Three years ago, I bought something called “Black Beauty” coal slag to use for live loads on my HO scale coal trains, from a company in Atlanta, GA called “Abrasive Depot”. But now when I go to the website listed on their label (www.abrasivedepot.com), the only thing that comes up is a search engine for business buyers/sellers in bulk.
Did this company merge with another, or did they just go out of business? In any case, I need some more of that granular coal slag which is perfectly-sized to simulate HO scale coal chunks. Who else sells this stuff at the consumer/retail level - anybody know?
I’ve already gone the Google Advanced Search route and gotten way too many hits of the wrong kind - for bulk vendors (who only sell in 25lb bags and larger), and a gazzillion description/application/specification sheets. No vendors who sell 5lb cannisters.
Allegheny - got any direct links to either of those two companies? I tried googling them and got the same large mass of irrelevant links I described above.
Look in your local phone book for sand blasting. If you only want a small amount they will probably give it to you. Or if you want a fifty pound bag they would sell you one. My company hired out a blasting and paint project on one of our gravel plants and they left behind about 300 pounds of the stuff. Looks like coal when glued. Too shiny when not glued. BTW they used 2 trailer loads in the blasting phase.
Thanks for the idea. I found 1 company in my area’s yellow pages that sells sandblasting supplies, they don’t have their own website so I’ll have to call them 1st thing tomorrow.
I’m sure there are plenty of other places to buy it as well other then bulk sites. You may want to try a search for media or abrasive blasting. as they call it by those names as well. Try the last link I think you can outfit a few coal trains with that.
A possible word of caution on this black beauty stuff. I know that it is not anyone’s intent to spill a live load on the rails, but you might want to be careful with this product. It appears to be re-cycled waste product derived from the burning of coal in a power plant. According to information contained in the following description, it may contain iron particles, which we all know are magnetic. See about half way down : http://www.nstcenter.com/writeup.aspx?title=Abrasive%20Blasting&page=TechResourcesAbrasiveBlasting.html
I don’t know exactly how much iron is in it, and it may be miniscule, but you might want to check with a magnet.