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Weighing Freight Car Models with Liquid Gravity

Andy Carlson
 

I would guess the mention of Titanium was a mistake, the intended metal perhaps Platinum, which is as heavy (Or heavier) than Tungsten.  Platinum, though, is incredably expensive, though its weigh rivals Tungsten and depleted Uranium. Go with Tungsten, or at least Tungsten Carbide. Titanium is a very light weight metal, which though useful for Nascar race engine valves, would be much lighter than steel for our need of a weight.

I bought a Russia surplus Titanium crow bar once. It was about half the weight of a steel rebar, and I made the joke that a titanium Russian crowbar was the USSR emergency release mechanism for a Russian fighter jet.
-Andy


From: Daniel A. Mitchell <danmitch@...>
To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2018 3:17 PM
Subject: Re: [RealSTMFC] Weighing Freight Car Models with Liquid Gravity

While tungsten is more expensive than lead, and may be harder to work with, it is definitely heavier for any given volume … nearly twice as heavy. I thus disagree with you that "If you have enough space for 1 oz of tungsten or titanium you will almost always have enough room for 1 oz of lead”. Just NOT true. You need only a bit more than half the volume of available space if you use tungsten. That’s often critical when trying to weight a flatcar or other "problem” rolling stock.

And, as for titanium … it’s relatively light and not at all suited as a weight. I mentioned it only as another difficult-to-machine metal. Both titanium and tungsten CAN be machined, but not with the tools usually available in home shops. For most, to use tungsten you need to buy it in a useable form.

Dan Mitchell
========== 

On Oct 29, 2018, at 5:42 PM, Jim Betz <jimbetz@...> wrote:

Dan/all,
  If you have enough space for 1 oz of tungsten or titanium you will almost always
have enough room for 1 oz of lead ... think about it.  How much weight do we -add-
to a freight car?  Two to 3 oz. TOPS.  Usually 1 to 1.5 ounces.
  I'm saying there is always room for enough lead.  There's probably enough
room for enough copper/brass!  I know some guys who use pennies for car
weights in their box cars - they say it is cheaper per oz than anything else.  ;-) 
  And it doesn't really matter what scale you are in - although adding weight
is probably physically harder in N-scale simply due to smaller spaces (but you
are adding less weight).
                                                                                           - Jim B. 



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