Coal Load Clinic

[Anonymous]

I have seen a few clinics on the forums recently and i found them very helpful. So i thought I would contribute something of my own. I have made about 20 of these coal loads over the past few months and i got a bunch of new coal cars for christmas so i figured this would be a perfect time. Keep in mind you might not be happy with your first attempt, but with a little practice this method is very easy and yields great results

Materials:
Coal car ( i guess you could do this with gravel too)
1" foam padding you get very cheap at fabric stores
HO scale coal, I get it at my LHS its just real coal all ground up
Scissors
Wet Water ( water with a couple drops of dish soap)
50/50 (half elmers, half water)

The first thing you need to do is cut out a block of foamm a little bigger than the size of the car, That way you compress it and stuff it in the car for a tight seal.


The next thing to do is take your block of foam you have just cut and cut it into the rough shape of the load you want. It doesnt need to be very accurate so dont waste your time trying to make it pretty, the coal will smooth it out.


Next, spray paint the rough foam load black, this step isnt crucial so you dont have to do it, but it will allow you to use less coal to achive the desired affect.


PS- How do i make these darn pictures smaller?[B)]

Tommorows Post: putting on the coal

[darth9x9]

Hey Joe,

The pictures look fine to me but if you want to resize them, you will need some form of graphics editing program such as Paint Shop Pro or PhotoShop -OR- if you are good with HTML, you can hard code the picture size in the HTML. Am I speaking Greek????

[cacole]

I have found that the charcoal granules out of a used Brita water filter cartridge make excellent HO scale coal loads, too, and are free if you use a Brita water pitcher with the filter cartridges. Touchup with flat black paint is necessary, because the cartridges have something in them other than charcoal that is a light tan color, but is the same size as the charcoal granules. I use Apple brand Acrylic paint from the crafts section of Wal-mart and brush it on after the coal load has dried.

Using foam to form the base for a coal load is a great idea. I have been using balsa wood, which requires quite a bit more charcoal than the foam. Thanks for those pictures of the foam base idea.

[Virginian]

Nice work. You can shrink the pics using almost any picture program. I use Photoshop or VuePrint Pro, but there some free ones at Cnet. There's several ways to do it. I have come to favor cutting a sheet of single ply cardboard (like comes in new folded shirts) to fit the inside of the car and getting the rough shape using a wad of paper pulp on the cardboard. You can make the loads removable by lining the car first with plastic film (Glad Wrap) if you like. I agree with the black paint.
For putting stoker coal in loco tenders already having a "coal" load, I have found the best way is to paint the load using a thin coat of straight Elmer's and sprinkle on the stoker coal, because the straight Elmer's doesn't wick up into the new coal, and gives a nice even thin coating.

[Anonymous]

The foam loads can easily be cut out with an X-acto knife if needed, Then they will just press back into place with no glue

[Anonymous]

This post: Putting on the coal

You buy the coal in little bags, but i find it helpful to put it in an old kit box or something like that. Dont dump the coal on, just sprinkle it on with your fingers until you get the desired effect. Here is a picture of what it looks like with the coal sprinkled on before gluing.



Next is gluing. You will need wet water because 50/50 will not wick through the coal without it, it will just bead up and run off the car. I like to use an oral syringe to drip on the wet water, and then the glue.


Now lets wait for this to dry overnight.

Tommorrows post: Touch up and weathering

[Anonymous]

Oh, and i forgot to mention, keep in mind that there is foam underneath which is absorbant, be sure to completely saturate the coal with both wet water and glue.

[Anonymous]

Ok, this load looks pretty good. I dont see anywhere that needs touch-ups
















I figured out that each load like this in HO scale costs about $0.30. Now compare that to the inferior loads you buy at hobby shops for up to $3.00 each. This simple, and better looking load is 10X less expensive than a store bought load! and you can fit it in any car!

Next post: Weathering