One of the things I enjoy most about this hobby is the liberty that it gives us to explore our creativity. Here are a few of my home made HO flat car loads. Please show us yours.

The first load is made from copper pipe painted flat gray. The tie downs are made of thin slices of electrical tape.

This one is made of soap stone made to look like slabs of granite.

A burger joint up here has black straws for their soft drinks. They make perfect pipe loads. The tie straps are sliced silver coloured ribbon.

Square logs.

This is an air bubble maker from a fish tank. I painted it gray to simulate a large cement pier. I cut it in two and made 2 loads.

More square timber loads.

Track loads. Hmmmm.... can't upload the pics...

Not longer my favored model railroad time and so sold to USA.

Good looking loads!

I have access to black straws like shown above. I should give that a try. Very creative ideas with the other materials!

CNCProadwarrior,

Great use of non model material for realistic loads

The black straws look great.

Some great ideas for flat car loads … I may steel some of your ideas . Here is a pic I already posted on my layout thread. The tie downs are made of 0.02" thin self adhesive strips you get at nail art shops. Makes life easier than cutting strips from electric tape.

cnw1961 Wrote:The tie downs are made of 0.02" thin self adhesive strips you get at nail art shops.

Sounds like a great idea. What does it look like? Do you buy it by the roll?

These nail art strips are very thin, but quite strong (stronger than electric tape). You buy it by the roll, like this: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Strip-Roll-Adhesive-Tape-Black-Nail-art-designs-patterns-easy-to-use-NEW-/320989209412?pt=US_Nail_Care&hash=item4abc72a344">http://www.ebay.com/itm/Strip-Roll-Adhe ... 4abc72a344</a><!-- m -->

Looks like a good product, Kurt, but the $19.95 shipping charge sorta made me lose interest....until I discovered that shipping is free within the U.S.

Now all I gotta do is find out when flat metal banding came into common useage.

A quick google search showed patents related to metal banding dating back at least to 1912, probably good enough to ensure its use during the '30s.

Wayne