Ho Weights


MoPac_Eagle

Well Known Member
I am trying to weight my cars to NMRA standards but I am running out of weights and don't know were to put them on some cars. I have already replaced couplers and I am working on the wheel upgrades.
 
The cheapest weights I've ever heard of people using are pennies glued together. Works on hoppers, boxcars, etc, not too good for flats or tank cars.
 
For flat cars try thin sticky wheel weights or glue small shot pellets on the bottom.
 
Go to an automobile tire store. Scour their parking lot front, back, and sides, you will find many weights. Newer ones nowadays are made of steel, so you cannot easily reshape them. Use these in boxcars.

If you find lead tire weights, you can melt them in a metal soup can set into a small backyard fire. (Safety glasses, long pants and sleeves, heavy duty gloves.) Make a mold out of almost anything, I used a piece of steel angle iron to make long triangular weights which go under logs.

Which cars are you having trouble with? Flat cars, tank cars, boxcar or reefer with non-operating doors?
 

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Go to an automobile tire store. Scour their parking lot front, back, and sides, you will find many weights. Newer ones nowadays are made of steel, so you cannot easily reshape them. Use these in boxcars.

If you find lead tire weights, you can melt them in a metal soup can set into a small backyard fire. (Safety glasses, long pants and sleeves, heavy duty gloves.) Make a mold out of almost anything, I used a piece of steel angle iron to make long triangular weights which go under logs.

Which cars are you having trouble with? Flat cars, tank cars, boxcar or reefer with non-operating doors?



Flat cars, tank cars, passenger cars, two-four bay covered hoppers, and ore cars.
 
For most general weighting purposes I use these:
1/2 oz.: https://www.harborfreight.com/1-2-half-oz-wheel-weights-67226.html
1/4 oz.: https://www.harborfreight.com/1-4-quarter-oz-wheel-weights-67225.html

They are small enough to fit inside a box car without any problem.
Weighting a tank car or hopper can be another issue. For those I use lead shot, such as shotgun shell reloaders use. Drill a small hole in the bottom and put in the desired amount. Sometimes an existing hole can be used. Fill the hole with a piece of styrene rod when done. Gently shake the car back and forth to distribute the weigh as evenly as possible. Once the car is on the layout it's pretty stable.
Flat cars can be weighted with a load, or perhaps use some lead shot in the recesses of the bottom of the car and hold it in place with epoxy or CA. Maybe a lead shot/epoxy mix? I've never tried that, though.
 
A good source of weights are lead vent pipe flashing. Its a foot square sheet of thin lead with a foot long 4" diameter pipe of lead soldered to the center. If you cut the pipe off, slit it up the side and flatten it, you end up with about 2 sq feet of 1/8" thick lead sheet.

DANGER : you have to be careful handling lead.

It can be cut with a utility knife or a pair of scissors. You can cut out shapes that look like the slope sheet of a hopper car and glue them with caulk to the inside slope sheets of a hopper. When painted the car color, they will be almost invisible. You can cut it in thin strips and insert them between the floor parts of a flat car or in the center sill. Another way to weight a flat car is to wrap sheet lead or solder around the axles of the trucks.

For house cars (enclosed cars) you can buy steel nuts or large nails and caulk them into the car for weight.
 
Go to an automobile tire store. Scour their parking lot front, back, and sides, you will find many weights. Newer ones nowadays are made of steel, so you cannot easily reshape them. Use these in boxcars.

If you find lead tire weights, you can melt them in a metal soup can set into a small backyard fire. (Safety glasses, long pants and sleeves, heavy duty gloves.) Make a mold out of almost anything, I used a piece of steel angle iron to make long triangular weights which go under logs.

Which cars are you having trouble with? Flat cars, tank cars, boxcar or reefer with non-operating doors?
I order a whole box off of ebay for cheap money
 



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