And this is why I don't do kitbashing... Some help, if you'll pardon the rant...

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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Last Month, I got an itch to update a Spectrum George Washington Obs to 1948. Mostly, this entails removing the steps for battery boxes, a radio antennae, and a midtrain diaphragm on the obs car. Sounds easy, right? Sounds like a great place to start detailing? I thought so too,

Well, so last night I opened up the box the GW travels in to trim some coupler pins short. It’s a Dell software box, roughly like a pizzabox, but taller. Maybe I need more foam in it, but the cars fit 6 across and two sideways at the top, pluse the engien on one side, and hold each other pretty well in place. Rather unpleasnetly, I notice that the radio antennea is workings itself off the top of the car. These radios were a recatangle, running about 2/3s the leng\th, as opposed to the single line on the streamliners.

It was SUPERGLUED DOWN. nd not with any exuberent amounts of superglue, either. I do at least remeber being told not to use too much of the stuff.

So, I’m frustrated. I reach down to pick up the car, nd pull up the roof an interior, I snicker, and then notice something ELSE is missing. The diaphragm I glued on with AMBROID PROWELD is now underneath an observation car two cars over. Fortunately for me, it’s still in tact at least. Also Ambroided together. And if your having the same thoughts I think you are, the Spectrum obs is slanted back a bit. But I glued the diapram to the top of the carbody, below the roof and straght onto the tissue paper bunting, and above the little bump just above the coupler gear, as well as a spot of Proweld where the railing meets the diapragm, though it isn’t a lrge surface meet there, so I;m not too suprsed if that gave out. The rst of it should have been solid.

The final little bit, is that the bttery boxes stayed on. However, a replacement floor section I put in, plastic welded to the main Obs AND THE BATTERY BOX slips out and bounces along the ground. Easily found, but it shou

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This is one reason I switched scales[swg]

In my case Bigger IS Better, at least when it comes to kitbashing and scratchbuilding. Ever since I switched to G its been a bashers bliss, everything is easier to hold, glue, soldier, screw, or cut, even O is waaaay better than HO. The only down side being the lack of commercial detail parts in G but then its a lot easier to fabricate parts in close to 1/2" scale than the Nanotechnology tools needed to detail HO or god forbid… N ! [;)]

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Yep, it’s why I switched to S. Big enough to work with, small enough for a layout.

Bonus, you can see the trains as they run.

Enjoy

Paul

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i never kitbash NEVER!!!

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If you want stuff to stay together, you need to select the proper methods and materials to accomplish the task.

Solvent-type cements work only on plastics with which they are compatible - they won’t work on Delrin, Celcon, or other types of so-called engineering plastics. They also don’t work well on painted surfaces, and they don’t work well when joining styrene plastic to non-styrene materials, such as wood or metal. While they may tend to hold things together at first, only the styrene has been affected by the solvent, so the bond is weak.

Ca is good for joining dissimilar materials, but is much stronger where there’s also a mechanical connection. You can use it to stick a stirrup step onto a freight car and it will hold until it gets a slight bump, or you can drill holes, insert the legs of the step into them, then apply ca. The step will stay in place even when bumped hard enough to bend it.

Contrary to popular belief, ca does not stick to engineer plastics - it will help to hold such parts in place if there is a mechanical connection, but that’s only because it sticks to the other part, creating an interference fit. As far as I know, the only glue that works on such plastics is cyanopoxy. There’s some more info here CoolChem.

Some ca works well on porous materials, such as wood or paper, while others don’t. It will also stick styrene parts together, but not as well as a solvent-type cement nor as permanently.

Wood glues work well on most porous materials, and while they’ll also hold plastic ties in place on a plywood layout top, the bond is not especially strong - why do you think the glue comes in a plastic container?

Epoxies are also good for dissimilar materials, especially where the fit between parts is less than perfect, although it also benefits from a mechanical connection.

Contact ceme

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[:-^]

Well Koko, if you stay in the hobby at some point YOU WILL…

Johnboy out…[:D]

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Wayne: That is a lot of good information I wish Dad was here to explain. (sigh) The next question I guess I should ask then, is what kind of plastic the Spectrum cars are. Cause the mbroid liked the diagprams themselves well enough.