Yes indeed. I have a drawer full of those things and my plan is to make gon loads from them. The ones I have have a symmetrical, indentation pattern on the top. The plan is to drill a small hole in the top and replicate valves w/ a pin-head or similar something, spray them silver as you did, and build a support lattice out of small wood stock. The lattice support would be fairly prototypical plus it would yield a method of lifting them in/out of the gon.
As above w/ the junk pile project, every time I am at the work bench, I throw the small scraps into a jar. I have to large jars of that mess. Similar to the junk pile above, I make gon loads from it.
Cool gondola loads! I also have a heap of extra parts and junk from kits and such. 'Bout time it gets useful!
Well I am back and still bored. Not wanting to give up my love for trains, I decided to try a new technique for building a hill/mountain. I used an insert from an appliance I bought, hot glued a block of foam. Then I hot glued strips of cardboard down then I soaked some pieces of light weight paper (you can also use newspaper, printer paper, etc.) in watered down glue and applied on the strips, painted brown and applied ground cover. Not finished yet but thought I would post. This is a very cheap way of making hills, etc.
Edit: Deleted first post. Sorry, did not realize this was solo thread. I love your creative use. I'm going to copy quite a bit. ☻
WOW! Fancy sawhorse stands an upgrade from my stacked 3 high "gallon paintcans" on corners ( was originally 2 sagging chairs faced end-to-end) I've had good luck with Roco's 15d "slip-switches" put one in between the switched outer & inner lines? (glutton for punishment ) Like his "high-speed" test almost expect loco to fishtail like a Thunder-Jet slot car!
