Railroad tankcars, a lot of work, and then a culvert

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This is a project I finished recently. A customer needed a large culvert to drain some farmland. He priced some new pipe, but decided to try to save some money by using some tanker cars for the culvert. Here is what I started with.

   You can see three tankcars here. A black one, a red one, and a white one. The white one had the ends removed already, apparently by a blind man with a torch. I removed all the extra metal from the outside of the cars. The red one had a rubber liner around .250 thick covering the inside of the tank. Before I could cut the endcaps off I had to remove a 12 inch wide strip of the liner from each end of the tank.

    I crawled in through the porthole there in the side of the red tank, and got to work. The liner was glue to the steel. I used an oscillating multitool from Harbor Freight to cut through the liner to the steel, then tilted it, and cut two rings all the way around approximately 12 inches apart. This was done on each end. I made a clamp bar from a 1 inch square bar to clamp the liner, welded a nut to each end,  then used two 3/4 drive rachets to roll up the strip of liner, pulling it loose from the steel. Not an easy task.    After I had the liner strip removed, I could cut the endcaps off.

   The next phase of the project involved fitting the red tank to the black one. Both the red and white tanks were approximately 8 feet in diameter, but the black one was 10 feet in diameter. The customer wanted all the tanks, when welded together, to be on the same plane on the bottom. They didn't want the red tank centered in the black one. So I suspended the red endcap over the end of the black one, then lowered it down until it was almost on the ground, then traced around it with soapstone.

   Here is a view of the cut-out from the end of the black tank.

   After that, I inserted the red tank into the hole. After cleaning things up, of course.   Since I can only upload 5 attachments, I will finish this later.
Reply:Looks like you kicked its asss.

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Reply:it looks good.it looks like a lot of work,makes you wonder if the client will actually save any money in the long run.Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Reply:Here is a view of the red tank ready to be inserted into the black tank. Remember the black one is 10' in diameter, and the red one is 8'.

There was a dozer working on the job, and the operator pushed the tank into the hole while I used my crane to pick up the end being fit into the big tank.   This is one of the places in the project that made me smile. I was very pleased how the red tank fit into the black one. Here is a look at the fitup.

This view of the fitup is how it fit after being shoved into the big tank, and after taking the crane off the tank. It fit almost perfectly. On the opposite side, there were maybe two spots that I welded a lifting lug on and used the crane to pull the tank out to the outer wall a little to close the gap. But I was very pleased with the results. If you look at the picture of the end being removed from the black tank, you will see how it is slanted. This is the result of the rounded end cap that I used to make the transition to the smaller tank. Since it was necessary to have both tank bottoms share a common plane, the extra 2 feet of diameter is at the top. So after the tanks were in position to be welded, as seen in this picture, the top of the red tank was sticking into the black one by approximately 10 inches, while the bottoms were butted up against  each other.    Next is a shot of the white tank being fit into the red one.

At this point, the dozer was working at another location on the farm, and I didn't want to make him walk the machine all the way back just to push the white tank into the red one. Before he left, he had rolled it more or less in line with the other two, but the ends were about 6 feet apart. I welded eyes to the inside of each tank, then used a 1 1/2 ton chain hoist, on the side, to drag the white tank inside of the red one. The white one was maybe 4 inches in diameter smaller then the red one. I scratched my head a little over how to get it to fit so I could weld it up. I finally decided to cut slits 6 inches long every 18 inches apart around the end of the white tank, then bend the resulting "tabs" up to meet the wall of the red tank, after which I welded the slits back up. That worked quite well, with a lot of emphasis on the word "work". Here I am using the crane to pull a tab out to the wall.    Here is a view of the three tanks joined together. At this point, I have almost finished welding the tanks  inside and out.


Reply:Almost all of the welding was done using 1/16 Lincoln NR 233 self-shielded wire. I used 4 spools for a total of 100 pounds of wire. I did run out, so I finished up with close to 50 pounds of 6011/7018 rods. Here is a shot of the NR 233.

   I used a Ln-25 with a Profax 1260 gun to feed the wire, and my Miller Big 40 for the power source. It has the c/v option on it. I really like the machine. Some of you may wonder how long the project took, and if the customer saved any money. I had around 160 hours in the project. New pipe, 8 feet in diameter, with a 1/2 inch wall, was $650 per foot, in 20 foot lengths. It still would have require some welding together of a couple of sections out at the job site. To install the finished culvert, a ditch 14 feet deep was dug, and the whole assembly rolled off into it. It went under a country road. Did the customer save some money? Yes. And I wanted them to save some........but not too much!!   This project was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it tremendously. And so it goes, another project in the life of the villageblacksmith. I hope you enjoyed it.
Reply:That's a big culvert!  Nice job

Dave J.Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw~ Syncro 350Invertec v250-sThermal Arc 161 and 300MM210DialarcTried being normal once, didn't take....I think it was a Tuesday.
Reply:Nice work.  Thanks for the great photos and documentation.A project well done and my sentiments exactly regarding “saving the client money… but not TOO much!”   A proverbial WIN/WIN Excellent

Sent from my iPad using TapatalkLast edited by Lis2323; 4 Days Ago at 02:12 PM.:
Reply:Looks great 👍 Dave

Originally Posted by villageblacksmith

Almost all of the welding was done using 1/16 Lincoln NR 233 self-shielded wire. I used 4 spools for a total of 100 pounds of wire. I did run out, so I finished up with close to 50 pounds of 6011/7018 rods. Here is a shot of the NR 233.

   I used a Ln-25 with a Profax 1260 gun to feed the wire, and my Miller Big 40 for the power source. It has the c/v option on it. I really like the machine. Some of you may wonder how long the project took, and if the customer saved any money. I had around 160 hours in the project. New pipe, 8 feet in diameter, with a 1/2 inch wall, was $650 per foot, in 20 foot lengths. It still would have require some welding together of a couple of sections out at the job site. To install the finished culvert, a ditch 14 feet deep was dug, and the whole assembly rolled off into it. It went under a country road. Did the customer save some money? Yes. And I wanted them to save some........but not too much!!   This project was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it tremendously. And so it goes, another project in the life of the villageblacksmith. I hope you enjoyed it.
Reply:That takes a lot of skill and experience! Great job! An amateur would butcher a job like that and have impossible gaps to fill. It's hard to move those heavy shells around but I wonder if it would have been a little easier using the larger dia. shell in the middle and cutting the head to fit the smaller shells on each end? Did the county contribute anything to the project since it was under a county road? Did the farmer price culvert or just pipe? As long as there is sufficient material covering a culvert it doesn't have to be a real heavy wall. The corrugated steel gives it its strength and is a lot lighter. Must of had to move a lot of water if it's 8Ft.+ in diameter.