Tom Holley gave me the idea last week of doing a QA&P weed sprayer. Since there were a couple of cars laying around that fit the project, I decided to give it a shot. The single conclusion from studying railroad weed sprayers is that there is no conclusion, pretty much anything goes. The one I am building is sort of a conglomeration of ideas I found in photographs in combination with what I could find in my parts box. The tank car silver will be toned down with dull coat and weathering. My supply of silver is getting low so I used Testor's Aluminum metalizer. It is pretty bright, but will be okay, I hope, when it is done. The spray boom and wings still have to be created. Some more piping will be on the end with the gasoline engine that drives the pump. The pump and accessories are in the pump house. It will get QA&P lettering and quite a bit of overspray. After all, a weed sprayer would have over spray!!!
Made a little progress on the fictitious weed sprayer. It might need some crew access ladders and not just corner stirrups. It might get some stake sides and a handrail, but I doubt it. I chickened out and made a single spray bar instead of wings that fold out. Something fairly significant is missing, the spray nozzles on the spray bar. How do you make nozzles that small and how do you attach them? The brake wheel and staff may be replaced with something finer. The only brake wheels in my parts box are Kadee and they are a pretty large diameter brake wheel. But a Kadee would look better than the toy like one currently on the model. Obviously still needs decals, weathering, etc. The pipes won't be shiny once it's dull coated.
It is pretty close to completion with the exception of decals and dullcoat. There is now a door on the pump house that accesses the car end with the mixing tank. I decided to add spray nozzles on the spray bar at the other end of the car and a stand with a hose for spraying occasional spots that are farther away.
The pinpoint nozzle on the hose reel in the second picture looks like it means business! I guess it is some kind of "shower head" sprayer. Is the yellow end to the black hose coming from the big tank in the first picture the nozzle? What did you do to make it?
The photographs may be somewhat confusing due to the fact that I turned the car around to take pictures and did not always orient it correctly in relationship to the tank car. Sounds like you are talking about the large diameter black hose coming out of the top of the large transverse mounted tank on the end of the car. That is actually the mixing tank or the receiving tank. The hose is actually a piece of monofilament electrical wire, probably 16 or 18 gauge. It was the correct size, easy to bend and held its shape once bent. The yellow or gold is the wire on the inside of the insulation where I cut it. It will connect to the hose coming from the large tank car. The nozzle and hose reel was an after thought. In case they needed to hit some weeds or whatever that the spray nozzles would not reach. The spray bar is on the opposite end of the car from the transverse tank and runs just above the coupler. There are six nozzles pointing down at the right of way from the spray bar. I added the hose that could be manned. Yes, it would definitely put out some herbicide!
Ah, I see the spray bar and the 6 nozzles on the end sill of the car. They look like proper brass nozzles. How did you make those?
The weed sprayer is just about done. A little touch-up here and there and some weathering and it will be complete.
