I am in the process of making removable loads for a lot of my freight cars, and since I have quite a few Walthers woodchip gondolas (and a paper mill facility) I need to address these cars too. But what is the prototype size of woodchips normally used in a paper mill? When I look at different sources for how to build these loads I see everything from wood shavings (about 2 scale feet long) to fine saw dust. I need to empty my dust collector in the wood shop anyway, so this seems a perfect time to get the material I need! Should I be saving out fine dust only, or move up in size a little to roughly the size of HO scale ballast?
Size varies I have seen a lot of wood chips for sure. I don’t work in a paper mill but there is one in the town over from us. I have followed loads there out of the bush. And the stuff i see that seems to escape the reefer trailer they are in tend to be 1/32-1/16” thick and perhaps generally 1/2x1” in size.
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I should add to the previous reply that i have also seen much bigger chips perhaps better referred to as chunks. And it wouldn’t surprise me there could be quite a range of sizes acceptable to processing. One time i was working north of that town in the bush driving by a block that was being harvested for pulp as they weren’t cutting the trees (jack pines) that were all thin 2-4” diameter and spaced less then a foot apart but perhaps 30-40’ tall. They were going at them with was basically a wood chipper on tank treads. Making much coarser chips but still no bigger then 2” and perhaps up to 1/8” thick