Densest Building Materials

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

I use Andy Baker to build my drive trains. He's pretty dense

Andy is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings at a single bound -- look, up in the sky ....

Back to FTC ballast -- I recommend U.S. Pennies. You get 100 for only a dollar. They are 0.75 inch in diameter, 0.061 inch thick, and made almost entirely of zinc. A stack of 182 is just over 11 inches long and weighs about one pound.

If you have a bigger budget, try U.S. Nickels. They are slightly larger in diameter (0.835 inch) and made mostly of copper, which is denser than zinc. Their larger diameter and density means you only need a 7 inch stack (91 coins, or $4.55 worth) to make one pound of ballast. This is 2.5 times the cost of Penny ballast, at 1.282 times the density.