Been thinking about how to add some weight to some of my recent locos to improve track contact especially with the Dapol 0-6-0 chassis and wondered what is the best thing to use.  My feeling is it needs to be something mouldable to squeeze into those unused cavities etc and would welcome suggestions on what to use and the pros and cons of lead versus titanium tungsten etc.

   

When I was in my local model shop I noticed a "new" product from Deluxe who make the various card glues like Rockit. I've never tried it but it just might be useful for those little spaces. It's not cheap though. It's called Liquid Gravity.

http://www.gaugemaster.com/item_details.asp?code=DLBD-38

With a google search you might find it a bit cheaper.

Interesting idea
Density
Lead 11.35 g/cm3
Titanium is only 4.35 g/cm3
Gold 19.32 g/cm3
Copper 8.96g cm3
Silver 10.5 g/cm3
Osmium 22.6g/cm3

I thought Tungsten at 19.35 and pretty inert might be good but at £80 for 10g powder perhaps not

Titanium looks a bit light weight to me what we need is a dense inert powder to mix perhaps with resin or glue

Is lead considered to toxic these days as an old Chemist we laugh at these things at least until we die?

Seriously Silver might be worth a shot, soft and easily worked reuse that old spoon for a good purpose

 

Beware of Liquid Lead fixed in place with PVA glue, apparently it expands and can cause the loco body to split.

I don't have personal experience of this but have seen dire warnings on other forums.

Regards

Veronica

Here is a link to one of the discussions

http://www.modelrailforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=23653

Quote from: rhysapthomas on January 07, 2014, 07:52:09 PM

Titanium looks a bit light weight to me what we need is a dense inert powder to mix perhaps with resin or glue

  My bad, meant Tungsten not Titanium, I blame it on the red wine we had with dinner. 

Thanks for the suggestions so far. 

Tungsten is the usual choice but I think blocks might be cheaper than powder (still not cheap at all)

Dont know about the actual weight because I have never weighed it but I have used solder as a weight on a loco which needed extra weight over one of the driving axles. I simply coiled and squeezed it into position, no application of heat and held it in position with a spot of UHU.
Elmo

Gold looks quite promising from the numbers too. 

I once posted a thread about this very subject because I had found on Ebay some sticky backed weight tape that was originally designed for golf clubs.

When stuck under or inside a wagon it appears to be effective.

http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=13558.msg136748#msg136748

Regards, Peter.

Some more warnings about the fatal combination of lead, PVA glue and loco bodies  http://www.mremag.com/news/bulletin.asp

Regards

Veronica

Quote from: Jack on January 07, 2014, 07:40:35 PM
When I was in my local model shop I noticed a "new" product from Deluxe who make the various card glues like Rockit. I've never tried it but it just might be useful for those little spaces. It's not cheap though. It's called Liquid Gravity.

http://www.gaugemaster.com/item_details.asp?code=DLBD-38

With a google search you might find it a bit cheaper.

Ive used it quite a bit sinse I spotted it a while back. Its good.....pour it into a space and dribble PVA over it and that's the job done. Once or twice I overloaded a wagon slightly  and now find that some locos struggle to pull it. P&P charges are fairly high but the effects worth it