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Untitled Coiled Steel Wire Load...
A gondola can haul just about anything, but one of the common loads seen on the Chessie System is coiled steel wire. This sort of steel is just thrown into a gondola (like this load). Coiled steel wire is used to make many products, including nails and braided wire.

How to:
1. Buy the Chooch Industries coiled steel wire load. Available at most hobby stores for around $5.
2. Cut the load to fit the gondola you are modeling. I had to cut 3 coils off the end to get it to fit in an Athearn 50' gondola. You can see the extra coils in the pics below. Paint the extras too, they will make nice details to add to your layout later.
3. Paint the whole thing engine black. I would dip the brush in paint and then quickly in water, so that the paint would easily run into all the grooves.
4. Dry brush paint the coils with reefer grey or any other medium grey color.
5. Dry brush the coils again, this time very lightly with white paint.
6. Spray the whole load with dull coat. Your coiled load is ready to be slid into a gondola and start running.

Below is the coil load right out of the box. It looks OK, but with a little weathering you can have a really good looking load.

Below is the load with the three extra coils cut off. I then used a Dremel tool to drill divits in each end. The coils are really hollow in the middle, so the divits add realism.

Below is the load painted black and ready for dry brushing.

Below is the load dry brushed and ready to get put in a gondola.

Below is one of my MofW WM gondolas temporarily standing in to model the finished load. It looks really accurate now and the whole project only took a few minutes.