Silos

I don't know what diameter tubing you are looking for, but white pvc pipe is available in several smaller sizes, is easy to work with, and really inexpensive to buy. Plus, its as close as your nearest hardware store.

fl@liner This tagline has been certified to contain no political rants.

An old motto in the hobby about structures was this; "Think small, think tall". It may still have merit today.

The thing here is to work with what you've got. If you're handling cardboard tubes all day and throwing them out, that's a good source of round construction material. I'd not bother to buy such stuff as the plume tubes as their cost is probably higher than PVC tubes and you have to go through more time to get the fuzz off of the outside of the tube besides. Personally, if I had to do a silo, I'd wrap whatever in .010 thick styrene with the proper profile cut onto the outside surface.

-- Yeppie, Bush is such an idiot that He usually outwits everybody else. How dumb!

One of the guys in the club with the woodworking shop moved to Atlanta after the storm. No matter what I used I could not get a "flush" end cut on the damn PVC.

Therefore I was delighted to find the plume tubes in my uniform storage room.

By the way, if the tubes are new, theres no plume "fuzz" in them yet. but that has given me a different idea. A little plume fuzz dropped on an area and hit with a little rail brown before hitting it with hairspray and fine turf,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,you never know.

"Flush end"??? Do you mean a square end? That merely takes some care on the table saw and is easy on a chop saw or a radial arm saw.

-- Yeppie, Bush is such an idiot that He usually outwits everybody else. How dumb!

Bob May spake thus:

Heck, I could do it by hand with my miter box!

Maybe you missed the part of my post that the guy in the club with the woodworking shop moved to Atlanta after Katrina ?

Anyway, the band saw I bought and put the fine tooth blade for cutting structures is such that I could not get a long enough cut on the PVC any buying a chopsaw defeats the purpose of trying to do it for less cost than buying a kit.

All I did was offer a suggestion of a source to people, I never said this was the BEST way or the ONLY way.

The Muppet Show theme music is starting, don;t you two need to take your balcony box seats ?

Your quest to build realistic storage silos reminded me of a couple of articles in /Mainline Modeler/ a few years back that might be worth referring to. They were on a display module built by the great Canadian modeler Doug Hole. A picture on the cover of the January 1996 /MM/ shows his silos with headhouse, looking for all the world like the real thing. He explains that for these, he used "cardboard fabric tubes", by which I guess he means the cardboard cores that bolts of cloth are wound on.

But the really interesting stuff was in the next month's issue, February

1996, where he models--get this--the ruins of concrete storage silos destroyed in a grain explosion. He did this by freezing ABS pipe for a few days, then attacking the pieces with a hacksaw and a pair of pliers. By snapping off various size pieces, he got it to break so it looked just like broken concrete. He finished it off by drilling holes and sticking in pieces of wire "rebar". You ought to take a look at these if you can find someone with a library: it's great modeling.

By the way, I found this guys site awhile back. It's the biggest collection of grain elevator pictures "I've" seen.

Many great shots for ideas.......be sure to click on the state, then look at the thumbnails.

( yes, I spend way too much time on line, ask me about abandonded factory and building pictures)

For the bandsaw, I'd mark the cut line (prefereably with a scriber so there is a nice mark in the PVC) and then stand on the backside of the bandsaw and cut the PVC. All you need to do is be able to cut a bit before hitting the limit and you'lll get there. Another is to get a pipe cutter and use that. You will have a big burr on the outside but that is easy to get rid of.

-- Yeppie, Bush is such an idiot that He usually outwits everybody else. How dumb!