My FSM Collection - FSM25 Branchline Water Tower

[postalkarl]

Hey jaime:

Thanks for the info on this kit. I always thought the Signal Tower was the first kit. It's coming along nicely so far. Yeah I used to have almost all of them. I sold some and have 25 left.

Karl

[hairball]

karl............the white box and the yellow box version of first kit #25 water tank.

  I used to see wanted ads for the WHITE BOX version, think was Jimmy D.  Probably less made of those making the desirability higher along with price asked.

I also remember when people were selling EMPTY FSM kit boxes and plans.

George must have worked up a real sweat producing some of those 5000 units.

mike lynch.................HAIRBALL

[NEMMRRC]

that's what outside decks are for .......opening floquil paint and cracking the cap on sweet and sour staining mixture.

I made some and used it once then stopped.  Am pretty sure I went to FIEBING LEATHER DYE and 99% pure isopropinal alcohol.  Tended to stick to USMC black as giving me exactly what I wanted to achieve, I also believe I was experimenting with Fiebing in various shades of browns, before I laid down tools in 2013 and started building 1935 Chevrolets full size HOT RODS.

3 of them, 2 done and roadster under construction in garage still in 2020
mike

Cool rides there.


Jaime

[NEMMRRC]

karl............the white box and the yellow box version of first kit #25 water tank.

  I used to see wanted ads for the WHITE BOX version, think was Jimmy D.  Probably less made of those making the desirability higher along with price asked.

I also remember when people were selling EMPTY FSM kit boxes and plans.

George must have worked up a real sweat producing some of those 5000 units.

mike lynch.................HAIRBALL

Did the white box version come with the blue embossed thick paper?


Mine is the yellow box version and it must have been made some years after it was originally released. In the box was a "catalog" of 10 other FSM kits still for sale.


Anyway, 5000 is a lot of kits. I wonder how many have actually been built up.


Jaime

[NEMMRRC]

This is a really neat idea for series of build threads Jamie.  It'll be great to see some of these older kits put together and the steps that involves.  Thanks for sharing!   

There is a lot of detail in this kit. For a 50+ year old kit I'd say it is definitely a good representation of what a real craftsman kit ought to be.


Jaime

[NEMMRRC]

Time to get the water tank itself going.


The kit includes a section of a mailing tube and some scribed wood siding to fashion the tank.





I am not sure why the kit did not include one sheet of scribed wood long enough to wrap around the tank. The modeler is to butt join both pieces of wood siding to make the necessary length to wrap around the tank. That was one tricky feat.


The instructions say the siding ends up wrapping over itself and to trim the excess. I debated over that. Instead, I measured the tank's circumference and transferred that to a piece of paper and then that to the butt joined siding.








I wanted to make sure I was not going to come up short so I cut the wood siding a tad longer so I could trim it to fit once on the mailing tube. I then rolled the piece of mailing tube along the length of the wood siding to ensure it was all going to fit.





You can see where I made a mark on the tube and rolled it from one end of the wood to the other. There was a tad more length of siding than necessary to wrap around the tube. I am in business here.





I used wood glue to secure the wrapped siding around the tube.





And in my zeal to prove my efforts worthy, I made a huge mistake. I was supposed to scribe the siding with grooves where to lay the metal bands around the tank PRIOR to gluing the wood to the mailing tube.





Well, ain't no step for a stepper. I will have to deal with it as I go along.





I will stain the tank with the vinegar and steel wool brine once the glue is good and dry.


Meanwhile, I have to figure out a way to wrap the metal bands around the tank adequately. So, I wrapped the banding template around the tank and marked where the bands should go on the tank.





This is what one is to use for the metal banding, some fishing line included in the kit.





I spray painted the fishing line a rust color.


Here is how the fishing line is secured to the tank. You press some pins through the tank and wrap the fishing line around the pins which serve as an anchor for each of metal bands.











I managed to salvage the whole effort after a lot of fidgeting with the fishing line. The pin heads and the loops of fishing line around them will get covered with the water depth gauge later on.


More as it develops.


Jaime

[JimF]

Wow, nostalgia city!

One of the 1st 'craftsman' kits I ever did. Learned a lot from George's instructions, back then.

Super nice build, Jaime.

Jim

[hairball]

I remember going thru what you just did with scribed siding and pins to hold the bands, was not fun as I was just learning.

Scribed siding has to be butt joined because the lines are length wise rather than up and down.  I believe that north eastern actually presses the lines in with a die.

If I was to build that now I would use scale 2 x 6 or 1 x 6 or 8 ,  and apply each board, would radically change the appearance for the better.

Keep going you have a decent audience following.

mike lynch..........HAIRBALL