Replacing Coal with Real Coal

[Sir TophamHatt]

Has anyone done this? Is the new coal glued in?

 

I was thinking of doing it as we have an open fire so get real coal fairly frequently.  Would the spray of Copydex/Water I'll use for ballast be good to use?  While I don't want to ruin the loco, I can't imagine going back to the plastic that is currently used.

[Richard Lee]

I use slightly diluted PVA wood glue (which is called "white glue" in America, I believe), and when dry, paint it with a little very diluted PVA (water with enough PVA to give it a white colour as if it had about 10% milk) to avoid loose pieces coming off.

 

When I do coal wagons I put a few layers of corrugated cardboard in first, to fill up most of the space.  It is worth painting the top layer black before adding coal, in case of gaps in the real coal.

 

The hardest part is usually finding a suitable bit of rag to wrap the bit of coal in prior to hitting it with a hammer to get it into fragments.

Edited February 9, 2017 by Richard Lee

[jasp]

Put smallish bits of coal in a can and bash with a bit of metal bar.

Works for me.

Jim

[Killybegs]

Line the tender with cling film then fill with Das modelling clay to suitable level and shape. When dry, remove clink film, apply generous layer of PVA and drop in coal, finishing with a little coal dust. Shake off surplus when dry. 

[66C]

Don't forget to seal the coal with PVA or varnish to prevent it gradually oxidising.

 

Regards.

[beast66606]

Consider buying a set of sieves so you can put the crushed coal through them and grade it according to size, you can use the small stuff for the front of the tender where the fireman has broken it up prior to throwing it in the firebox.

 

Quite often you can simply put a fine layer of real coal on top of an existing moulding, possibly filed down a bit so the coal doesn't defy gravity.

 

As has been suggested if you are making coal wagons, "fill" the wagon first to a reasonable depth so you don't use lots of coal and make the wagon very heavy - personally I used plasticard off cuts, cut to the size of the floor and mounted on small "legs" but lots of choices there.

[Killybegs]

Don't forget to seal the coal with PVA or varnish to prevent it gradually oxidising.

 

Regards.

 

Not heard that before. I have coal that has been in tenders for getting on for 30 years and it shows no signs of degrading. Perhaps it depends on the quality of the coal!

[Mike Storey]

If it is just a thin layer (on top of packing, or on the ground) I have just used cheap hair spray, which both fixes and seals it, and it also retains some gloss, which it does not usually with PVA. Depends what end effect you want.

[DCB]

House coal oxidises noticeably, I use Antracite grains in our central heating so for tenders, coal wagons, the ground around the coal depot etc  I use Antracite Grains gently crushed with a sledge hammer and kept in plastic tupperware style boxes which the Chinese take away came in.  For complete realism I grade the coal with my wifes discarded cooking seives and tip into the tender and or wagons.  Otherwise do as suggested above and stick it in. I use UHU not all that successfully.   Be careful if you cut out the moulded coal load as many older tenders had very odd shaped coal spaces almost designed to test the fireman's athleticism presumably in the quest for minimum coal consumption.

Edited February 9, 2017 by DavidCBroad

[KalKat]

 

Antracite Grains gently crushed with a sledge hammer........

[The Johnster]

 

Bloke up our local pub used to be a fitter for Pullman's at Maindy in Cardiff, and tells the story of the new, young, keen, academically qualified but inexperienced boss who was watching him delicately beating, sorry, I mean drifting, something into place with a hammer.  The hammer was a shiny brand new one with screw-on replaceable nylon heads, and every few hits, my friend 'adjusted' the head by turning it slightly.  He managed to convince the guy that he was using an adjustable hammer on which you could alter the the strength of the blow in this way for finer work...

 

You want one, now, don't you!

Edited February 9, 2017 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

I wish rtr manufacturers would model steam locos with empty bunkers; not all locos ran with full bunkers of perfectly screened coal all the time and I would like to have the choice of how my bunkers are loaded.  Might cause some issues with tender drive, but I don't like tender drive and have no tender locos anyway so I don't have to worry about it.  Real locos were often low on coal at the end of their duties, and it looks wrong to have a loco arriving after a long journey at a terminus with a full tender bunker.  Plastic coal looks horribly plastic anyway, in bunkers or as loads in wagons.  

 

IMHO the best model coal is real coal crushed down to a suitable size, the size being about 3 or 4mm in 00 for a biggish lump but including everything smaller down to dust for locos especially in the late steam era.  Sheds prioritised the best coal for the toughest duties, usually the expresses and fast freights, with everyone else having to take pot luck and experienced firemen bribing the coaling plant staff with ciggies.  

 

Wagon loads could be of lumps of whatever size the screens at the colliery were set for, and given that they offered coal for sale to both industry and for household use in various forms and sizes (remember cobbles, and nutty slack), coal in block trains should probably be of a size, while a string of part unloaded wagons at the staithes in the sidings might have coal that looked noticeably different from wagon to wagon, sorted into different looking piles for bagging by the traders.  This is something that is easy enough to reproduce on a model, and offers the satisfaction if you are modelling a specific location at a specific period of researching the correct sort of coal that should be in your wagons and telling everybody at an exhibition what a smart%@s* you are...  

 

For instance, household coal looks quite angular and rock-like, with some quite shiny faceting, compared to the dull matt of finely screened power station coal for mgr traffic.  Yorkshire coal is distinctly duller in colour than Welsh, and some Kent coal is almost grey.   In the 70s, a lot of power station coal was imported from East Germany or Poland, and this had a slight brownish tinge and was very fine and dusty, but Didcot could and did burn it and it was cheap.

