I was building my 'standard' wood water tower (Plastic tank painted black) when I decided to try scratch building a 'wood tank'. Below is a picture of both.
The styrene pipe on the table will be painted black and inserted underneath the platform.
As with most scratched built structures the jig is the key to consistent building. Below is the jig I use to build two sides which are then connected with cross beams. The wood in the picture has not been been cut to size as yet. The cut angle is 3 degrees for everything.
Once the superstructure is put together I build the top platform. The platform with the black tank gets posts/railing while the one for the wood tank gets none. This is due to the size if the wood tank. A smaller diameter just did not look right. The wood tank is actually a 2 1/2 inch diameter Plastruct tube with Northeastern Scale Lumber 1/32 inch thick 1/8 inch scribed sheet glued on with super glue. The banding is styrene square rod. The roof is a piece of 10 mil styrene scribed to look like wood. I painted the tank black then oversprayed with brown.
Below are close ups of the two platforms
The wood is called Wenge - a naturally dark color. I only apply tung oil as a finish coat. One could make this structure with basswood and stain or paint.
If you don't want to scratch build the wood tank you can use a Korber tank in place of it - see below. It is small enough to fit on the platform that has railing.
Joe
