Adding weight to Weaver cars

Stick on tire weights

If you have a Harbor Freight store near you, get the 1/2 oz wheel weights, 12 pieces for $9.99.

I have heard that others have stopped at tire stores and got weights for free.

RAY

This is what they look like.

I just use big washers, the largest that will fit. Also check your scrap boxes. Any flat steel can be used like old hinges.

Pete

Probably the cheapest way to add weight would be to use pennies and glue them in place with Walthers Goo.

Stick-on wheel weights for me.  Harbor Freight…or search on-line for buying in bulk.

I used BBs or shotgun shot in my hoppers held in the hopper discharge chutes with glue. Boxcars, anything flat that will fit over the truck kingpin.

If it’s hoppers your weighting and you are running them open. Get some lead shot and glue it in. Then just sprinkle and glue a bit of coal over it. They will be a bit showing but basically it will look empty. Not sure how they look. Scale City Design makes weights for the Weaver cars that conform to the body.

Weaver sold weights for the two bay coal hoppers.   The (2) weights install in the V-shape formed by the two belly hopper chutes.

Another vote for the stick on wheel weights. I get mine on Amazon and they come in both gray and black.

Curt

Stick on wheel weights - local NAPA store. If you live in the Northeast or CA, ask if they have any of the old lead ones (Discontinued - illegal to sell in these and other states - when they come off along highways, rainwater runoff from them harms birds and small animals). Often store managers (when told of their intended use) will sell them cheaply or give them to you as open boxes are not returnable to their distribution center.

@Ray of sunshine posted:

If you have a Harbor Freight store near you, get the 1/2 oz wheel weights, 12 pieces for $9.99.

I have heard that others have stopped at tire stores and got weights for free.

RAY

Checking the auction site that shall not be named, how about 9 lbs (1/4 oz each) of weights for 28 bucks. Sounds like a deal. Maybe cheaper than washers.

Pete

Norton may be on to something, Cheap is good.  I use whatever I have around and will never use... @Hot Water .... Including pennies.

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Any old thing you can find that's heavy.  I have used wheel weights, but I have to pay for those.  I happen to have about 40-45 pounds of these, so I use them.   Since they weren't all that good for their original purpose, and nobody wanted them, I just glue them into cars and engines for extra weight.

Note, when using the stick on weights, that glue doesnt hold too well after a few years. Add some walthers goo to those stick on weights for a longer lasting bond.

This is quite an appropriate subject for me. I recently bought some new Weaver cars, mostly box cars and several hoppers. While they look very nice, they don't go through the Gargraves and Ross switches very well. I do have quite a few All Nation and Reynolds kit cars with Lionel trucks and they perform much better. I wondered if the Weaver units needed more weight? Someone said I should get a postal scale and compare weights and then act accordingly. Since this topic has come up here, I would appreciate any advice on helping solve this problem. Thanks in advance

A while back i picked up pyramid shaped fishing weights at a going out of business sporting goods store.  They worked great in weaver boxcars and covered hoppers. 

@Bill Park posted:

Since this topic has come up here, I would appreciate any advice on helping solve this problem. Thanks in advance

You said it, add weight.  NMRA guidelines are five ounces plus one ounce for each inch in length for O-gauge cars.  For a 10" car, that's 15 ounces.

@Mike CT posted:

Weaver sold weights for the two bay coal hoppers.   The (2) weights install in the V-shape formed by the two belly hopper chutes.

On the left is the weight from the underside of a K-Line flat car.  Usually held in place with two screws/bolts.  On the right is a Weaver weight designed to fit in the two bay hopper.  John