Greetings,
As years go by things sometimes go wrong, like a car hops the tracks and lands on the floor.
Stir ups brake off amongst other things.
Dents, scatches, etc.
What do you do to fix them?
Any helpful repair tips or stories?
Mark in Texas
I like the LOCTITE plastic epoxy good for abs fiberglass hardplastic pvc but the hardner has to be used lite or it gets hard fast
Well blondjock, if the damage isn’t too noticable, I just keep on running it. On a severely damaged car or engine, I usually strip any usable parts from it and store them in my large parts organizer. This would include trucks wheel sets, brake wheels, couplers, car weights, etc. The parts that are broken and arn’t too expensive to replace are put in “file 13”. The car body is saved in a box for future use for repairs of other cars or for scratch building projects and kit bashing. Something I learned a long time ago, is that when I buld a car kit or any kit as far as that goes, is to use a minmum amout of glue or no glue at all. For an example, window glazing in passenger cars-cabooses is held in place by a very small drop in a couple of corners for easy replacement later on or if an accident does occur, the small spots of glue give way before the windows break. In other words I do a lot of “tack” glueing. Of coarse, I do “glue” things together where strength is required. Some parts get no glue at all. If a brake wheel fits snugly enough, no glue, allowing it to pop out instead of breaking in an accident. I think you get the idea. Anyhow, thats how I do things. I quess you could say I start my accident repairs before it happens. Regards, Ken
I think half my fleet is missing stirrups and one of these days I am going to buy a bunch of the metal replacement ones that are much more prototypical and replace them.
What do i do…I do not change anything and just keep running it any cars that are severly damaged i stick on my RIP track
I haven’t had the pleasure of watching one of my trains take a dive and bounce around on the floor. [:D]
I handle it the way us Americans handle most of our accidents. I call a lawyer and try to find someone to sue. [;)][:D][;)]
So far, luckily, thia hasn’t happened.
But it it were to happen, I’d try to fix it.
If the damage wasn’t repairable, I’d strip it of the usable parts & toss the rest.
Gordon
Aren’t we smug[(-D] Remember Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people.
As far leaps of faith my cars have had their fair share. You cringe and look the way then slowly peak over your shoulder and see how bad it is.
If it still runs after youv’e picked the bulk of it from the floor, you sigh groan, shed a tear and declare “It’s just a character mark” and life goes on…
It would really depend on what hits the floor. I have not had this happen to me (yet), but I suppose if I lost a couple of locos I’d cry. [:(]
Now that you have me thinking about this (and thoroughly paranoid [:O][;)]), I’m wondering how practical it would be to scrounge up some thick carpet padding to lay on the floor under any potential trouble spots. There is one part of my layout that I have already pondered mounting a catch net on the side of the bench work – just in case.
I dropped a large scale Bachmann sidetank Porter on the floor (right after discovering that the steam dome was detachable from the boiler) knockin the boiler hold down screws out and busting some plastic parts and had to completely dis-assemble and re-assemble it, reglueing with CA broken plastic parts and retightening with loc-tite as a gap filler where the plastic screw mounts were stripped. Now it looks and runs fine, but now i ALWAYS pick it up by the cab!
Fergie,
So what yer sayin’ is once my layout is finished and the trains start rollin’ I can expect to experience a “jumper”.
I guess I should do track testing with a loco wrapped in foam rubber. [swg] My layout is in the garage with a concrete floor. OUCH!!
im sure ur time will come[B)]
I just do what any real railroad would do, pick it up, if it still runs and can fullfill its function than put it back into service untill it’s next visit tot the carshop. I recently discovered that the drawbars of my Wlathers stack cars can break a foot short of its destiantion so the middle car has a bit of a scared look but I managed to repair most damage as if it was realy involved in an accident. I’d rather wouldn’t have done that but that’s to late now.
I just keep runing them
DOGGY
I’m feeling a lot of man pain! owww![:0][B)][xx(][sigh][#oops]
I use pine trees and truss bridges as guard rails. Ever since I’ve leveled off tracks and taken steps to get rid of bumps I have only had minor derailments where the trains stayed on the layout.
If a handrail breaks off and can’t be glued back on, I mix up some rust colored paint and put a tiny bit on the break to cover the “plastic” look.
blondjocktx, I’ve used JB Weld on plastic for stripped screw holes worked great!
if it’s minor structual damage, weather it and put it back on the tracks. major damage, like a broke frame or trucks requires actual repairs and then can be put back on the tracks.
More realistic if some of your cars show evidence of some damge at some point, even real boxcars show spots where new Forklift drivers have managed to miss the doorways, as well as other dents and dings from yard crunches. some cars that derail are returned to service after a quick inspection of the safety and running gear, if they pass this, any obvious damage to the body are defered until overhaul time.
Jay
ussually if it doesn’t hurt it’s running capibility I reweather and keep it going. I recently broke a 57 reefer coupler pocket off and then purchased one from a train show which asl had a broken coupler pocket. I tried to to get new ones through athearns parts department but it seems they are not making them at the time. The person who took my call she would look around for one but if there isn’t one hopefully I can get my freind who is taking a metalsmith classin college to make me up one. Come to think of it it might be cool to have a metal underframe on the two broken cars.So should I give up on athearn and go with metal underframes for them or should I wait around for them to find one(which could be months). Any ideass could help.
Andy