Want to measure the pull of my engines.Any recommendations for a spring scale.
Tigger pull scale?
Or fish weighing scale
Thanks Devon. The trigger scale is good to 8lb, would that be high enough.
Louis Sommers said:
Thanks Devon. The trigger scale is good to 8lb, would that be high enough.
That was my concern as well. My guess is probably not. But you have to remember that 8 pounds of rolling resistance is would be very different than 8 pounds total weight. But that said 8 pounds may not be enough and that’s why I also suggested the fish scale. They make all sorts of fish scales. I am surprised others haven’t chimed in yet. The basic information needed is what would be the maximum pulling weight that would be expected. The you can find a scale to match. But my guess is a digital fish scale would work well.
Timney 1-25 this one goes from 1-25 pounds. I would think 25 pounds of rolling weight would cover it.
I was thinking a 20 lb might work.
Louis,
when you get one do a write up on what you find. I would be curious to see what kind of rolling weight you experience. All sorts of things come into play when dead weight becomes rolling weight. I would like to see what you come up with as you measure the pulling weight of locos and would also like to see data on the resistance weight of strings of cars, especially correlated to their dead weight. Would be interesting if not useful information.
Why not ask Kevin Strong or Stan Ames or Dave Goodson what they use to measure that, rather than try to recreate the wheel?
Rolling resistance is one thing, starting resistance is another. Consider that prototype rail roads on long freights would back the loco up in the yard to push the slack on the head end cars back in to the consist so that when starting they would be starting ‘one car at a time’ and using the momentum of each successive car to start the cars behind as the slack was taken out. I know some folks who like to replicate this with Kadees. As for weight, there is a vid of a USAT big boy with 150 or so hopper behind and the vid claims the train to be around 450 pounds. If you think that is off, try weighing a set of 4 steel wheels, you ,may be surprised at what metal wheels adds to a train.
FWIW
Bob C.
You might want to check this out. Chuck did a lot of work along these lines.
http://forums.mylargescale.com/21-rolling-stock/56202-weight-non-driving-wheels-pulling-power.html
Doc Watson
Steve Featherkile said:
Why not ask Kevin Strong or Stan Ames or Dave Goodson what they use to measure that, rather than try to recreate the wheel?
Isn’t that kinda what he was doing Steve by posing htis question here?(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif) but they didn’t chime in. And besides maybe I have a better wheel(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif). Just kidding. I was actually expecting someone to come in and say this is the way to do it. Thats usually what happens.
Don Watson said:
You might want to check this out. Chuck did a lot of work along these lines.
http://forums.mylargescale.com/21-rolling-stock/56202-weight-non-driving-wheels-pulling-power.html
Doc Watson
I forgot all about that thread and it was even in regard to one of my threads.
Cut me some slack, Devon. You kept me too busy on Facebook discussing primary election politics. 
I must admit to being woefully low-tech when measuring drawbar pull. I just use a kitchen scale that goes up to a little over 2.5 pounds. It’s rare that I have a loco which exceeds that. Most are 2 pounds or less. An 8-pound scale would be adequate.
If you wanted to go high-tech, there’s this one from Micro Mark:
http://www.micromark.com/digital-pull-meter,9577.html
Capacity of 11 pounds.
Later,
K
Wow that is a lot lower than I would have guessed. So a very generic trigger pull scale would work well.
and
(PS its a good discussion. Always nice to discuss differing opinions without getting bent out of shape about it.)
I thought the draw-bar pull was lower then what was being discussed. But that is why trains are efficient in the 1:1 world. It doesn’t take a lot of force to get one car rolling on level track.