"Improved" Wolverine Mechanical Coal Loader and Hafner Windup Train

Very cool Dave. I have the large Wolverine crane.

Steve

Oh that's beautiful!  I gotta keep my eye open for one of them.  Thanks for the different angles showing how it works.

Ingenious system. And neat to use and watch. I may have to watch out for one (although it seems I may have some competition!)

Wow, that is really neat.  It so cool to see something that's relatively simple yet still so cool.  

Thanks for posting,
John. 

I have "improved" my Wolverine Automatic coal Loader by making an insert that fits in the bin so that more marbles can be loaded.  Nine marbles are enough to fill up my Hafner gondola.

David

That is way cool.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wolverine-Tin-Toy-Antique-Vintage-Coal-Loader-/330919002105?pt=Vintage_Antique_Toys_US&hash=item4d0c4f3ff9

Bruce

David, that is truly wonderful.  My layout *needs* one!  :-)

Two questions, if I may.  Why the home made bin?  What happens if you just fill the original bin with, say, twenty marbles?  There looks to be enough space.  Do they jam?

When you start the unloading, you move the arm away from the bin.  Could you not just move the arm against the bin, so releasing the first marble?

Thanks, Graeme

Graeme, I have learned a lot about how marbles jam and yes, if you put more than 4 marbles(they will line up in a single row) in the original mechanism, the marbles will jam or cause multiple marbles to spill out.  The mechanism that I developed allows the bottom 4 marbles to line up as normal and then there will be a second row above that allows an additional row.  By adding additional row floors, you could keep adding marbles but I feel that loading 9 is enough.  The loader was originally designed for 4 large marbles and the mechanism I developed also narrows the channel so that smaller marbles could be used.

Yes, you could also start the loading by pushing the arm against the trip mechanism so that the first marble will load.

I have purchased 3 of these Wolverine Automatic Coal Loader in the past couple of years off of Ebay.  they don't appear very often, but if you keep at it you might find one at a reasonable price.  I paid about $25 - $35 for each of them.

Kids love to play with this mechanism(sometimes more than playing with the trains).

Thanks David.  That is extremely useful, and I will keep watching eBay.  However, I think I may have competition now :-)

Graeme

That is so simple yet so cool.

David,

Have you tried smaller marbles?

In mine, 5/8" marbles are not heavy enough to make the swinging arm rotate completely. I have to use 3/4" marbles.

Any suggestions?

I can definitely find some room for that!  Very cool!

David,

If you are interested in selling an insert, I would like to buy one. Otherwise, I'm going to have look for some yellow plastic.

David, thank you for sharing this and for making the movie.  The sound of the coal loader in operation is particularly evocative for me: I was brought upon another Wolverine toy, the Panama Pile Driver, which dates from a little earlier than your coal loader, around 1914 - and has a similar operating concept and makes a similar racket.  It was my dad's, and it was only brought out when we set up the trains, so to my mind it is part of the tinplate train set-up.  So I particularly like the way you have incorporated your loader into an operating accessory for the layout.

I hope you don't mind if I append a video of the Wolverine pile driver to your thread, this will keep the Wolverine toys on the same thread for anyone searching for them in the future.   I would suggest viewing this full-screen, and maybe also turn up your volume, I didn't realize how softly I was speaking until I played back the clips.

Again thank you David for starting this thread and bringing this to our attention; after all this time I never knew about the coal loader.

- dave

Doc, I use 11/16" marbles, anything less and the arm doesn't rotate completely like you said.  I do know that if you tape a small weight like a washer or nut to either side of the arm pivot point you can change the speed that the arm swings.  So perhaps you could experiment with adding weight in different areas of the arm and see if 5/8" marbles will work.  Also, make sure that the arm pivot and "gears" are well lubricated

Here is the plan I came up with that will allow 8 - 3/4" marbles to be loaded into the Wolverine Automatic Coal Loader.

David,

Thanks for the plans. I tried using weights and it makes the loader work a lot better with less weight. I'm going to pick up some magnets at Harbor Freight tomorrow and do some fine tuning.