Tim,
Aqua-pure that was the brand I couldn’t remember the name of.
I have been gathering chunks of coal around here since I was a kid. When I used to have a job taking coal samples to the lab to be tested, I would gather up some of the discarded crushed coal to use in my modeling. The crushed coal is too fine for use in large scale. So I broke up the larger bits I had to make my loads. I put the bits of coal into a bucket, dropped a large round river rock into the bucket and swirled it around for a while. Then I used hardware cloth to strain the coal for different sizes. I think real coal looks a lot like real coal, and it didn’t cost me anything but time.
David Maynard said:
I think real coal looks a lot like real coal, and it didn’t cost me anything but time.
I don’t know, I think there are far better things out there to simulate the look of real coal better than using real coal…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif)…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Devon, could be, probably, maybe, possibly, I am not sure.
David Maynard said:
Devon, could be, probably, maybe, possibly, I am not sure.
(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
“This is the dawning of the age of aquariums!”
(Sorry)
There is, of course, coal and coal.
However, it seems to me to depend on what shipment or use the coal load is destined for as to how it should look. My coal loads, described in the first post of this thread, are assumed to be a finer, not large lumps type of coal destined for energy plant unloading points (off stage and not featured in my back yard). But for tenders and locomotive coal loading facilities a ‘lump’ type of coal, I believe, is required and should look more prototypical. It is this ‘lumpy’ type of coal which is best made from real coal in my view. I have used real coal as an experiment - I have a good supply in a bunker here - it was used in an earlier project which was with real coal glued to polystyrene as an alternative to the plastic model coal. I did not find it longer term durable it also seemed a little heavier a load than I preferred. This ‘heavier feature’ would not be of consequence with one or two loaded cars but five or more cars would have some noticeable load to be hauled. Hopefully, this ‘lumpy’ coal will feature on the tender of the ten wheeler when it is done.