I have been debating on checking and adjusting my freight cars to meet NMRA standard (suggested) weights for consistency if nothing else. Some are very light while others are more heavy. I began weighing some and using a WESTLEYSTEINER template to establish target weights. Pretty wide variation on how much is needed for each car. Some examples, in OZ., are .045, .46, .68 and .021. Has anyone else gone through this process and what are some good methods for adding weight? I have an old roll of lead tape for golf clubs, but it is too light (need a bunch to hit target) as well as some pine derby weights that are too heavy. Thank you in advance for your replies.... Chuck.
I use rolls of thin lead and I also use tungsten putty. I get my lead rolls off of Amazon where they are marketed as fishing supplies.
Glue BB's to the floor of the freight cars. You can use the inverted bottle cap from a water bottle on a postal scale to put them in to get the weight you need. Squeeze some Super Glue on the floor n the center of the car and pour the BB's out of the water cap into the glue in the car and JMO.
I agree with mtntrainman, I use the same method. The only difference I use is to put the car on the scale and start to pour the BBs in to get the right weight. I bought the bottle of BBs from Walmart, a lifetime supply and they come with a cap that you can trim so you can pour them out. After you put them stratigically in the car I use CA to glue them in.
Hi I use 1/4 ounce steel weights (about 7-ish grams per), that have double side tape on them. I buy on ebay, cheap. I think they are actually balancing weights for car or truck tires. In a box car, just pop off the body, or slip thru the door, and stick on the floor. For tank cars, I drill a hole in the bottom, squeeze some glue into the hole, and add BBs as TB and mtntrainman said. Then, I fill the hole with body putty or caulk. Touch up the paint, sometimes. For passenger cars, pull off the top, and there are lots of places to hide weights- sometimes I put in one or two steel weights, and sometimes BBs and glue. You can easily get into the correct NMRA weight range. For hoppers- either pop off the load and fill with BBs and glue, or steel weights, and then replace the "load". I have a number of really good covered hoppers which almost defy adding weight... no easy way in. For gondolas, I roll up lead tape and glue the rolls to the floor- looks like rolls of steel, or I cut up a bunch of lead tape and glue it in place. Cabooses- steel weights usually. Some cars, like flats- just make up a load with hidden weights. And, as you mentioned, there is a wide range of "as-received" weights. I made an excel spreadsheet that calculates the number of steel weights and/or BBs based on the starting weight. Just get a decent scale- like $10 on ebay.
A timely topic to be sure as I have just finished adding weights to the rest of my open hopper cars (the ones that have loads). I used a postal scale to weigh the cars. All of them were under the NMRA recommendation of .5 pounces + .15 oz for each inch of car length. Most weighed around .7 ounces with the manufacturers weight. I added weight in the form of 2 each .25oz auto wheel weights (the kind used to balance tires). That brought them up to 1-1.1 oz. I didn't bother to make them all exact. I bought a whole box of wheel weights from a PEP Boys tire store for about $20.00 several years ago (like 6-7 years). They are probably more expensive now. The weights are steel as lead is outlawed. They were a tad too wide. So, I had to grind them down with a bench grinder so they would fit inside the car. One thing I noticed that I didn't expect was that the dreaded MT coupler spring yoyo effect disappearred.
Before the Great Supply Chain Greedflation of 2022, I found that the least expensive way to add weight to house cars (boxcars, refrigerator cars) was using 1/4 x 20 nuts. One super-glued or "Gooed" (using Walthers Goo) over each truck gave me about what I wanted. Now, however a box of these is in Sticker Shock Territory. Those folks in Horribly Oversized have the option of just gluing pennies into their house cars. That's probably the cheapest method now. They don't quite fit into N Scale cars. I think it's more important to be consistent than to be exactly to NMRA standards.
Thank you all for the great ideas. I will try a few of these to see which works best for me, and combine some as well (BBs in putty to avoid CA glue for instance). I like the non-lead wheel weights and will look for some of them. I also thought about the Home Depot fastener suggestion but the price did make me a little nuts
I have one of those big jars of BB's mentioned above and have used putty or Aleen's Tacky Glue to add them into cars. Probably the easiest way I have done. Now, if you are not opposed to a little work with a Dremel in a recommended but not required outdoor space, you can go to just about any tire store and get all the used wheel balance weights you want for free. Cut to desired size and weight and tack them in. While I haven't added weight to a lot of my cars, that is something on the to do someday list. There are a lot of opinions abut what the weight should be and I'm in the over weighting the cars camp. Just seems they track better if the weight is a little more than what the NMRA recommendations are.
I weigh the cars and then glue cast bullets of the appropriate weight. As I shoot enough to justify reloading, I have these on hand.
In the empty ore cars, I fill them with a little Styrofoam and then put AZ Rock & Mineral ballast with some diluted glue and that are nicely weighted. On the cars that have a plastic load in place I pour whatever is handy inside the car, then dip the top of the load in an thin white glue, and press the top of the load into a container of AZ RM material and let dry, some loads take 2 dipping's, but in the end the loads look like realistic loads This is the Mauve roadbed ATSF used.
This may have already been said. There's a link you may want to pay attention to. https://www.nmra.org/sites/default/files/standards/sandrp/pdf/rp-20.1.pdf This will give you some idea of the weight needed. Here is a link that will put you in touch with the type of weights I like to use when adding weight to any train car. https://www.ebay.com/itm/235048839505?hash=item36ba00a951:g:MagAAOSwrlhkiMvv&amdata=enc:AQAIAAAAwDsUqvW Some of the best advice I was given is to properly weight your train cars. Not knowing what that is I set out through trial and error and came up with something close to NMRA's standard. There is a rather popular idea that you weight a car down until the wheels pop out and the car body sags. Not a good idea. The difficult thing to solve is how do you weight a empty gondola, coal car and or a flat car. Now, how do you get into a tank car. Oh it gets fun, believe me.
Don and of course everyone tuned in here. Postal scales are all basically the same. A package needs to weigh the same from it's shipping point to it's arrival. One of my favorite kinds of scales is this one: https://www.uline.com/BL_2224/Digital-Pocket-Scale These can be purchased on line or at a favorite hardware store. There are other types as well. So, help yourself. I hope that helps.
NtheBasement, good question. If you work with Micro-trains magnetic uncoupling systems you don't want weights that will react to the magnets. One way to find out take a magnet and some BB's, you should have your answer.
Harbor Freight has good/accurate and inexpensive digital scales perfect for our industry. As an example, here's one for $15 and weighs up to 1 lbs. They have bigger capacity ones too. https://www.harborfreight.com/digital-pocket-scale-93543.html
