Gary S. said:
I bought a few more tank car kits.... Walthers and Athearn. The Athearn kits are simple to build! Not nearly as much detail as the proto2000 but the ease of assembly is a definite plus. The Proto2000s are going to take some effort to get built... especially with me trying to learn the rudimentary aspects of trimmng and gluing and etc.
I saw some of the oil industries stuff mentioned above in the LHS. I am also figuring that storage tanks and refactories could be built out of PVC pipe.
Any comments on using different sizes of steel or copper wire for piping and support structures and stuff? Possibly soldering the wires to make support structures?
I gather you don't have a lot of experience in kit-building, much less scratchbuilding. Something like a refinery or even just a tank farm will require lots of scratchbuilt components, and might best be deferred for a couple of years.
That said, I would avoid steel wire, because it is bloody hard to bend and must be welded, not soldered. Copper is easy to bend and solder, but has no strength. Brass rod is probably more suited to what you have in mind.
Another material is plastic. You can get dimensional plastic shapes from Plastruct, for example, or make your own just as easily.
Learn how to "stretch sprue", sprue being the plstic frames that hold the parts in a conventional injection-moulded styrene kit. Take a straight piece of sprue with no gates (bumps) and heat it gently over a candle, holding it two or three inches above the flame. When it starts to sag, remove it from the heat and pull it apart with a smooth motion, and you will end up with a plastic filament. The faster you pull, the thinner teh filament. A slow, steady pull will yield different thicknesses of plastic rod. Practice it a bit, and you'll see how easy it is.
The other cool part about this technique is that the plastic retains its cross-section. It you start with a rod, you get a rod. If you start with a half-round section or triangular section, you get a thinner half-round or triangular section. This also holds for strips, I-beams, tubes, et.
Finally, look into polyurethane casting, using two-part resin and RTV rubber for the moulds. That way you can make one part, say a valve, and reproduce it as many times as needed.
This is a lot to bite into all at once, but what you're describing is a very ambitious project, and you'll need all of these skills, and more, to pull it off.
How would a person go about building a domed top for a tank that was made from PVC?
What diameter? My first instinct would be to turn a master from wood or acrylic using a lathe and then mould it on a vacuform table from sheet styrene. (More new techniques to learn!) Plan B would be to build it up like the original — cut rounded sections from sturdy styrene sheet, say .040", glue them into a circular array at the center, and then lay overlapping triangular pieces cut from thin .010" sheet styrene.
I hope all this is helpful. If you search teh Web you will find lots of information about vacuuforming, mould-making and casting, and scratchbuilding. Good luck with it.
Cheers
Scott Fraser
Calgary, Alberta