Curtis Cannery -- Part 3

 

While work on the railroad has slowed down dramatically, it has not come to a complete standstill. Yardwork, family gatherings, and medical appointments all gathered into the same time frame. Despite not working very steadily, I have made some progress though on the cannery project. As seen in the opening photo, I did complete the loading dock for the brick building, now known as "Building #1."

Although I did a bit of experimenting with the wood block structures, mainly I have been working on the water tower intended for the roof of Building #1. I did a bit of internet sleuthing, finding a number of rooftop water tower images and an instruction video on Trains.com with Steve Otte on scratchbuilding a wooden water tower. As seen in this photo, I started the tank using a plastic Scotch tape core and a section of a toilet paper roll core. After cutting the cardboard tube to length and slicing it to narrow its width, I used double stick tape to secure the plastic core to the interior of the cardboard tube. Then I hit a bit of a gumption trap. I thought I had some thin balsa wood sheets to cut into circles for the top and bottom of the tank, but they were thicker and sturdier basswood. So I ordered some balsa from Amazon. I could have used cardboard, but I have found that the humidity variations in the basement do not treat thin cardboard very well. (Hmm, I wonder how that flimsy toilet paper tube will hold up?)

After the balsa top and bottom were successfully glued to the tube and allowed to dry under weight, the next step was to side the tank with scale 3" X 12" stripwood planks. After cutting them to length on the Northwest Chopper, staining them with Hunterline "Driftwood," and allowing them to dry, I started gluing them in place with yellow carpenter's glue. My hope is that by gluing the stripwood to the balsa top and bottom disks, the tank cylinder will hold up to the humidity shifts in the train room. Later I intend to use Steve Otte's approach to using jeweler's wire for the water tank bands, but for now it was time to move on. 

Just within the last few days, I went ahead and sketched up and then inked in scale drawings of the base for the water tower to be located on the roof of Building #1. The base will consist of four bents made up of scale 12" X 12" timbers and then probably 6" X 12" joists. The joists are seen penciled on the upper left projection in the drawing. My next steps will include cutting and staining the stripwood before covering the drawing with wax paper and using it as a template for gluing the bents together. I may decide to add braces and nut bolt washer castings; we will see how much detail I am motivated to add in addition to  the bands, building the tower roof, and adding a ladder.