Hello I been working on my scrap load what do you think? Not sure if looks like scrap or blocks of tinfoil.
Thanks frank
Nice idea for a homemade load. I’d weather them down a bit , rust etc. Take the shine off them. Good though. [8D]
Hello Frank,
I’ve done the same thing…worked out well and saved me a bunch of money too. After I made mine,I then spray painted the cubes with Krylon {box car red} primer.Then splash painted all sorts of colors on the crushed cube scrap.
I’ve thought about making a special jig ,just for making these scrap cubes. I made mine with a pair of pliers,mini anvil and a hammer.Should be easier with a jig though.
Looks like a nice scrap load,keep up the good work!!!
OBTW…If you keep making them ,my steel mill would have another supplier.LOL. Just can’t seem to keep enough scrap around to feed the EAF and BOF.
Regards…
Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp {DRSC}
Hello I used 3/4 socket with 3/8 drive and 6’’ extension and tinfoil from the dinner leftovers. I did get the idea for the socket from here can’t remember from which member but thanks it was fast and easy to do. I will look for some rust paint and try that. I have to more gons I want to fill . may not be enough for your steel mill but its a start.[:)] Thanks Frank
Use sweeties! I’ve made mine from different colors. I think, my blocks are still too big.
Wolfgang
This is not a new idea; I first encountered it in one of those ‘One Evening Project’ features back in the '70s and perhaps even in the '60s. It requires a little bit of work to make this look like scrap as opposed to blocks of tin/aluminum foil.
One thing that I once encountered on a layout tour was that the modeler in this case had taken some colored foil available at craft stores and had either laminated some of this back to back with plain foil and then pressed it into a block or he had laminated small strips of regular foil onto the colored foil and then pressed it into a block. This gave the impression of crumpled automobile. I suppose that one could brush paint onto the blocks once formed but either way you should overspray or brush something giving everything the texture of rust.
One must keep in mind that if one is theorizing that this scrap is automobiles then we are dealing with a weight of about one and a half tons per block and if one is carting this around in 100t gondolas then that is going to be about 66 blocks. As heavy as one thinks an automobile to be 66 blocks in a gondola might just put the center of gravity too high and therefore the car can, in reality, only be partially loaded.
Hello I was not thinking of old autos or auto parts but more of a sheet metal? Maybe from a stamping plant or a small metal shop. Or would that be loose in the gon ? Thanks frank
Try painting the tin foil before you shape it. Just randomly spritz both sides with some flat spray paint first. You can add rust and weathering later if it needs it.
try a light spray of Dull Cote
To make my version of these look more realistic, I make a wash out of water thinned acrylic paints and just dump my bales into the mixture as I make them. Then I pull them out and let them dry. I usually use blacks, burnt umbers, greys to make this grimy mixture. When they are dry you can add some other colors and or some rust to complete the look. The grime gets into the indentations to add some depth and texture to the bales and you also lose the shine.
I am going to use soda cans for crushed autos. Would that work?
Guys,A bright load could be a load of crushed aluminum as well…I have seen several loads of bright crushed aluminum.
Ty,Not sure if pop cans would work…Could though.
If you try this method let us know how it turns out.
Most aluminium I have seen from scrap yards, have already been melted downand cast in to large ingots - perhaps 18"x18"x24" or 12"x18"x36", since they weigh more than a block of crushed aluminium of the same size, and lifting handles molded into them, at the time of casting.
Got any pics please?
Do they ride in gons or boxcars because of their value? (I guess that if they weigh enough nobody will stroll off with them…
TIA
[8D]
Shoot you have me there.
I just happen to see the biggest local scrap facility in town, melting them into ingots, and ran across some pic’s on the web, last winter, while reaserching home foundry set ups. The caption of the pics, said that the foundries that specialized in recycleing Al, prefer the ingots to cubes of misc crushed Al. The artical mentioned, they are easier to handle, and there is less slag for a given amount of Al than with a cube of crushed misc pieces.
I believe they would use a gon, since they use a crane to load them.
I might be able to get some pic’s of the yard, and the rails that enter them, but, it is up to the yard if they are going to give permision for me to take the pics of their opperation.
First paint the foil. Lots of different colors. With whatever spray bombs are handy. And if it’s supposed to be ferrous scrap, put a lot of rust brown on it.
Then shred it, as randomly as possible. As I recall, the MR article I vaguely remember on the subject suggested an old blender; not having a blender around the house (much less one I’d want to render unsuitable for kitchen service), I went out and bought one of those hand-cranked nut-chopper gizmos, with the hopper on top and a glass jar on the bottom. It worked, after a fashion.
THEN crumple it up and either throw it into a gondola loose, or press it into bales. You might also want to treat the finished bales (or loose load) with your favorite ballast bonding adhesive (if a loose load, you’d want to line the gondola with something that will keep the load from permanently gluing itself into the car).
A little paint and you have a winner…Cox 47
I wait for the holiday colored Hershey Kisses to come out, then use the colored wrappers for a scrap load. The fall colors from Halloween are a good approximation of rusty metal after some weathering. The downside is that I gain weight.
With the right dulling and tinting it could be stainless steel or nickel alloys, as processed here:
KL
One of my customers out on the Island of Long has a facility that recycles lots of aluminum scrap. Until a few years ago, most of it was as you thought - shredded, crushed, into a cube and stacked for shipment. He now has an on site smelter and melts the aluminum into ingots which also addresses the problem of surface coatings and other contaminents. The ingots have a rough texture to their surface so a coarse plaster with lots of sand in it would do in HO with paint to suit. Ingot size IIRC was about 1’ x 2’ x 6" or there abouts and probably varies with different brand smelters. He doesn’t do steel, but the folks down the street do and the cars come out as the multi colored cubes (and some light rust would be appropriate). The big stuff gets cut up and put in gondolas. J.R.