Day 1: Since the car kit is still in the mail, I went shopping at the hardware store for the rest of the crap I needed. I spent $5 on materials there. Then I went looking for HO track nails online… When did they get so danged spendy? If I buy how many I estimate I need, it’ll put me over budget… gotta do some serious refiguring
No other pix for now
Nice car Mik! What are you planning to use track nails for? You can get escheusion pins for around $1 for about 300 or so pins at the hardware stores , and sewing pins from walmart for around $2.50 for about 450 pins, and they work great for nailheads or small rivets. I can send some to you if you like, I have a few thousand of each.
Yes I need “rivets”… lots of rivets. My best initial guesstimate was about 750-800 This similar car shows the rivet detail better
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/harrisburgcar-34.jpg)
Are you going to have to drill a hole for each one? 
Mik when I built my class A Climax I just used sewing needles. A lot cheaper and if they are too long they will be hidden inside the tank anyway.
These guys make decal rivets… That might be an option? But that mights still blow a big chunk of the budget…
http://www.archertransfers.com/
Craig
Mik get a large thin styrene FOR SALE sugn at the hardware store ($5) or so…and either cut individual panels and emboss rivets or make the entire pattern on the wrapper and emboss it with a dead ball point pen or other suitable item…
yeah, I plan on drilling (for days? weeks?)… I got me a nice little $4 palm sized hand crank drill at an after Christmas sale. So I’mma gonna see how durable it is.
Since the frame is old school I figgered the tank should be too.
The thought brings a blister to my eye!
don’t worry Mik, the first 300 or so are easy, don’t ask me how I know 
I might have that many pins I could send you, but they probably wouldn’t get to you till mid-end of next week
If you need them sooner walmart or any craft store has them. If you would like me to send some message me with your address and i’ll get them in the mail on monday.
Aaron, email sent. Thank you!
Got it
Day 4? My kit arrived today… and I promptly went off on a tangent. (Did anybody really expect different?) Rather than 6 sills, I decided to make a central U shaped piece for strength. Once I’ve pinned it for strength, I’ll mill into the verticals with a Dremel to make a cradle for the tank. I also took about 1/4" off the width to make it match the Kalamazoo cars I regularly use.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1070005.jpg)
$2.50 worth of hardware store plumbing stuff will make most of the tank.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1070007.jpg)
The dome part was made to fit the tube by milling reliefs - final shaping is fast and easy if you wrap the tube with 60 grit sandpaper. I use this method to fit domes on boilers, too.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1070008.jpg)
Next I rough shaped the upper part by sanding it into a convex curve. I’ll finish cleaning it up after I drill the vents.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1070010.jpg)
To judge how much work drilling the tank will entail, I decided to use up most of the HO track nails I had left.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1070011.jpg)
The bitty hand drill makes drilling the holes themselves easy… keeping the bit from wandering, even with pilot divots made with a pin vice, not so much. Good thing I’m not building this for a contest or anything, right?
Nice start Mik! more rivets are on there way to you.
Neat prototype - good luck with this build!
Day 7: I would love to say that I’m purposely “pacing” myself… more like some days I drill holes until I get bored, other days I just fark off, or do other things… and several times I’ve spill the danged tray of “rivets” all over the floor - just for the heck of it… On Tuesday I milled the angle grooves in the center sills using the deck boards and the taper tip on the B&D motor tool for a guide… other than making a shredded wood mess, it was actually easy.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1110008.jpg)
This Dremel 1/4" dia mill cutter is one of my favorites for model work, on soft stuff (wood/plastic/whitemetal) - unfortunately , it dulls really quickly if you try shaping anything harder, even many aluminum alloys.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1110011.jpg)
The underside. Even early “boiler” tank cars like this one often didn’t have truss rods because the tank itself actually carried all the stresses. I’m still on the fence whether I’m going to fabricate air brakes. The original car may never had them, at least not with this paint scheme, old Adnah may have controlled 1/4 of the oil shipping biz in the mid 1860s, but he was out due to ill health by 1871 (then Grandin & Neyhart was one of those smaller companies ruthlessly sucked up by Standard Oil to exert more leverage on hold-out independent well owners and refineries in 1875)
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1110009.jpg)
Anyway, mocked up with the partially drilled tank and dome… It looks sort of like a tank car.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1110010.jpg)
Interesting use of the kit wood…
I found these 1898 Westinghouse patent drawings today. I’ll probably fit this style air brake, even though the car would have been 30+ years old (and likely scrapped) by then. - Only because it will fit in better with the rest of the stuff I run if it has brakes
http://www.google.com/patents?id=bnNhAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Tip#1 A quick and easy way to get a straight, square line on a cylinder is to wrap it with a sheet of paper. The paper should be big enough to wrap around at least 1-1/2 times (and preferably stiffer than newsprint, I just used it here for contrast)… if the paper is lying flat on the tube surface, and the leading edges line up perfectly, you’ll always get a square line.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1150010.jpg)
Tip #2 In cases like this where there is no truck mounting stub, (or even where it’s been broken off on a factory car), a bit of 1/4" vinyl aquarium tubing stuck on a wood screw is a low tech, cheap as chips fix. This little trick works with every truck I’ve tried.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1150008.jpg)
I don’t know why the prototype car was fitted with what appears to be swing action trucks, but I simulated them by milling off the coil spring detail and gluing on two bits of 1/8" square styrene. Once they’re painted few people will notice.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1150006.jpg)
The obvious parts of those 1898 Westinghouse brake were added. The brake cylinder was cut from a junk Bug Mauler frame. The clevises are leftover bits from Ozark Miniatures air hoses, cold bent over my thumbnail. I haven’t decided whether to add bent wire piping yet, but I won’t be adding the truck reach rods because they’ll interfere with the trucks swiveling.
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1150005.jpg)
I decided that my car should have the later low slung, narrow gauge stance rather than that high mounted, “ping pong” look of the prototype. Those two middle sills I left out allow it to negotiate r-1 curves with a bit to spare
(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/P1150012.jpg)
Back to drilling holes… and holes… and yet more holes.
