GRAPHITE CLUB

Remember all your school pencils that had HB stamped on them? Ever wondered what HB stands for? Well, it’s a classification system for the hardness or blackness of a pencil. A 9H pencil has a really hard graphite/clay mix, giving a very faint line, whereas a 9B is a soft mix, which creates a dark line. An HB sits firmly in the middle of the scale. Why am I talking about pencils? Well, a 9B pencil can be used on rolling stock to give a coal or coal dust effect. Many model locomotives have moulded coal loads, and rubbing a 9B pencil over this plastic coal in several directions will give it a much more realistic coal-like appearance than the plain black plastic. You can also run a 9B over the bunker, tender and wagon sides to simulate the coal dust that collects on surfaces. Running a 9B pencil around the inside and floor of an empty coal wagon gives a really convincing ‘just used’ effect.