I have a turntable & roundhouse scene I purchased use from an estate sale long ago.
Turntable:
The turntable is a Diamond Scale 134 footer that may need a new pit built for it as the old one is very slightly warped, and the pit wall is cracked in a few places. I believe the pit wall is constructed of Hydrocal. How might someone go about filling in (bonding?) those cracks in the pit walls?
Roundhouse:
The roundhouse is a Korber kit that a few cracked wall sections that need reglueing. The broken sections fit together very good, but need a proper reglue. What type of material are those walls made of, and what might be the best adhesive to use??
I have a Korber roundhouse from the 90s and it is made of a resin type of plastic. I kitbashed my roundhouse to extend the stalls from 15” to 19½” deep. I used super glue and it has done very well over the years. I’ve overhauled it twice and the super glue has held very good.
I bought a second 104 kit to increase the wall length to 19½”. I needed the extra depth to accommodate my Southern Pacific Cab Forwards.
Any AC should be hold very nicely. The Korber Roundhouse is very nice!!!
Can’t help with the turntable, my turntable is a 135’ CMR Kit.
Thanks Mel,
I usually go to superglues as a last resort, as they leave a visible sign of use (shiny spot?) . I use to really like that Tenax 7 adhesive, but I don’t think that would work on this resin kit,…that I thought might be plastic at first.
I think I am going to have to get rid of the ‘composite board pit’ of the original Diamond Scale and replace it with a thick plywood or ‘foamed PVC’. Then I think I will make the pit walls out of a thinner strip of bendable plastic or that same ‘foamed PVC’. get rid of the hydrocal pit wall.
PS: I’m real happen that I discovered that I have almost all the ‘pieces’ of this roundhouse, rather than going out searching for some new kit. Its going to be a bit of a challenge to get it all back together as even the roof sections are warped (and likely in need of replacement), but in the end it is a nice kit.
I built a Diamond Scale turntable for a friend, and while it turned out well, the pit was out-of-round, and required quite a bit of sanding to allow full rotation of the bridge.
I also have a Korber roundhouse, but with only five stalls, all of them shortened. While it eventually turned out okay, it was a bit of a job to build.
I ended-up assembling it with screws and epoxy, and discarded all of the kit-supplied material for the roof. I also discarded the doors, replacing them with ones from Grandt Line.
Here are a few pictures…
There’s a thread HERE which shows the entire sequence of construction.
If you are careful super glue gel works very good without any gloss/glue showing. The only problems I’ve had using the gel is it takes about 2 minutes to cure.
Wayne
Your Korber looks to have plastic inner beam structure, mine came with Basswood, about 1995.
A question, do the Grandit Line doors fit the openings as is. I’m kicking around replacing the doors on mine. I went to automated doors a couple of years ago using an Arduino driving servos and it has become more of a hassle than it was worth. I used the micro G7 servos mounted above the doors. Too many problems controlling the servos and I don’t like having to operate them manually using a switch. I haven’t closed them since a visitor wanted to see them work months ago.
I have some small scraps of the walls that were warped slightly and laying them on a flat surface I straightened them using a hairdryer. If that doesn’t work out you could make a mold using a good frame then pour a resin casting. I made a rear wall casting that way for another structure.
I don’t recall exactly when I bought the Korber Roundhouse (Hobbies For Men - Beacon, NY.), but it was before I built the house in which I’m living (1988). I’d guess mid-to late '70s. It came with basswood framing, too.
While I enjoyed build a real house using wood, it’s not been a favourite of mine for model building since styrene sheets, strip, and shapes became readily available. I gave the wood to a friend who still uses it for model building.
Mel, as best I recall, the doors were pretty-much useable as they came. If they needed any alterations, it would have been something very basic, like trimming the height or width.
Each door comes as two pieces, the inner and outer faces, which each have half-hinge mouldings on one edge.
When the two halves are cemented together, they create a number of hinges into which a piece of suitably-sized wire can be inserted , to act as the pivot for the door. Here’s a photo…
I used phosphor-bronze wire, bending the bottom end as a short “L”, the base of which was ca’d into a hole drilled into the exterior face of the wall. After threading each door onto its hinge wire, I formed eyelets from the same wire, slipped one onto the top of each hinge wire, and ca’d them into the wall, as shown in the photo.
I haven’t had much time to work on the layout, but I’ll eventually add posts between the doors, with a place to hitch the doors in an open position, as was done on this ex-Vollmer roundhouse, now one of the shop buildings at Lowbanks
I have some small scraps of the walls that were warped slightly and laying them on a flat surface I straightened them using a hairdryer. If that doesn’t work out you could make a mold using a good frame then pour a resin casting. I made a rear wall casting that way for another structure.
Interesting comments about warpage. The owner of Korber suggested putting parts in the oven, but didn’t metion a tempature. I wonder how easily these parts could be damaged by heat?? I do also have a good heat gun, but I am inexperienced in using this new unit that was given to me.
Wayne,… I like the way you built it on a plastic base sheet. I think I want to try and do something like that so I can pick the whole structure up and off the layout, in order to work in those areas.
Making the floor an integral part of the structure made it a lot easier to handle, without fear of breakage, and it did a lot of travelling between workshop and layout during construction.
I don’t recall exactly what I was up to with it in this position, sitting on its rear wall…
…and building the roof and its support structure was a real seat-of-the-pants operation, as front-to-back and stall-width measurements were all over the place, due in part to the kit components, and even moreso to my construction methods…
The roof and its support framing is removeable as a unit - handy if I ever want to detail the interior, I guess…
I’d think a heat gun would work. Of course, if the heat was concentrated for too long in one spot it might cause damage. Placing the item under a pieces of glass, preferably 1/4 inch scrap glass that a glass shop might have (get the edges polished) would likely be enough weight to flatten the wall as it heats up and would tend to spread out the heat.
I originally built my roundhouse as a single unit back in 1991 along with a scratch built turntable. The turntable while it looked good had mechanical problems. I replaced the Mel scratch built in 2000 with a CMR Kit and it wasn’t until 2007 before everything was installed and working.
1991
I built the Korber/CMR roundhouse and turntable as a one piece unit. I didn’t think it would be possible to do the install on my layout as two separate units. It is huge but it went off perfect first try (53” x 30”). I have removed the assembly twice since the 2007 install for modifications and everything went very good both times.
2007 install
Everything is attached to ¼” plywood, surprisingly the slight flex in the plywood doesn’t ding anything while moving it around. Sure makes it ea
I got delayed with this project with a number of home projects,…but in the meantime I was thinking of alternative repairs.
I am now firmly convinced that I will build a new pit and pit walls using cellar PVC (also known as foamed PVC). Its basically a light weight version of solid sheet PVC. I really like this material. I’ll document this rebuild with photos. I need to retrieve my router so I can cut real accurate disc of PVC and big hole in plywood deck to accept the new pit structure.
I have a five stall Korber Roundhouse #104 and I believe the walls are resin casting. I went with regular super glue when I assembled it back in the early 90s. I did a kitbash to lengthen the depth of the stalls to accommodate my Rivarossi Cab Forwards. I cut the side and rear walls to add length using a second 104 kit, T used super glue and now 25 or so years later it’s still a solid structure.
