Tender materials

[Dave Jones 1Participant @davejones1]

just a quick question.  Due to the cost of brass, I was thinking about making a tender body from steel (then painted inside and out) is there any reason why I should not do this?  (i.e. will it eventually rust)

[Dave Jones 1Participant @davejones1]

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

I don’t know much about model locos,but maybe you could get it galvanized.

[PETER AYERSParticipant @peterayers98304]

    a friend of mine has a loco which is quite a few years old, it has a steel tender painted indide with bitumen paint and there is no sign of rusting. Hope yhis helps

        Petera

[Laurence BParticipant @laurenceb]

I’m building the tender for a Don Young Class 2 at the moment and have used brass sheet for the tank,but I can’t see any reason not to have made it in steel.It certainly would have been a lot cheaper!

A member of the club to which I belong,recently completed a Class 2,with a steel tender tank.After every running session he dries out the inside of the tank with a hair drier (I’m not sure his missus approves or even knows!) He reports no problems with rusting. 

I did read somewhere of a model engineer who coated the inside of his tender tank with a resin compound used for the restoration of old and rusty petrol tanks of vintage cars and motor bikes. 

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Dave,

 

A slightly different suggestion would be to make the tender from stainless steel. You can then use silicon to seal any riveted joints – or if you can TIG weld (or know someone who can) then even better, weld it up. I have a tender in stainless welded up as per the latter suggestion and it is a nice solid job.

 

Not sure where the material from my existing tender came from – but I have some very nice stainless steel ‘kick plates’ that came off the bottom of some office doors being replaced by a local company. They would certainly fit the bill for a 3 1/2″ engine – and probably most 5″ locos.

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