Putting A Real Coal Load in My Legacy PRR S-2 and TMCC T-1

I thought about it.  We have a rolling pin the kitchen that is very heavy and tough: made out of marble or granite or some rock.  The main reason I did not try it is that I did not want to face my wife if she caught me using it on coal.  I also was not sure it would work that well.  The coal proved dang difficult to crush up.  I really had to beat it a lot with a hammer and it was longer going than I would have thought.  The coal was easier to smash to tiny bits than, say, gravel would be, but only a little bit easier.  I had expected it to be much less difficult.

Lee;

I knew you would have a good answer!

I guess that's why we need lots of shelves, right?

Rod

Oh yes!  Shelves - I'm always adding shelves, and always out of shelves.

With Lee's luck, it could spontaneously combust!

And probably as a result of the very fine coal dust particles mixing with air as the locomotive is run, until a sufficient combustible mixture is formed for a random spark to ignite it. At which point Lee's layout is re-modeled by the blast wave, and his missile achieves low-earth orbit. (As do several locomotives!) 

I think Lee is going to stop posting if we keep wishing this kind of disaster on him.

'

Ok, while you guys are talking about shelves and spontaniously combusting locos, I went and tried this real looking coal load thing...I'm rehabbing my Altas Atlantic into new colors and wound up making a new tender top to better mimic a CB&Q tender, since she's now a CB&Q engine{they had Atlantics- just not exactly like this one}.

So, after some thought, I wound up hitting the play area where my son does his tonka truck digging...I dumped the remaining crushed gravel there after putting in a paver sidewalk...and scrounged up a handful of gravel, washed it off, and started eyeballing it for size. Taking tweezers, and most of the evening{ugh}, I carefully picked out the lil stuff and then wrapped the rest in an old hand towel and vented...hammered it smaller...then repicked thru it. I repeted this 2 more times to get to this.

I then started dropping in the pieces till it piled up enough to my liking, then followed that up with a 75% elmers glue to 25% water ratio {and added a few drops of black ink too to darken it all up} and drizzeled that over the pile. When dry I got this-

I finished{?} with a coat of solid black ink since the ink is thin and coats well as opposed to regular paint that will dull down the edges and blend things in due to its thicker nature. This porcess has a decent sheen to it too, but one could add a clear coat of any sheen they like over that.

Results-

...and yes, the tender isn't flat coated yet- I don't like applying decals over flat coats even with solv-a-set...never been too lucky with that approach.

Thoughts on the results?...I like it, though it could be heaped up a little more in the middle...

Looks good to me.  I'd probably get the ink all over everything, but as long as you're careful.

Oh, that coal bunker depth was built in at only 1/2 deep of the whole rise over the new tender top...so somewhere between 3/8" to 1/2" to fill...it was enough!

Now to go paint some drivers and leading/trailing wheels....

Ink is just like paint- use a brush to apply and thinner to clear up. The white ink I have is water based and water clean up, but water proof when dry. This black is technically caligraphy ink, and needed thinner to clean up.

I looks really nice.  Nice thinking about using the ink.

Thank you sir, the ink is thin but heavily pigmented so you don't loose the crisp details of the rocks...um...coal!