[The Johnster]

House coal oxidises noticeably, I use Antracite grains in our central heating so for tenders, coal wagons, the ground around the coal depot etc  I use Antracite Grains gently crushed with a sledge hammer and kept in plastic tupperware style boxes which the Chinese take away came in.  For complete realism I grade the coal with my wifes discarded cooking seives and tip into the tender and or wagons.  Otherwise do as suggested above and stick it in. I use UHU not all that successfully.   Be careful if you cut out the moulded coal load as many older tenders had very odd shaped coal spaces almost designed to test the fireman's athleticism presumably in the quest for minimum coal consumption.

Does your wife know she's discarded the cooking sieves before or after you've contaminated them with anthracite?

[PhilH]

Being a coffee snob I grind my own beans prior to barista-ing. Before I acquired a burr mill grinder I had a blade type, a bit like a mini food processor. It has become one of the most useful tools I have for modelling, breaking down coal, ash, even to make powder paint finer for weathering purposes, you soon learn the amount of time needed to size material appropriately.

 

Wouldn't like to be without it now.

[Londontram]

Bloke up our local pub used to be a fitter for Pullman's at Maindy in Cardiff, and tells the story of the new, young, keen, academically qualified but inexperienced boss who was watching him delicately beating, sorry, I mean drifting, something into place with a hammer.  The hammer was a shiny brand new one with screw-on replaceable nylon heads, and every few hits, my friend 'adjusted' the head by turning it slightly.  He managed to convince the guy that he was using an adjustable hammer on which you could alter the the strength of the blow in this way for finer work...

 

You want one, now, don't you!

Can you get them left handed as well as right hand?

[beast66606]

Can you get them left handed as well as right hand?

 

Yes, but you need a long stand to go with them

[bourneagain]

Yes, but you need a long stand to go with them

Together with a long weight!!

Can you get them left handed as well as right hand?

I think that only applies to screwdrivers!!

[lofty1966]

Need to be able to hang them on the sky hooks though.

[Roy Langridge]

I once sent one of our apprentices to get a spirit level that we used on a radar tracker calibrated. He was convinced it was a wind-up and refused to start with.

 

Roy

Edited February 9, 2017 by Roy Langridge

[philsandy]

Together with a long weight!!

I think that only applies to screwdrivers!!

 

Need to be able to hang them on the sky hooks though.

 

Two of my favourites:

 

A tin of striped paint.

and a glass magnet,  very handy for picking up fine fragments of broken glazing.

[jonny777]

I use slightly diluted PVA wood glue (which is called "white glue" in America, I believe), and when dry, paint it with a little very diluted PVA (water with enough PVA to give it a white colour as if it had about 10% milk) to avoid loose pieces coming off.

 

When I do coal wagons I put a few layers of corrugated cardboard in first, to fill up most of the space.  It is worth painting the top layer black before adding coal, in case of gaps in the real coal.

 

The hardest part is usually finding a suitable bit of rag to wrap the bit of coal in prior to hitting it with a hammer to get it into fragments.

 

I just put a few small pieces of coal into an old jiffy bag; lay it on the garage floor, then hit the bag with a hammer.

[Killybegs]

I wish rtr manufacturers would model steam locos with empty bunkers; not all locos ran with full bunkers of perfectly screened coal all the time and I would like to have the choice of how my bunkers are loaded.  Might cause some issues with tender drive, but I don't like tender drive and have no tender locos anyway so I don't have to worry about it.  Real locos were often low on coal at the end of their duties, and it looks wrong to have a loco arriving after a long journey at a terminus with a full tender bunker.  Plastic coal looks horribly plastic anyway, in bunkers or as loads in wagons.  

 

 

 

 

You have to remember that most of the people who buy RTR are quite happy with what they get and wouldn't want to be faffing about putting in coal. Some manufacturers do, from time to time, design tenders with removable moulded plastic coal, Bachmann's 9F for example. 

[The Johnster]

You have to remember that most of the people who buy RTR are quite happy with what they get and wouldn't want to be faffing about putting in coal. Some manufacturers do, from time to time, design tenders with removable moulded plastic coal, Bachmann's 9F for example. 

 

Be nice to have the choice, though, wouldn't it?  Baccy 9F is probably the best approach, much better than the old Airfix Dean Goods which had a very unlikely pile of coal in it's tender to hide the motor, then showed the gears sticking out below the frames!

[John Tomlinson]

Consider buying a set of sieves so you can put the crushed coal through them and grade it according to size, you can use the small stuff for the front of the tender where the fireman has broken it up prior to throwing it in the firebox.

 

Quite often you can simply put a fine layer of real coal on top of an existing moulding, possibly filed down a bit so the coal doesn't defy gravity.

 

As has been suggested if you are making coal wagons, "fill" the wagon first to a reasonable depth so you don't use lots of coal and make the wagon very heavy - personally I used plasticard off cuts, cut to the size of the floor and mounted on small "legs" but lots of choices there.

A lazy answer to this for wagons is to use the mouldings produced by Parkside Dundas, and then coat the top with PVA onto which you sprinkle your chosen grade of coal. When dropped in the wagon there is usually enough space at one end  to get a thin screwdriver so the load can be removed, giving the option for any given wagon of running loaded or empty.

 

The mouldings are a few pence and can often be bought in bulk from their stand at Shows.

 

John.

[tomparryharry]

If I want real coal, I collect the dust off our loco coal pile. 10 minutes work gives me a carrier bag full, which is just enough to see my life out, I guess!

 

To pack it up, I use some foam which came with a telly we brought some time back. This is cut very lightly oversize, to compress into the body. The top get 'shaped', to look as if it's been trimmed. Then, a good coating of PVA, and a good handful of dust. Leave for a little while, say a minute, and then shake the wagon over the bag. This seems to work just fine.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Ian