This water tower stood at the intersection of Route 1 and Route 117 for all of my life Then it was decided that the intersection needed to be changed and the water tower must go.
I decided that my railroad could use a water tower so why not model the Warwick Water tower.
I started with a piece of 4" PVC pipe, 1/2" square stock and 3/32 brass rod and got to work.
After a couple of days pondering and tinkering this is what I ended up with.
The bottom rounded part is made of wood that was turned on a lathe.
The next step was building the ladder and deciding on what kind of roof to put on it. The original tower had a wooden roof, which in 1966 was stuck by lightning, caught fire and collapsed to the interior. I thought about leaving it open like in the first pictures but I didn’t want it to fill with water and be a mosquito breeding ground so I knew a roof had to be made.
A ladder was added.
Ladder building jig.
I wanted my tower to look like it had welded panels so I machined grooves into the plastic and glued string into the grooves the put several coats of primer to fill in the voids and the a top coat of flat enamel. My brother in law came to the rescue for the roof. He made a cone out of copper that fit perfectly.
I added a couple of ladders.
Next project was the cross bracing. I used 1/16" brass wire and folded some brackets out of sheet brass and pin nailed in place then soldered together.
Then a dry fit up.
Added the water tube and primed.
Finish painted and decaled.
a quick try on the layout.
Very nice work Bob. The ladders look great, and that is a fantastic albeit painstaking method for creating welds. Glad your fond memories of this tower will live on with your railroad.
By the way the only pictures that I can see currently are in your last post. The first ones show up as a dash inside a circle. Were the files moved or deleted? I saw this same thing happen in another members post this week.
Edit to say: Wholey moley! you work fast! You made two more posts while I typed my original response. The finished tower looks great!
Nice project and build… Looks great… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
All I can say Bob is that should the water tower go missing please don’t look in my yard…
I keep toying with building a tower like that. That style of water tower was quite common many decades ago.
Nice job, real nice.
Very cool!!! Nice work and paint job!
Okay then Bob. Every part of this from the welds to the cross-bracing and connections is convincing. The ladders, the lightning ball on the top (is that what they’re for?), all convincing and well crafted. The proportions are right, although I think I would have made it taller. I probably would have exaggerated how tall and spindly it is because that’s what is most appealing to me about the original. But that’s just my own take on the original.
On another note, I wouldn’t have the guts to completely prime it and paint it and cover up all my great modelling technique, including the nifty copper roof! No way, no, no. (Okay, maybe I could bring myself to paint the tank!) But primed and painted it looks great out there on your layout, and the coolest thing of all is that you faithfully preserved a memory.
I don’t know why Bob’s pictures keep going MIA… so to help out and so all can see this piece I will re-post them.
John,
I started this project working off a memory I had with out doing the research on the tower. I later found out the tower was built in 1902 and stood 125’ tall with a 28’ diameter tank. That would have scaled out to 62" tall with a 14" diameter tank. My tower scales to 40’ at the deck and maybe 50’ to the top with a 10’ tank. The Lightning ball at the top was not on the original as far as I know. If it was , it didn’t work because in 1966 it got struck by lightning and the roof burned and collapsed to the interior of the tank. The tower was built as a source for the fire suppression system in the nearby mill.
Thank you for the compliments. It was a fun build.
Great work, Bob. I love old water tanks and you did this one justice. All the details down to the welds are amazing. You got any other models you mind sharing? We would love to see those too!!
One more question, Bob…how’d you get the Warwick text on the tank? I don’t see any evidence of decal or signs of vinyl press-apply.
(And I agree with Dan, we’d all like to see more of your work.)
The letters are vinyl that I got from an online supplier http://diylettering.com
As far as my other projects the best place to see them is on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/Bobs-Workshop-334949046698679/?ref=tn_tnmn
I think that will get you right to the page.
Bob, great job on the tower. I recognized it right away. I grew up in Warwick and my grandfather work in the mill next to the tower in the 50’s & 60’s.
Steve
Vincent D’Agostino said:
All I can say Bob is that should the water tower go missing please don’t look in my yard…
Maybe it can visit for a photo shoot! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
Very nice work Bob. I love all the little fabricated bits. I would have had a hard time putting paint (other than clear lacquer) over that beautiful copper roof, but it looks great painted.