Bet Alan never had a dish named after him - better than fondue........
I usually build my 'large' tanks from 6 inch diameter Plastruct tubing since this is the largest diameter they offer. A customer who works for a large company wanted a tank on his desk for show and tell with a company logo on it (haven't got that far as yet). I made the mistake of telling the customer about a friend who makes large diameter tanks using flat stock. Boom - 8 inch diameter tank coming down the pike. Let's just say Alan helped a lot.
Flat 20 mil styrene stock with steps (1/4 inch wide) glued in place
This is the jig I used to mark out the steps. I used 1/4 inch up and 3/16 in. Found out the hard way 1/4 up 1/4 inch in ended up in the outside of the steps spreading too far apart after forming the tank. I could not align the vertical posts correctly so they would glue to the face of a step than glue to the edge of the next step.
The big mistake - note how the vertical posts don't line up with the next step up.
Man-ways and nozzles laid out on the styrene.
Forming the tank. I cut out a circular bottom that I fitted afterwards. Hindsight I should have cut the circle first and used it to help the the tank together.
The vertical stair posts came next (60x60 mil). It is so much easier when they line up with the steps. The top is a cone made from 20 mil stock. I cut an ?apex? that started at the center hole and flared out to 1/4 inch at the rim. Neat trick from Alan - glue the top inside out making it easy to use a glue strip to hold the ends together. Let it sit overnight then the next day simply pop the top in the opposite direction to hide the glue strip. Hopefully that ain't a secret.
The finished tank with all the doodads glued in place. Alan did say it would be a royal pain in the butt to glue on the stairway hand rail. That was a severe understatement.
This is actually the prototype for the customer to sign off on before I build his. So on my model railroad it goes.........
