As usual with these questions, I searched the forums, and although we may have done the topic I couldn't find the threads (founds lots of other cool threads, but not painting model steel coils).Assembled a set of Walthers sheet steel coils. Even with sanding there were some gaps in the kits which needed to be filled, so I ended up priming the coils in a neutral gray primer to mask the putty color.Since there are many types of steel, with varying colors - lets say reasonably shiny galvanized sheet steel, more toward the light grey spectrum. The main goal is not to just blast the coils with Testors Chrome- Silver and Dullcoat, rending the results too much like Tyco Brown Box coil car refugees.There are a few blog mentions out there, often containing with the "...then I painted the coils..." - just great, painted them what colors, you yokel? One tip I did found was paint the coil ends black prior to painting them (final coat color not stated, of course), seems to be a form of pre-shading which sounds interesting. Other tips are appreciated.Models would be viewed under "natural light" fluorescents, which I realize can affect visuals. Strapping will likely be mimiced via Sharpying the molded on straps, although if I can find thin enough black pin-striping...
Chutton01,
I used the Chooch cast resin coils, the ones that lay flat. I painted them with Tamiya flat Aluminum paint for I wanted them to represent Aluminum sheet. The molded on straps, I painted also with Tamiya paint, but semi-gloss black and a little Red square on each strap, to represent the strap tie clips. The heavy duty skids are scratch built with Northeastern stripwood. The trailers are old Ulrich flatbeds with modified dolly legs. The coils are also loaded on Flat cars heavily braced that are shipped to My Transload facility and off loaded to trucks....still works in progress:
I was going to use 1/16 black pin-stripe tape, but the molded on straps, plus the tape, made them look too thick....so I painted them.
For a new steel look...take a look at Tamiya Metallic Grey, Acrylic #XF 56. It's the color of the building, in the second pick.
Take Care!
Frank
Frank, the Tamiya Metallic Grey looks pretty plausible to mem certainly a reasonable suggestion.ndbprr: After reading your post, I searched around again. I did find some images of wrapped steel coils (here, within a box trailer - looks like the ends are not wrapped, and the coils are shipped 'horizontal eye', in addition to the eye being oriented along the length axis of the trailer. Here's another image, no wrapping on the coils (maybe a transparent plastic wrap? Looks like bare metal to me) and their eyes along the length of the trailer. Looks like having the coil upright with it's eye horizontal makes for an easy tie-down process.Also saw some images of the trailer loads exposed with the coil eyes perpendicular to the long axis of the trailer. That way would be easy for modified lift trucks like this one to unload the coils. Then again, there might be a good reason NOT to orient the coils that way...I dunno dude, looks like lots of examples of steel coils loaded eye horizontal, without paper wrapping - indeed the Wathers package image for these coils shows just such loading - then again, it shows the coil car loaded w/ 6 small coils and 2 large coils - one small coil is 4ft width x 6ft OD, which given it's steel is approx. 23 tons. I think 8 such coils would readily exceed the load limit of said coil car.
I should have mentioned, that when I owned My own trucks..I hauled a few coil loads and bar steel, flat sheet steel, out of the US Steel plant in Gary,In. None of the coils or the bar steel was wrapped. We had to tarp them and put on our own chain binders, usually one chain per 3,000lb's of weight, upwards of sometimes 10 chains were used on a single coil. Most all of the Aluminum coils were loaded flat, mainly due to being thin and the continued bouncing from the trailer would bow them if not layed flat. I even hauled some steel wire coils, that were 3/4'' thick rods for making bolts, they were just banded together, all rusty looking, didn't have to tarp those. They were unloaded/loaded with a fork truck like in one of the pic's. The single coils, were loaded/unloaded with a 200ton crane, just too heavy for a forklift. Hauling steel is very hard work and takes a big toll on Your equipment.....lumber is a lot easier and priced about the same for hauling by truck. Three coil loads per day...would net the truck about a 1,000, if nothing went wrong, which usually always did.
Good Luck in Your project!
BTW: I would rather haul this: A 1/14 scale RC Tractor/Trailer.
Zstripe: I read somewhere of a person using black electrical tape to depict the tie clips. What a great pair of photos!
Given that they can't get shipped in the open, how to realistically replicate them on the layout? I'm glad that I didn't put them on an open gon.
Well, if you watch any live cams on the NS (such as on Railstream), you'll see unit trains of coils, in the open. Some times you can even see coils on regular gons.
I have a coil train, a combo of coil cars, covered and uncovered, and old gons, but for whatever reason, Photobucket is not playing nice this morning, so I can't post any pictures.
Mike
My You Tube
When I lived in NW Indiana back in the late 70's, I used to see unwrapped steel coils on gondolas, about 4 or 5 to a car. I have also seen single coils, unwrapped, on semi trailers. I believe I've seen these loads in a similar manner in other parts of the country as well. Maybe some steel loads are used for more "clean" purposes, which requires that they are not exposed to the elements(?)
As for paint, I would paint them a dull silver, then weather with a rust color, using either paint washes or powders.
National Steel used to ship hot rolled coils (the tarrif description was "slab breakdowns for conversion") in open gondolas to their Granite City Illinois plant for finish rolling. These were not wrapped or banded and looked to be the color of any unfinished steel. They moved in a unit train on an almost daily basis and I believe they came out of Burns Harbor Indiana.
Evidently the Burns Harbor mill was not equipped to do the final finnish rolling work that was done at Granite City.
Charlie
Out my way in the West, steel coils shipped in open cars were a common sight.
Western Pacific (later UP) used these gons for hauling coils, and they were always in the open like this. Note the uncovered coil load in the car at left also. Image from http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/other_cars/wp_cars/wp_type/index.htm .
Rob Spangler
I wonder if the general practice was to ship the coils uncovered if they required further rolling and the finnished coils moved in covered cars on their way to stamping plants etc.
By the way, Line O Tape makes a 1/32" pin striping tape that works out to about 2.75 " wide in HO scale. I use it a lot to represent steel banding.
Photoshop let me in, so here's a couple pics. The coils are cut from wood dowels, the hardest part was drilling a hole in the dead center. I used a razor saw to scribe the "layers", I painted the ends with Modelmaster "steel", their stainless steel color works good too, I wrapped a layer of duct tape around the coil, ( there are different shades of grey tap, as I didn't want any wood grain showing),and used a fine point black marker to add on the banding.
Just recently, I discovered a 1/64" wide tape used by finger nail artist, which I'm going to use as banding on future steel loads. I put together a 15 car train, most are old gons, along with a few coil cars.
Mike.