Luke's Garage & Gas Station

[Barney]

Lovely stuff  - 1/2th scale very tempting very neat workmanship
Barney

[Brent]

Wow.  I was delighted to see this model in person.  Thanks again.

[1-32]

Hi Stewart.
Love to see your posts you a very descriptive about your process which is refreshing.
All the best
Kim.

[Stuart]

Now that my Fortune Playhouse project is completed and delivered, I can once again focus on my gas station build.

Currently I am working on a couple of 55 gallon oil drums.  The older version with the heavy rings will be a static piece placed at the rear of the garage to add to the pile of accumulating junk items.  The second, more "modern" drum version will serve as a kerosene barrel and be placed near the font of the gas station for easy access to customers.  I have yet to add other features to the drums such as the filler/drain holes and plugs, a vent for the kerosene drum and a dispensing spout.  The kerosene drum will be placed on a scratch built stand and aged appropriately.



 



The photo below shows the materials I used to fabricate both the barrels.  The main body of each is a piece of 2" OD Plastruct ABS tubing.  The two reinforcement rings on the older drum version is Evergreen Scale Models .125" I-beam which I needed to heat and bend to fit the 2" diameter tube.  The half round pieces which snug up to either side of the I-beam is .040" Evergreen product as well.  To ease the transition between the half round and the tube surface I used Squadron Products putty.  Even though I tried to be careful, using toothpicks and dental tools to place the putty next to the half round, it proved to be a messy process.  After the putty dried it took a fair amount of careful sanding to finish the smoothing effort.  The half round rings at the rims of the barrel are .060" Evergreen product.  The 1/8" sheet styrene was used to make the top and bottom barrel lids.

   

To simply force the I-beam material around the tubing and expect the glue to hold was not going to work.  The only solution was to heat the plastic and form it around a template of some kind.  To do this I created a bending jig I could place in my kitchen oven along with the piece of strip styrene. 

The bottom plate of the jig is a 2" disk of 1/4" MDF which I sanded down to the 1/8" thickness I needed to match the thickness of the I-beam material.  That was glued in place on the plywood base plate. A larger 2nd disk was fit on top of the 1/8" one with a diameter to match the height of the I-beam x 2 and then screwed in place.  Once the piece was bent and cooled I needed to be able to remove the top plate to eject the finished product.

Although this sounds good in theory, it was more difficult than I had supposed.  Once the plastic strip was heated to softness, it was difficult to handle without twisting.  The plastic cooled very quickly so I had to work fast.  It took a number of heating applications working maybe 1/2" to 1" each heating period to finally arrive at a properly formed piece. It was worth the effort.  The finished pieces fit nicely. 

As for the smaller half round material, a simple pull between my two pinched fingers created sufficient curl to match the diameter of the 2" tube.   

         

 

[Bill Gill]

Nice work and SBS, Stuart. At first glance I thought the two drums were 3D renderings. I like how you actually modeld them.
Just like some real drums, the rings on your modern drum look a little thicker than just a half round profile bent around the tubing. Is there some additional styrene between the half round and the tube?

[finescalerr]

Somebody without modeling experience might look at those barrels and think they were simple to build. I anticipated you could run into problems when you said you constructed the barrels; they're not 3-D prints or turnings. Working with putty is a nightmare but your results are stellar. -- Russ

[Stuart]

Thanks Bill. 

The half round was glued directly to the tube.  Once the glue was dry I then used the modelers putty to basically add a fillet between the half round and the drum body.  Applying the putty was a messy job which later required going back with fine grit sandpaper and a sanding block to smooth things up.  I created a slight rounded edge on the sanding block to match the profile I wanted to achieve and worked slowly around the diameter of the tube to make a smooth transition between the two pieces.  Hope that makes sense.

Stuart      

[Ray Dunakin]

Those steel drums are fantastic! Until I read further, I thought they were 3D printed. That you actually modeled them is very impressive, even in such a large scale.

[Barney]

On the subject of the Farmall tractor in 1/12th scale manage to purchase one at a good price on EBAY sold without the box and a "dangly rod" any ideas where the dangly rod bit goes/ fits there is the remans of a small bracket in 2 bits and under/by the side of the Last letter L (on the word Farmall )there is signs of some glue !I have tried the rods on the bracket but appears to be at an odd angle
I have plenty of in information in books and photos but non of the show the "dangle" rods
most of the books always show the other side like most Tractor books !!
Any ideas
Barney 

[Bill Gill]

Barney, The dangly rod has what looks like (at least to me) a glue spot on it similar to the one on the bracket you mentioned. But the distance from the center of the rod pivot to the bracket appears to be a little shorter than the distance from the center of the rod pivot to the "glue spot" on the rod. That might be because the tractor isn't exactly aligned with the camera image plane, or not. (See the next repy below this reply for the measurement image)

I did find a couple photos of other Farmalls with something that looks like the dangly rod, none of these tractors are exactly like the version you have so I don't know if that's what I see or not. Some of the photos were from Wikipedia, all are low res, but you might be able to make details out better online.

This first image is a toy Farmall


The next three are real tractors but the images aren't great. Hope this helps a little.


   

 

[Bill Gill]

Barney, This was my attempt to measure the glue spots relative to the rod pivot point

[finescalerr]

It looks to me as though Bill nailed it. After looking at the lo-res photos I was thinking it probably broke off and pivoted downward. Bill's drawing and the missing paint below and to the right of the FARMALL graphic seem to prove it. -- Russ

[Stuart]

Hello Barney.  Here are a few shots from the Franklin Mint model I have.  I think this will answer your question.







I picked a few shots I found on the internet.  The pics of the actual tractor show only one rod extending to the engine rather than the two as produced on the Franklin Mint version.  Don't know if that helps, just FYI.

   

[Stuart]

Two more photos.

 

[Barney]

Thank you all for the answers to the "dangly bits " on my Franklin Mint Tractor Found the complete bracket which can now be fitted back on - It has also been said that like most models they always seem to get something wrong and this appears to be the case - most Farmall tractors of this era only have one rod others do not have it at all - but use a cable and linkage to control the advance and retard on the magneto others use it for a throttle control to set the engine Revs at a certain speed - bit like a cruise control - So Im Told by the Experts ! (but they don't always get it right ) but saying all that Its A nice model and one day might get round to doing a "Chuck" on it
Barney