Hi everyone. Whats the best way to add weight to loco’s. I was at the locol hobby store and they are building a display in the store. The employee i was talking with said he had to add alot of weight to the loco to be able for it to pull the cars on the layout. The cars I have I was able to add weight to with not much problems when they didnt have quite enough. Just not sure on the engine. Thanks for any info.
I took a cut off tool to some old school automobile engine accessory brackets and made me a heavy piece of metal or two then taped them in. The right way has to be get some of them weighted plates from used damaged old equipment and add those.
Sean,
There are a lot of sources for weight. The first thing you need to do is get a good postal scale and weigh your cars/engines to find out what the weigh right now. You can use bb’s, auto tire weights, or stick-on weights for A-Line/Proto Power West.
For Cars - the NMRA has a good standard to start with. 1 oz of weight, plus 1/2 oz for each inch of car length. For example, a 40’ car is about 6" long. That works out to 1 oz + 3 oz = 4 oz total weight. The key is to get some kind of consistent standard.
For Engines - You have to consider the ‘stall’ motor current. You do not want to put so much weight in the engine that it can not ‘slip’ it’s wheels and burn out the motor. A good multi-meter that can measure 1/2 to 1 amp of DC current(non-DCC here) can be used to do this. Hold the engine down until the wheels stop slipping, and read the current on the meter. You do not want to exceed this. Just add weight until you reach the number you recorded. If you do not have a meter, you can try this as well. You want the engine to still ‘slip’ when pulling. Usually about 10-16 oz is a good weight for most diesel engines(HO scale). The key is to only add enough weight so the engine can still ‘slip’ when pulling. You do not want to burn out the motor.
Also. metal wheels will usually roll better, especially if you use a Micro-Mark or ReBoxx ‘Truck Tuner’ to ream out the journals in your freight cars.
Jim
I went to Gander Mountain and bought a 25 lb bag of shot and a large bottle of white glue and a digital scale and went to work. The shot is best for the top of the loco shells which is easier to fill in and for the rolling stock it will fit in almost any place or item you decide to fill or in a load.But follow the previous post and make sure the loco is capable to do its job. Jim.
A few additional thoughts. One very important factor when adding weight particularly to freight and passenger cars, but also to locomotives to some extent, is balance. It is surprisingly easy to introduce a vague list to starboard (or port) that often you fail to notice until the car is in service on the layout.
For steam locomotives, it is also important to avoid weighting the pilot or trailing wheels in ways that might actually reduce tractive effort. I recall a Model Railroader article that involved putting a steam locomotive (without tender) on a piece of snap track and finding the exact center spot by putting a pencil under the track and moving it around.
Like Jim B (above) I bought a digital “postal” scale, surprisingly cheap, and keep it on the workbench together with an enlarged copy which summarizes the NMRA weight standards for rolling stock (and some cheat sheet notes I took for how that translates into standard car lengths).
When I begin a kit one of the first things I do is weigh the parts before I begin construction. Often you need to know early on if weight needs to be added or, much more rare, removed. This can get tricky because often you do NOT want to remove small or very delicate parts from the sprue until just before you need the part. Sometimes I cut the sprues into smaller pieces so that I am not adding unneeded weight. For example the plastic grab irons on a P2K or Red Caboose kit.
Over the years I have tried to save just about every possible kind of weight I ran into, even washers and lug nuts and tire weights found on the road, weights from scrapped and discarded machines and household stuff like old electrical switches – or new electrical switches when they pop out the round connection ports. Those quarter sized discs of light steel are surprisingly handy at bringing a car up to exact weight. A major project such as a kitchen ren
I have gone to a hobby shop (can’t remember where, I think it was Caboose Hobbies) and bought some thin strips of lead. I measure the new strip, weigh it (on my postal scale), divide the weight by the measurement and that will give me the weight per inch of the strip. This lead can be cut either with scissors or a utility knife. I use CA glue to attach the weight. A good point has been mentioned here - - placement of the weight. I have some used peices of rolling stock that have a distinctive “list”; obvious need to move the weight.
There is a big difference between steam and diesel locos in this area. Diesels are obviously easier to add weight and don’t normally have problems on well designed layouts. Since you’re asking the question I am going to assume it is steam, especially since the others have addressed it more generally. If that’s the case you need to take it apart and see where there are voids in the boilier. Use lead strips, sinkers, shot, etc–whatever you can cut and work with to get into the various voids. There is also low temp lead you can try to mold. Keep in mind it’s only the weight on the drivers not the front or rear trucks that matter. I have had to add weight to the cab sometimes and have painted it/fashioned it to not look too badly.
Richard