Wagon Weights

[Steve Cook]

Afternoon all

Is there a generally excepted standard to weight 2mm FS wagons to? I've had a look through my copy of the beginners guide and can't see it mentioned in there. I'm about to glue the roof onto my box van and it occurred to me that if I need to add weight, a few bits of lead secured with araldite will be best hidden inside the body.

TIA
Steve

 

[queensquare]

Hi Steve, I don't normally add any weight although, if I do, its a thin bit of lead strip under the floor, hidden by the sole bars. So you can stick the roof on safe in the knowledge that if at a later date you find a bit of extra weight necessary you can add it.

Jerry

 

[Chris Nevard]

Tyre shops can be a good source of used lead balance weights. Our independent one was only too keen for me to take a couple of handfuls away for free. Not all are lead though.

 

[Steve Cook]

Cheers Jerry - I'll go and stick the roof on then

Top tip Chris Most of them are probably the same size as a 2mm wagon though

 

[David Long]

Afternoon all

Is there a generally excepted standard to weight 2mm FS wagons to? I've had a look through my copy of the beginners guide and can't see it mentioned in there. I'm about to glue the roof onto my box van and it occurred to me that if I need to add weight, a few bits of lead secured with araldite will be best hidden inside the body.

TIA
Steve

Steve,

Just to prove that we don't do it all the same way, I do add weight to wagons although I'm not aware of a standard for 2mm Finescale and the small size can mean that there are limitations on what is possible anyway. For wagons such as Stephen Harris sixteen tonners which are all nickel silver I don't add anything as they come out at around a gramme anyway. For those with plastic bodies and nickel underframes I'll add a couple of small squares of lead sheet to take them to a little over a gramme. In the case of vans this is usually within the body but for opens it would be within the underframe. I tend to model more recent stock than Jerry and the underframe area can be filled with brake rigging and, hence, for vans it can be easier to put the weight in the body. For eight-shoe braked Highfits it can be a real challenge to work some bits of lead around vacuum cylinders, safety loops and other bits of brake actuation.
I guess that the object is not to have too much variation in weight between vehicles. This is reasonably easy as most construction methods tend to be a variation of those outlined above. Since the demise of Graham Hughes kits there has been very little use of white metal in 2mm scale and this would have been the method which, depending on vehicle size, could have added unwanted variation.

David

 

[Steve Cook]

Hi David
Thanks for the info, much appreciated
The wagon in question has enough room around the brake gear to get any weight in if needed, but should I attempt anything with 8 shoes ( ) I'll take your advice and drop some lead in the body.

Good to know the Stephen Harris 16t's are on the money weight wise, they are next up on my 2mm adventure

Steve

 

[daifly]

Steve,

Just to prove that we don't do it all the same way, I do add weight to wagons although I'm not aware of a standard for 2mm Finescale and the small size can mean that there are limitations on what is possible anyway. For wagons such as Stephen Harris sixteen tonners which are all nickel silver I don't add anything as they come out at around a gramme anyway. For those with plastic bodies and nickel underframes I'll add a couple of small squares of lead sheet to take them to a little over a gramme.

David

Are you sure you mean a gramme? That's about 1/28th of an ounce so that's about 450 wagons to the pound!

 

[David Long]

Are you sure you mean a gramme? That's about 1/28th of an ounce so that's about 450 wagons to the pound!

Many apologies, should learn to read my own scales . I should have said 10 grammes for the all nickel and a little over, around 12 grammes, for the plastic body with the nickel underframe. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

David

 

[SteveO]

Following on from this topic, why are scale wagon/coach weights not used? It seems many engines are scale over-powered so can't the trains be weighted proportionately?

 

[2mm Andy]

Probably because most model wagons aren't made from the same materials as the full size ones, and full size wagons don't have things like pin-point axles that models are fitted with. As others have mentioned above, consistency seems to be more important than precise values.

I'm not sure how you could 'convert' loco power into model form anyway - especially given that you're moving from steam/diesel power down to tiny electric motors in the majority of cases.

It just seems like a good way to make playing trains more complicated and less fun, but that's just my personal opinion!

Andy

 

[Tim Watson]

I would caution against any extra weight if you have gradients. We have some on CF, especially the NLR. I would say that etched kits (vans in particular) will generally be too heavy if you want to pull 20 or so up a hill: unless you have a P2 at the front. Re-wheeled current Farish steam loco models won’t pull a chicken off a nest.

Tim

 

[Wagonman]

Many apologies, should learn to read my own scales . I should have said 10 grammes for the all nickel and a little over, around 12 grammes, for the plastic body with the nickel underframe. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

David

Given that the recommended weight for 4mm scale wagons is 40-50g then your figure of 10g seems spot on for practical use even though 2mm scale is 1/16th the volume. Or am I talking bollocks?

 

[Rob R]

I thought it would be 1/8th volume as 2mm is 1/2 the scale of 4mm so it's 1/4 of the surface area and 1/8 the volume. (2 x 2 x 2 = 8)

Reducing from the 4mm figure of say 40g then we have 5 g.

Scaling it down from the real thing for 2mm (1/152) it's 1/3511808 of the volume . For a 20 tonne vehicle that works out about 5.7 g.

10 g seems near enuf in the real world......

Rob

 

[Wagonman]

Maths never was my strong suit!