Making steel coils from an idea in MR

[Ralph]

The May 2009 issue of Model Railroader has a creative article by Bruce Dombey about easily making steel coils by rolling colored paper around a dowel stick. His turned out very well, especially after weathering. These can be made to any scale simply by adjusting the paper strip's width and the amount of paper rolled around the dowel. I've been meaning to give it a try and finally did this weekend. He found some realistic dark gun metal colored paper and also some brownish red (to represent coils with a light patina of rust). I found a lighter gray that looked OK for a first try. The strapping that keeps the coils together was made of 1/8 chart tape cut in half lengthwise. I lightly weathered my coils with brown artist chalk. Here is how they turned out next to a trio of commercially available coils...



They fit nicely in my coil cars and are a light load.



I'm going to keep practicing with different papers and try to roll the coils tighter. At $1.03 for two sheets of craft paper I think I can afford to make some more!
Ralph