After watching things like Ameican Loggers and it's like, and thinking back to articles on pulpwood in Model Railroader, Railroad ModelCraftsman, and the ole Railroad Modeler, I was under the impression that pulpwood was cut to length and shipped to the end user after the bark was removed.
Some years ago I started to make a load for my Ambroid 1 in 5000 pulpwood cars using wood matchsticks cut to length. Mostly Ohio Blue Tips, but also a bit of Safety Matches. Ran into two problems. First was that assembling loads for a 65' car was not quite as much fun as building the car (mostly small size Northeastern milled basswood shapes), and the glue I was using caused a warping of the block as it dried (didn't have CA at the time-hd to use cellulose glue, specifically Duco. Thought the Amber color of Ambroid would show up).
In my youthful enthusiasm, I bought two kits. Each is a two-in-one kit. That means 4 cars total. In 41 years, I have only completed one car, sans load.
With the possible exception of the paneling behind the mountain...
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Lee, congratulations on being published!!
This scene is so well done it could pass for the real thing.
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
Back again.
Talked to a forrester today. He said any size can be used for pulp wood, so whatever size trees are in your modeled area would work for diameter.
Have fun,
thank you all It is something to do this winter
Without getting the calipers out, I would cut them to fit the car. I've got two styles of pulp cars, these are stacked side by side, so the cuts are roughly 4' long, the diameters might be a little heavy, but it's N scale, so it matches wide wheel treads and big couplers!
If you have some sticks that are larger, go ahead and "split" them. That adds some texture.
Just remember to make the wood stacked on the pile look like it would have fit in the flat car in the first place!
Leave your 'box of sticks' set in the house for several weeks before cutting them to size. They will be less likely to warp after loaded on the cars.
I don't recall seeing much pulpwood over 1' in diameter, something about 1/8". Also, most pulpwood is cut 4' long. Old forrest specialty trees for wide boards could be much larger, some of the big redwoods in CA are huge from what I hear. Kind of depends on where you are modeling. I'd say here in the Northeast 3' through would be a pretty good size tree, that would be about 7/16" in HO. I'd say 1/16" to 3/8" would be the most likely sizes.
Good luck,
just want out cleaned up the yard and get a box of sticks to make some log loads pulp wood and logs for a lumber mill. how thick should the sticks be for this kind of loads for a ho load. how long should they be