A 60,000 Gallon Whale Belly Tank Car

[D&J RailRoad]

End caps are on and sanded. Added more body filler to touch up some spots. Lots if file work and sanding.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Finished sanding the body down and added the truck bolster mount points.
I thought I had some 100 ton roller bearing sprung trucks on hand but they aren't all 4 the same style. I'll have to place an order for a couple sets.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Looking good!

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Bolster mounts are secure and putty sanded. Off to the paint area.
The sanding flaws really stand out now.

 

[Smudge617]

Bolster mounts are secure and putty sanded. Off to the paint area.
The sanding flaws really stand out now.

View attachment 159931

Looking good tho' a interesting project to be sure.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Did a little more sanding and painting on the body. The smaller indents are more obvious now. I'll have to decide when enough is enough. Added a few more dabs of baking soda and CA glue.

 

[Rico]

Coming along!
How do you know when the truck mounts are level?

 

[D&J RailRoad]

I did a lot of fretting over that point. I used a couple of blocks of wood on the desktop. Put the truck bolster mount on them then set the tank on top of them. Applied the CA/baking powder mix to it while they looked level. If there is any fine tuning required, I can just file or sand the mounts.

 

[Rico]

Ah, sounds like a good solution!
Some of my favourite cars are the ones built with blood sweat and tears.
Well mostly blood and tears.
(ok tears. I shed a lot of tears)

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Finally got back to this project.
Mounted some roller bearing axel trucks to the bolsters then mounted them to the body of the tank.
It sits level and rolls good.

Gonna have to measure for coupler boxes. I have 33"wheels on it now. I think the 36" wheels would look better though.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

I swapped out the solid plastic trucks for metal sprung trucks with roller bearings and 36" wheels.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Pardon me but DAMN that's a BIG tank car!

 

[D&J RailRoad]

I'm at kind of a conundrum. The coupler shelf is just a skosh to low. I don't want to put an overset coupler on it because that looks to hooky. Setting the tank higher off the bolster will look odd too.

 

[logandsawman]

I'm at kind of a conundrum. The coupler shelf is just a skosh to low. I don't want to put an overset coupler on it because that looks to hooky. Setting the tank higher off the bolster will look odd too.

not clear where you are putting the coupler box, it must go under that front bar? Looks like that is something you can work with

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Yeah. You can see the coupler mount pin sticking down.
I think the only way to to that is to shave the mounting point a little.