My first scratch built Railroad model.

When I was searching for my floquil yesterday 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.
It did cost under 3 dollars AND won it's class in the contest bounce7
 

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Ralph

Remember...it's for fun!
That's great Dave! How did you create the riveting at the ends of the tank?

Ralph
 
That's great Dave! How did you create the riveting at the ends of the tank?

Ralph

As I recall, I used a .003 strip of copper sheet that I hid the seam of under the band around the tank.
The convex ends were formed by squeezing a piece of stryene between two concave freeze plugs & then heating it with a butane torch till it took a set.
 
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