a small diversion - making silver ingots and bars ( no - not of the real metal!)

[peterbunce]

Hi,

Alas I am no alchemist, but as I model Colorado before 1893 when the US Government stopped the silver standard for their currency, thus plunging the economic performance of Colorado into a very sharp decline, I wanted some silver bars - which are a collection of various metals, partially smelted, and with other metals, and some pure silver ingots, to be used for senic items for the depot or such.

As I suspected the final result was going to be small, as the real thing was both heavy and valuable.

So I fiddled about and used up some scrap from my capacious collection and made some multi metal (not fully smelted for the individual metals) bars ? very like pig iron in general detail, on the much smaller silver ingots.

The bars are in 5 bar units and are 29mm long: a piece of PVC solid foam board 5mm wide and 3mm thick makes the base, and a bit of scrap tube for the curved shape on top. Glued together, with some filler in the ends of the tube, and at the join of the two bits, then they are painted a good silver color.

The (pure) silver ingots, being more valuable and heavier are much smaller , at a whisker over 11mm long and being 4 x 5mm in section, slope the ends and stack them up with glue; when dry paint them. I think the sides were sloped but I did not add that as it seems to be very slight, though would have made them easier to remove from their sand molds.

Here are some photos with a ?Fine Folks? figure ? who is absent from his normal location as boss of my Steam Donkey guarding them, and providing a comparison.

The bars are 29mm square the height of the 5 sets of bars each of 5 bars each, is 23mm high; the ingots are 15mm square, and 40mm and 25mm high respectively.

Quite easy to make but a bit of a time consuming exercise! Still to make are some sacks of the crushed, but not yet smelted ore - I have not worked out a size for the sacks which it is suggested, could weigh up to 200lbs.

Here are some photos of the bars and ingots

a view of both with a scale ruler for size.

a slightly higher view, the figure is a scale 5.5 feet tall, and well built - he has been taken away from his location as boss of my steam donkey. Hence the spanner, but it would be useful for any thieves! He is one of the Fine Folks range. which are at
http://www.warriorrunlocoworks.com/finefolk.php

now the opposite a lower level view - the filler at the end of the tubes (2.5mm diameter) needs some more adding; that will be done!
I may also add some more to the somewhat small pile, there is a photo in the Denver Public Library digital collection that has the caption '65 tons of silver' - that has in excess of 400 bars as the main subject! A bit much that I think :-

Yours Peter.

 

[trammayo]

An unusual lineside subject and they look good too. You'll be needing a guard or two to keep them secure!

 

[C&S]

The ingots on the left look rather like code 100 (or possibly code 125) rail scraps mounted on a length of styrene strip. Perhaps a quicker method if you need any more? At all events an unusual addition to the scene.

 

[steven large]

tht is nice figure so hw much does it cost to uk for shipping?

 

[pugwash]

Interestingly (well, to some) lead bars look much the same as the silver ones, in fact when cast they are the same colour only going grey as the outer oxidises to a dark grey. The contour is also the same but the lead had a sloped 'C' shape at one end to attach them to the mini crane which lowered them into the smelter to cast type. Afterwards the type was melted again and poured into the moulds to make new pigs of lead (elven safety would go mad today), so anybody modelling a G scale printers take note.

 

[tramcar trev]

Ooooooooh very nice.... I like your method too. Had I been doing this because I do everything the hard way I'd have farted around made a silicone rubber mould and cast them using solder.... KISS always works....

 

[tramcar trev]

You'll be needing a guard or two to keep them secure!

And being from the "Cowboy" era he would be heavily armed too....

 

[peterbunce]

tht is nice figure so hw much does it cost to uk for shipping?

Hi Steven,

Don't know how much as he was bought with others a while ago now; I suggest a quick e-mail to Warrior Run, the website is at

http://www.warriorrunlocoworks.com/finefolk.php < Link To http://www.warriorrunloco...nefolk.php

and there is a 'contact' page shown .

I think he is 'engineer bill' if you link your e-mail to the 1st picture central figure that will make sure. He is quite a large figure - here he is with many others in a photo from MLS, being the unpainted figure.

The US Mail have a small packet system now that is quite good.

Yours Peter

 

[peterbunce]

Hi C&S,

I haven't any rail and the crossection would be wrong anyway: from photos at Denver Public Library and some in my books there were several designs - I think each smelter had their own; the easy description id ears at the ends to allow them to be picked up by, and the a cross section that is tapered again to release them easil;y from their moulds, to assist in that another way the top section is virtual;ly a semicircular section.

With that I made the eared section from my favourite board and I have a continuous supply of small tube, left when the cleaning done with cotton buds is discarded what you have left ios a very nice thought short piece of plastic tube - its very useful for all sorts of things! NOT from the 'posh' ones - you want the cheaper ones that have the tubes in various colours.

They gained another use in these silver bars - cut a piece with sloped ends, glue it on the base piece; fill the ends (twice to allow for filler shrinkage) with filler, I generally use window frame sealer where no stress is to be given to the assembly - its a £1.00 a cartridge tube and last quite a while.

Also fill the edges, and when OK paint them; the edge join them in fives and make your stack of silver bars.

Interestingly silver in the rock as ore is a dark colour, not the light silver colour that is more well known; that come from refining it after crushing, first smelting, and the final smelting by experts to get pure silver ingots.

Both the bars and the ingots are heavy - so much so that when they were loaded into boxcars the were stacked over the bogie pivots as they were the strongest places in the boxcars, and not a large number in each boxcar for the same reason.

Yours peter.