Good Evening Everyone,
I've had a bunch of Weaver 3 bay open hoppers and a 6 pack of Lionel Lionscale 3 bay open hoppers(the ex-Weaver tooling) sitting around empty for a while and decided to get cracking and make some coal loads for them. Before starting the loads however, some preliminary work was done on the hoppers. The Weaver hoppers are very light and need weight added to them in order to be able to pull a long train of them without stringlining. As shown in the photos, I use stick on wheel weights, mounted in the end bays over the trucks, that I purchased from Harbor Freight using their sale coupons. There are many methods of adding weight-lead shot, BB's, large nuts, steel plates, etc. The Lionscale hoppers already come with black painted steel plates glued to the 2 end bays as can be seen in the black Chessie hopper. On all the cars, I tie the couplers shut using small black zip ties so the cars can be run during our club's displays without uncoupling problems on a long train.
The materials I used are shown in the photos. 2' x 2' styrofoam insulation 1 inch thick(for ease of handling), Elmers Glue-All, Scenic Express coal/ballast, Olfa 18mm wide utility knife w/snap off blade sections(this item is hazardous to your health-I only sliced myself 3 times
), and 1 gallon of Valspar latex kettle black paint that was mixed wrong and cost me $6.00 at Lowe's. Didn't need a gallon but for six bucks! Then I got started.
1. Made template from scrap basswood to fit hoppers.
2. Used template to cut styrofoam rectangles with Olfa knife.
3. Carved styrofoam into triple humps with Olfa knife.
4. Used sanding block to round off edges/angles on styrofoam.
5. Painted the styrofoam with black latex and let dry overnight.
6. Squeezed the Elmers Glue onto the styrofoam(straight from the bottle-no diluting) and brushed the glue over the entire top surface in an even coat.
7. Sprinkled the coal/ballast all over the surface and let dry overnight(approx 16 hours)
8. Shook/gently brushed excess coal from the styrofoam and mounted the loads in the cars.
Adding up the cost of the materials(excluding the Olfa knife) and dividing that cost by the number of loads I can make works out to roughly $0.75 per load. Of course that's not including my time which doesn't matter because this is fun. Of course, there are other methods of making coal loads that work just as well as my choice. They all look better than those plastic loads in my opinion.
I've had a bunch of Weaver 3 bay open hoppers and a 6 pack of Lionel Lionscale 3 bay open hoppers(the ex-Weaver tooling) sitting around empty for a while and decided to get cracking and make some coal loads for them. Before starting the loads however, some preliminary work was done on the hoppers. The Weaver hoppers are very light and need weight added to them in order to be able to pull a long train of them without stringlining. As shown in the photos, I use stick on wheel weights, mounted in the end bays over the trucks, that I purchased from Harbor Freight using their sale coupons. There are many methods of adding weight-lead shot, BB's, large nuts, steel plates, etc. The Lionscale hoppers already come with black painted steel plates glued to the 2 end bays as can be seen in the black Chessie hopper. On all the cars, I tie the couplers shut using small black zip ties so the cars can be run during our club's displays without uncoupling problems on a long train.
The materials I used are shown in the photos. 2' x 2' styrofoam insulation 1 inch thick(for ease of handling), Elmers Glue-All, Scenic Express coal/ballast, Olfa 18mm wide utility knife w/snap off blade sections(this item is hazardous to your health-I only sliced myself 3 times
), and 1 gallon of Valspar latex kettle black paint that was mixed wrong and cost me $6.00 at Lowe's. Didn't need a gallon but for six bucks! Then I got started.1. Made template from scrap basswood to fit hoppers.
2. Used template to cut styrofoam rectangles with Olfa knife.
3. Carved styrofoam into triple humps with Olfa knife.
4. Used sanding block to round off edges/angles on styrofoam.
5. Painted the styrofoam with black latex and let dry overnight.
6. Squeezed the Elmers Glue onto the styrofoam(straight from the bottle-no diluting) and brushed the glue over the entire top surface in an even coat.
7. Sprinkled the coal/ballast all over the surface and let dry overnight(approx 16 hours)
8. Shook/gently brushed excess coal from the styrofoam and mounted the loads in the cars.
Adding up the cost of the materials(excluding the Olfa knife) and dividing that cost by the number of loads I can make works out to roughly $0.75 per load. Of course that's not including my time which doesn't matter because this is fun. Of course, there are other methods of making coal loads that work just as well as my choice. They all look better than those plastic loads in my opinion.
