When I was searching my storage shed for my floquil a while back I ran across my first ( adult) scratch built railroad model. I built a couple things for my Marx set when I was about 7 or 8., but then moved into aiplanes & cars.
I built this to prove a point , I was in a hobby shop one day in the early 70s & some guy was complaining that model railroading was too expensive , the MOST expensive hobby & NOTHING could be done for a low cost. I told him that was not altogether true & bet I could build a railroad model of something for under 3 dollars.
There was a model contest coming up at a shopping mall & he challenged me to do that AND have it be good enough to enter the contest. I don't usually do contests but agreed.
This is what I built , I had no plans or pictures, I drove by the railroad yard & looked at a tank car for a guide. I am aware this does not prove to be accurate in all details, but at the time I WAS NOT really a model railroader . The only thing I bought for it were the trucks & couplers, the tank is PVC pipe, the dome a copper tube cap with something out of the scrap box glued to it-- an army tank hatch I think.
I formed the convex tank ends by using styrene which I sandwiched between two concave flat type "freeze plugs" for engine blocks & heated with a torch till the plastic took a set.
It did cost under 3 dollars AND won it's class in the contest .

[attachment=373]
[attachment=374]
[attachment=386]

That's a good looking tanker....What did the guy have to say after that..??

Steamtrains Wrote:That's a good looking tanker....What did the guy have to say after that..??

Something along the lines of Harrrumph!!

I enjoy it that my On3 cars are cheaper and better detailed than the B-man's On30 cars. It's part of the joy of scratch building for me.

First scratch built railroad model......times three..
May, 1960, Model Railroader, Ralph Brown did a construction article for a "combination caboose". The first build started that month, and I was done with the build, several weeks later.(top ) I used hand scribed balsa sheet, hand cut balsa strip, to build the caboose.
1968, second build, Northeastern Scale scribed basswood, and basswood strip.(middle)
1998, last build two cabooses, all styrene sheet, strip,shapes.(bottom)
The cupola got broken off the first model, several years ago (movers), but I keep the model as a reminder of where I started from
[attachment=604]

wow sumpter,you can really see the improvement in your skills over the years,strangely,the more i try to build and the older i get,the WORSE my scratchbuilds get --josh

Great looking tank car Dave, well done.
I'm a casual browser of the scratchbuilding section, maybe I should spend more time here.

Jacques

Great scratchbuilding. I gotta hand it to you guys for all the effort. I'm not exactly too creative when it comes to scratchbuilding so I really appreciate the effort and resoursefulness that goes into projects like those. Great job!

Fantastic looking tank car, how well does it do on the rails?

wgrider Wrote:Fantastic looking tank car, how well does it do on the rails?

I have run it on occasion & it did well .

I could show some pictures of some log cars I built that didn't do so well running!! I made them of wood , looked great, had about 24 of them , hook up a string of them & they worked fine TILL you came to a curve!! Then they all lifted off the tracks & made themseles into a straight line! The only was to make them work was to put weighted logs on them, empty --- no go.

Here is a few pics of the log cars. They are copies of the MDC log car, but made of wood. Look great but youcan't run em empty!

[attachment=692]
[attachment=691]

[attachment=690]