Let's Talk About Fuel Drums

[greengiant]

Couldn't you also do the same thing to get the earlier clamp on rolling rings done on the flat sided ones?

[ALPHA]

Couldn't you also do the same thing to get the earlier clamp on rolling rings done on the flat sided ones?

i'd have to ask the same question lol...you didn't say you had a CNC machine ...you should be able to cut those early rings pretty easily ...just don't include the clamp...make that out of fine brass and do it as an add on

ALPHA

[greengiant]

What he said

[jackalope]

You have a CNC machine? Why are we having this conversation?

[Max-U52]

The place I work for has a CNC lathe. That makes a huge difference. The later drums I could do with the tools already in the machine, but the rings would require special tooling and that's the hitch. I could do them by hand with early rings but that would take quite a while and I want to get something really low cost.

I'll keep at it.

[wibblywobbly]

If you can get hold of a 3D printer, or find someone who has one, they are much easier to do. Design the drum any way that you want and print as many as you want.

[jtracks]

For the last couple years I've been trying to come up with an inexpensive 200 liter German fuel drum, without a whole lot of success. The bane of my existence has been the rolling ring. Getting it to look close enough to the real thing to satisfy myself is the problem, and the big problem is that groove, which I had to make a special tool for, but more on that later.

First, I think I have the 55 gallon drum covered.



The hard part has been the rolling ring and the lack of accurate information and dimensions for the German drums. This is the best photo I've found so far



These are very difficult to make, and one tiny slip can break a tool or scrap a drum. Then I found this photo



The drum on the left is the one that hates me, and that rolling ring is difficult to duplicate in scale, but the drum on the right appears to be a later version (1943?) and by then they were rolling in a bead for the rolling ring, making production much simpler and cheaper. These drums would be very easy to duplicate. Do you guys think the more modern drum would be popular? If I could turn them out with photo etched end caps and still keep cost under $7 a drum?

As you can see, I have drums on the brain so your thoughts and opinions on the subject would be appreciated. Is this even something worth pursuing? Is anyone else as frustrated as I am by the lack of a quality, inexpensive 200 liter German fuel drum in 1/16 scale? I know there are lots of drums out there, but I said both (yes, I want both) quality and low cost.

Tell me what ya think, Men.

I'm in for at least two.

[greengiant]

If you made one of each on the with the lathe couldn't you make hobby molding kit type molds and pump copies out in resin pretty cheaply.

[Max-U52]

That's what I thought, but it turns out resin ain't cheap at all! In order to keep cost down I think plastic pipe will be the best option. Once the program is written I can just feed in pipe whenever I get a chance and the machine isn't being used. Right now I'm trying to find time to turn a couple of prototypes.

[ALPHA]

Something is just going over my head at the moment....You currently can make tapered raised rings on the drum...but you can't make raised square rings?...What's so hard? you may not get the "I" beam effect...but the squared rings would surely stand out enough that you could tell the difference...NO???

ALPHA

PS...As you can see...I like the older style of drum