Safety cage for side of water tower

Pretty sure that Plastruct sells such a caged ladder.

Try Plastruct (plastruct.com) - page 15 of their catalog

If you want to scratchbuild, consider fabricating the cage flat, by soldering or glueing a grid made out of soft wire (or even out of lengths of solder). You could then shape it into a tube by wrapping it around a dowel.

I can certainly try the wire way first as I have lots of solid junk wire, and if it doesnt look that good I can fall back to the Plastistruc page 15 which would fullfill my requirements.

I would check into some wire "hardware cloth" or other steel screen at a hardware store or box store and see if you could find something suitable.  Cut it to size as needed, and wrap around a 1/2" dia. (2 scale feet) wooden dowel.

Don't know for sure if you could find something suitable, but at least worth a try.

Sam - CLS-8 https://plastruct.com/shop/str...-shapes/90973-cls-8/

Joe Fauty posted:

Sam - CLS-8 https://plastruct.com/shop/str...-shapes/90973-cls-8/

Thanks, will look for a supplier who has in stock. Know I can order it from Plastruc but has $10 ship fee.

Try Walthers - they may have lower ship fee or you may see something else you want.

Joe

I have found eBay to be an excellent source of Plastruct and Evergreen products with free shipping or very fair shipping charge.

Sam,
I've been able to get both Evergreen and Plastruct at my local HobbyTown store, so you may start by checking your local outlet.  While they don't stock all the various special shapes and parts, they can order these things in from their distributor.  It might be worth a visit or phone call.

Jim

Joe Fauty posted:

Sam - CLS-8 https://plastruct.com/shop/str...-shapes/90973-cls-8/

Thanks Joe for showing this link. From the catalog it implied I had to buy a CLS-8 cage for $10.90, PLUS a LS-8 ladder for $4.25, then pay shipping $10 Plastisruct shipping cost.  But your link picture clarified what a CLS8 contained and "fleabay" sells CLS-8 for $10.39 with $2 shipping! 

I've found the Plastruct ladder and cage on two occasions at local hobby shops.  Don't know if you will be so lucky or even if you have a LHS.

rrman posted:

Joe Fauty posted:

Sam - CLS-8 https://plastruct.com/shop/str...-shapes/90973-cls-8/

Thanks Joe for showing this link. From the catalog it implied I had to buy a CLS-8 cage for $10.90, PLUS a LS-8 ladder for $4.25, then pay shipping $10 Plastisruct shipping cost.  But your link picture clarified what a CLS8 contained and "fleabay" sells CLS-8 for $10.39 with $2 shipping! 

Sam - try https://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/pls/pls90973.htm. it is $8.50 but I'm not sure on shipping.

coach joe posted:

  Don't know if you will be so lucky or even if you have a LHS.

Whats an LHS?????

I hear they exist out there in the wild somewhere, but I have never seen one in the flesh nearby locally.

Here are some pictures of my free lanced replica water tower, which you can compare with the pictures at thread start.  Green is much brighter but  eye catching.  This is my first attempt at modeling.  Hardest part was the lettering.  If interested I will tell how I did lettering which may be old or odd method.

I sent this picture to Imogene's town clerk to show what I did, and hadn't forgotten her.  Tower body is a 2" diameter x 17.5" high (scales out to approximately 8' diameter and 70' tall)  PVC pipe with a cap glued on which explains the ridge not on the real tower (thought about grinding down cap but might have look worst/obvious  (besides Imogene is clear on other side of Iowa and a wide off-the-path place in road anyway, whose gonna check it out? )

So how did you do the lettering?

Glad you asked, Cubalz.

Using the water tower picture name I scrolled through Word fonts until finding one with a similar capital letter I, finally settling on a bolded Ebrima font.  I used Word Letter Art vertical for a perfect up-down alignment and spacing, experimenting with different font sizes and stretching the letters (used a lot of scrap paper print outs) until getting a reasonable  “look and feel” match with the picture lettering.  For the shamrock design, I used a shamrock paper plate cutting out one closest to the water tower size, using it to trace around on final stencil.

I then carefully cut out around everything with a new Xacto blade on a bread board to insure a clean cut.  For the letter O, I left several connector slivers to keep the O’s center in place.

I then sprayed the stencil back with 3M Scotch Spray Mount #6064 which is the same glue used for Post It notes.  I let it dry for several minutes to maximize the stickiness then applied to my model, repositioning several times until straight.  I let it dry for 24 hours, rolling the tower back and forth on table top several times to insure letter edges were tight, then removed the connector slivers from letter O center after 24 hours.

I used the very softest hair non-nylon non-streaking brush to apply the contrast paint with one stroke downward and let dry.  About 8 hours later I re-pressed all edges then repainted with one pass in opposite direction.  I repeated this up-down pass sequence about 5-6 times until satisfied the lettering was covered with no obvious bleed throughs (I was in no hurry. )  I removed the stencil and found all letter edges crisp.  Using a very fine one bristle brush, touched up a few missed bleed throughs. 

Granted, this was a long and tedious method, and experienced model will no doubt have better/quicker ways, but I thought the process through on my own, without consulting any online or book resources for methods.  I am very pleased with the results, plus given the tower is positioned towards layout far rear, any imperfections are not noticeable (unless you have binoculars. )