Many years ago, Chris Pendlenton did what you did, but he used celluloid, not phosphor bronze.

How does your weighting influence your new springs?

So far I've only put a peco track rubber, a white metal cab roof and a random lump of lead in the wagon body as weight, rather than fitted it neatly on the inside.  As is almost usual, weight helps things run well and this is no exception.  I need to do further experiments to find the ideal spring rate and weight combination however.  currently this is a very rough and ready prototype - that works though.

I'll have to research celluloid as I don't even know what it is (EDIT:  Springy Plastic, just looked))

.  Is Mr Pendleton's article available anywhere?  It'd  sure like to read it.

He mentioned it in MRJ no.6, I think, when discussing his methods of sprung suspension. That was back in 1986, and he had many of his engines running on rubber pad blocks. Subsequently he adopted individual single-wire leaf springs for his Peppercorn A1 (MRJ 28 and 29)

EDIT: I don't think Chris Pendlenton carried on with his celluloid experiments on wagons, though. If you read his later articles in MRJ, e.g. the one on mineral leading (MRJ 173, I think) you'll see that he uses the single-wire leaf method.

Weight's important, though, and your individual phos. bronze leaves would probably work better under a whitemetal or etched brass vehicle.

Many thanks for the info. I'll try to find some copies if possible. Would definetly be worth a read. Apart from finiahing this wagon totally, I think what would really be good is to do a second but with more consistancy and refinement. Considering this prototype works I feel I could make a good go of this. Getting the spring rates correct and even will take more faffing I think.

I've yet to make a white metal wagon as you suggest but my current usual is around 40grams of lead per wagon. I find that easy to achieve by stuffing shaped roofing lead inside the underframe.