Hi folks!

Just wanted to share some recent experiment.

I'm actually in the process of adding weight to my freight cars. Many use lead to add weight. I was particularly interested by auto adhesive wheel weights as described by Mike Confalone. However, lead weights are getting hard to find. Every auto parts shop I went turned me down, telling me to ask a repair man in a garage changing tires. I also found them on the Internet, but shipping dead weight is prohibitive, almost as costly as the item itself.

Thus, last Friday, I went with Louis-Marie to the local home improvement center to find the cheapest way to add weight to a car.

First, nuts and bolts. Costly, very costly, and most are from a cheap alloy that doesn't weight that much: chromed zinc.

Second, we checked steel rod. Less costly but not very fun to work with. Cutting the rod is labor intensive and leaves very little place to customization.

Third, steel pipes and accessories. Cheaper, but still costly, not very practical.



At this point, we were a little bit disappointed. Each car would cost at least 2 to 3$ to add sufficient weight. Then, Louis suggested we take a detour and check up tiles and grout...

BIG DEAL! Cheap glass mosaics were selling for $4.95 each. It weighted a lot and was customizable: you just cut the number of tiles you need with an X-Acto. Better, they stay together because of the supporting mesh. Let's do some maths!



A 12 inches x 12 inches mosaic tile cost 4.95$ and weight 52 onces. A tile is made of 144 small 1" square tiles. Each little tile weight 0.36 oz and cost 3.4 cents.

Just for fun, I tried to weight up a Walthers FGE 50ft boxcar to reach about 11.1 oz just like Mike Confalone does (yep, that's a lot of weight, maybe too much, anyway I tried it on a few cars and it makes switching more realistic and less prone to derailment, not sure if I'll upgrade all the fleet though, probably not very good on axles). It took me 3 rows of 6 tiles and thus cost me 60 cents! Most people will strike to get the NMRA recommended weight. You only need one row of 6 tiles in most cases, costing you 20 cents. Now, try to beat this! And I guess you can find them at cheaper price if you find a dealer discounting discontinued tiles lots.

I recommend gluing the weight with hot glue. Strong enough but removeable if needed and glue instantly.

Glass mosaic tiles are cheap, readily available to most people, easy to work with, quite heavy and non toxic. They may not suit every type of cars, but for boxcars, reefers and many other enclosed cars, they should do the job. I had good result filling some cars with Plasteline or sand. Plasteline is particularly useful for hoppers as you can fill discharge bays.

Still, I need lead for my locomotives!

Matt

Dang Matt!! That's brilliant! Love touring hardware and home improvement stores for model railroad possibilities!

About 15 years ago bought 25 lb of #9 buckshot for $25.00. Use white glue to keep it put in my freight cars. Still have about 5 lb left. Even gave a few lbs to my MR friends. Wonder if it's still being sold given that lead is considered to be such a hazmat these days. And if not what are hunters using for a substitute?

I have those exact tiles, except they are on my kitchen backsplash. For whatever reason, that pattern, and ONLY that pattern, are cheap, the other colors were a couple dollars more per square.
For cheap weight - I use pennies. Older ones are heavier. Probably do need something more dense for kits that come without weight, or scratchbuild cars, but for kits that come with weights but not quite enough, a few pennies brings it up to proper weight. A typical Branchline boxcar, for example, needs about 10 pennies. 2 stacks of 5 - I CA them together, then CA the stack on the centerline of the car near the factory weights (which are two large nuts). The covered hopper conversions I'm doing, from Accurail USRA 50t open hoppers, I glued a penny on each flat surface in each bay, combined witht he roof parts and changing the wheels out for metal ones, they are pretty close.

--Randy

If you have a Harbor freight store near you they still sell wheel wetghts!!!

Very clever solution Matt. Well done.
Mark

I use wheel balancing weights, the flat kind with double-sided foam sticky tape. All you gotta do is bamboozle your local tire store out of a few sticks...Offer to pay for them...Likely as not, they'll give them to you.
Determine how much additional weight you require, and cut the piece you need with some hefty wire cutters. A little weight scale will be needed to weigh the car to your specs.
I place them on the inside of box cars, properly centered, or on the bottom of "open" rolling stock.

When out walking keep my eyes open for tire weights. Used to be able to get throwaways from tire shops but new hazmat regs have stopped that. Have about 11 oz saved up now. Larger ones can be be cut up to lesser weights.

Hi guys,

Funny I didn't read your posts, but last weekend, I finally found wheel weights at local auto parts stores. I was surprised they still seel them, a few garage guys and other shops told me they didn't kept them in stock. I'll probably try to stock them up in the next week before they are phased out. One of the store was really glad to sell me their last box with a big discount, happy to get rid of lead.

Works really nicely I must admit. I added weight to over 13 cars in less than two hours.

Matt

I usually use spare washers and nuts. Back when you could get lucky and ask tire shops for them but I think they all get recycled for $$ now.