Second, after two weeks of avoiding this project, I made the decision to move forward. Largely, the issues were how to mount the tank to the tower and the banding.

The first issue I took head on with materials at hand. I used CA to fix bits of scrap brass wire into existing holes in the legs then filled the cavity with more CA. I followed this by tapping oversized holes into the bottom braces, placing them on the new pegs, and, using CA, fixed them in place.

Crude, perhaps, but it’ll hold. This overhead shot shows how far from square the original structure was.

I am, as always, awed by my father-in-law’s gift for transforming junk to treasure, but it has complicated this repair (which, I note, I began two years ago…). That shot, though, reminded me that this project lies at the nexus of toy, model, and folk art, and I really needed to continue to embrace that if I want to bring it over the line.

Armed with that re-realization, I proceeded on to banding, using 14" black zip ties. There were some really cool stainless ties, but, at 11" would have been just too short. To mount these, I carefully drilled holes into the gantry frame, slipped them through, checked their position, and made them fast. I ran some thin CA into the lock and along the edge to help against future slip.

One of the boards did snap, so I am wondering what sort of cylinder is actually at the core of this thing! The break is not visible, so I did not investigate further.

That brings us to here…

…where it will remain as I attend to some other obligations over the next week or so. Then I’ll attack the downspout, counterweights, and level gauge before proceeding to mounting the tank on the pumphouse.

Thanks for the tips along the way!

Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

Update:

I decided that this project needed to come to an end. There are any number of details that I could add, but they would be both in excess of need and, more importantly, in excess of enjoyment. Also, we have discovered that buildings need to come off the railroad for long term survival, making fiddly, breakable parts counter-indicated. So, the 1:24 gang, the 1:1 Kid-zilla, and I turned-to return this water tower to service.

Kid-zilla grabbed some annealed beverage can and snips to take care of a needed detail part.

Meanwhile, the 1:24 gang mounted the tank and prepared to shear off the excess beam material.

Yours truly used sandpaper and a Dremel-mounted brush to texture the beams and some stain to color them. I also bent some piano wire to simulate the various lines that connect the fill pipe to the counter weights.

Some epoxy putty served to mount the counterweights. Were I to do this again, I would use brass wire rather than piano wire, as it is easier to bend. You can also solder it, which would have been a cleaner way to tie this off. Live and learn.

We were not quite ready, and the Triple O railway police had to stop an incoming freight short of Haluki’ilio as the crew fitted the tower for service.

Final fitting out include putting CINCHOUSE’s scrap jewelry chain into service as a pull chain.

With that, Kid-zilla fitted his work to the peak, the way was clear, this long-neglected project came to a close, and the water tower returned to service.

The topper is the tip of an automatic pencil. Hopefully, the shape of the weathervane is recognizable! Only AMTRAK signage would make that more clear!

In closing, this project was a challenge that taught a lot. I found it very hard to keep the creator’s intent in place while still improving both its visual impact and its durability. Along the way, this project convinced me that buildings must be designed to allow removal for storage and repairs, and it convinced me of the efficacy of foam as both a core material and as a source of “lava stone.” However overrepresented on the Triple O, foam “lava stone” seems to be the most durable way to make credible buildings that add a sense of time and place without sacrificing durability or the option to go detail happy. All of this will play a role in 2025 as we repair and improve our earliest structures while trying to retain the joy of 1:24-ish PLAYMOBIL scale. 2025 goals, are, however, another post, and, of course, before we tackle those projects there is the MIK. There is always the MIK.

Aloha,

Eric

[David_Marconi_FOGCH (David Marconi CHHNNG)]

I see Rooster visits the islands in his seemingly endless world travels to share with friends. Hope he gets some good aerial views of the Triple O while he’s on his perch

[Hines (Bill)]

They are a majestic bird in flight.

When the Rooster Flies