Water Tank

Ever since I was a kid I've enjoyed making models.  About two years ago I decided to give scratch building a try.  I bought a number of different sized scale lumber from Northeastern Scale Lumber and made up some "weathered wood" stain from a recipe I got on the net.  My source for stain and technique is Rusty Stumps (R. S. Part #1) and (R. S. Part #2).  This is an excellent tutorial and the results are very realistic.  Once I had my lumber cleaned up and stained I selected a fairly simple project, a water tank, to start with.  I researched the net for info and drawings and then drew up my own design based on my narrow gauge needs and the use of a 4" PVC coupling.  My main source of information was a clinic provided by the Lone Star Region modelers group (click here).  The clinic is available in PDF and has 3 parts; (Part #1), (Part #2) and (Part #3).

For my water tank I used a 4" PVC coupling and wrapped it with 2" X 8"s laid out on two strips of scotch tape creating a "wrap".  I glued this to the PVC coupling and then used bare wire as straps to hold it in place.  I tried #18 wire first but it looked too heavy so I finally replaced that with #22 copper single strand wire.  I twisted the ends to tighten them and then covered the twists with the water gauge when the model was finished.  The banding clamps, NBW castings and the spout are from Grandt Line (click here).  For most of the build I followed the clinic instructions but I used my own full size drawing to lay out the parts.  For the plaster footings I made forms with 1/4" x 1/4" wood  to give me 1' high pads.  I airbrushed the tank with Acrylic paint (Canary Yellow) and lightly weathered it with chalks and Bragdon weathering powders (click here).

Inside the tank I mounted several pulleys and attached a heavy thread line from the spout to a stepper motor mounted beneath the layout.  The motor is controlled by an Arduino and has a sound file that runs in sync with the motion of the spout.  The sound file has the sounds of the fireman opening the water hatch on the tender and then lowering the spout.  Water then gushes into the tender for about 90 seconds, then the spout is raised back to the storage position and the water hatch is closed.  Fun stuff.  The final result is a fairly realistic animated model of a (approx.) 35,000 gallon water tank for a narrow gauge short line railroad.