The Home Machinist!

Is there a book or internet plans/instructions on how to build a tank car? Can you do it with PVC pipe? If so how to make the ends look right? Metal better?

Any help will be appreciated

Depends on the scale and era of the car. We can give you drawings to work from, and PVC is fine, provided it is painted to deter UV deterioration. The frames are easy to knock up. If you are using your tank car to transport real liquid, you are going to want to install baffles to prevent slosh and a low drain point so the car can be cleaned. I have been chewing on constructing one as an auxiliary water supply. You can install a pump or rely on gravity as a feed. So...more details about the era and size of the car you want to create?

Here is a tank car I bought from Mountain Car (now Titan Trains).

It came as a sort of plain vanilla PVC pipe on trucks, and I added a few details.

Here is a tank car done by Dave Sartor who lives near Scranton, PA., and has a page on Face-Book.

Dave is a super hobbyist welder who will do special jobs if it pleases him.

I supplied Dave with photos of the Cook Paint Co. Tank Car at the Illinois RR Museum, and he did all the rest by welding up everything, and then painting and lettering.

He insisted on delivering it to me this May, because he had not been out my way since he was a recruit at Great Lakes Naval Base.

Dave did a superior job, and it was worth what it cost me.

There is (or at least was) a vendor on DLS that was offering ends and dome lids for tank cars.

Wow. Iam not a big fan of tank cars, but these above would be worth having! They look like works of art!

Glenn

here is a freelance water car loosely based on the SP water cars.
its all steel, using sch 10 steel pipe. the ends are from https://www.tankheadexpress.com/

cbrew wrote:here is a freelance water car loosely based on the SP water cars.
its all steel, using sch 10 steel pipe. the ends are from https://www.tankheadexpress.com/

Schedule 10 pipe? From there did you get that stuff?

BigDumbDinosaur wrote:

cbrew wrote:here is a freelance water car loosely based on the SP water cars.
its all steel, using sch 10 steel pipe. the ends are from https://www.tankheadexpress.com/

Schedule 10 pipe? From there did you get that stuff?

I fellow builder had a drop left over from his tank car builds.
I may have misspoke, it looks like it may have been sch 5. it was really close to the 11ga heads
a quick search yielded this http://www.standardne.com/STD%20NE%20PIPE%20CHART.pdf

Tank Cars from American Car & Foundry, 1865-1955

by Edward S. Kaminski

From Signature Press

Not plans, but has pictures of every type of car that ACF produced. Some good pictures in it.

Gary Brothers of Houston Live Steamers wrote a great article on how he builds tank cars:

http://ibls.org/mediawiki/index.php?tit ... _Tank_Cars

Hope that helps.

Daris