The thread on heat and rolling stock storage brought something to mind. I have been a model railroader on and off for almost thirty years now. (Wow…for some of you, you have no idea how hard that is to say…). But as with anything, one is never too old to learn something new.
I have a number of older cars (Athearn, MDC, Details West) cars that I put together years ago and still use. I had a couple which I recently had to get new underframes for. They were warping, bowing actually, and the first indication I noticed was that the coupler heights were out of whack on both ends and uncoupling under a load. I mentioned this at my LHS, and the first thing he asked me was if I had attached the weights to the floors using Walther’s Goo…which I had. He told me that over time, the solvents in Goo can cause plastic to warp, particularly if it is stored in warmer locations. I did not know this and had been doing it for years…Hmmm. It doesn’t happen all the time, but can occur. According to the LHS guy, Goo was really designed for attaching metal to wood for the older craftsman kits, when plastic models were not as prevalent.
Some folks may have known this, I did not. Just proving that your never too old to pick up a new tip.
To avoid that sort of problem (and since I’m not much for contact cements), I’ve been using silicone RTV bathtub caulk to hold down weights.
I’d tried using ACC, but the failure rate over time was too high- it dried too brittle. Plus, the stuff was just too expensive when weighting a large-ish fleet of rolling stock. RTV remains flexible and can absorb the stresses from the different expansion and contraction rates of dissimilar materials.
Lately, my weight material choice for boxcars, covered hoppers and any other car that has enough enclosed room has been pennies.
That’s a new one for me too! I haven’t used Goo in quite a while (my little rebellion against Walthers) but it’s good to ow there are hazards. I wonder if other similar adhesives like Duco cement will damage anything?
I too use pennies for weight inside HO cars. I stick the pennies down with double-stick foam tape. It’s quick and the pennies stay put very well. Plus it doesn’t hurt plastic.
You can get large rolls of double-stick foam tape at office supply stores for very cheap.
Sorry to say that “Duco Cement” has toluine in it and will eat and or warp plastic over a period of time too. The adhesive on double sided sticky tape will to or the adhesive will deteriorate and release. I use BB’s in hoppers ,tankers, and gons, and small split-shot sinkers in boxcars[:D] with just a few drops of zap and everything stays in place.
Oh great, now I have to try to remember what cars were glued with what!
I had no idea this could happen. I went to pennies a few years back, used everything from Goo to JB Weld to attach them. Sure wish I had kept better records on what I used for the factory supplied weight, tho.
Thanks for the heads up!
I forgot to mention that from now on, it’s double sided fom tape for me…
As for weights, I’ve found that tire dealers will give you some with the foam tape adhesive if you ask. After shelling out the several hundred bucks for a new set, I guess they figure it’s the least they can do. One of the guys at the club went down and asked to buy some and they gave him a two pound bag of the strips…gratis, with a few business cards to leave in the club.
For hoppers and tank cars I use BBs or junk bolts set in white glue.
I discovered this problem the hard way too. I built a couple of Red Caboose drop bottom gondolas about a year ago. On one of them the sides began warping severely and bowing inwards. I also noted the interior floor doesn’t have a flat spot left on it! I’m still trying to fix this car… funny thing is the other car seems fine, just some slight warping of the floor in a couple spots. I’m hoping it stays that way.
Now I’m wondering what will happen to all those Athearn/Stewart/Accurail coal hoppers I’ve built with the weights Goo’d in? From now on I’ll use RTV. It should do the job nicely and doesn’t smell so bad either.
D’oh! I’ve been using GOO to glue in pennies for weights inside my boxcars for years. And they’ve all been stored away in boxes for over six years since I moved here. Now I wonder what shape they’ll be in when I unpack!
I stopped using GOO when the first Walthers automobile racks came out. I follwed Walthers instructions and used GOO to glue the aluminum pieces to the sides of the cars. The pieces warped within about a month. Later versions of those kits contained a supplemental instruction explicitly stating not to use GOO.
I built one of the old wooden Piker kits about 20 years ago and I used GOO on that–it worked well.
So after reading all this about cars warping (a very bad thing, no want it to happen), is CA okay to use in cars? This is what I’ve used on a few cars for the factory weights, and now I want to glue some pennies inside a scratch built car for weight, and I definately don’t want to damage the car as I’ve worked hard on it.
Regular CA is too brittle to use to attach materials with different coefficients of thermal expansion. Gel type CA is okay. RTV is by far the cheapest solution. Epoxy is okay too. White or yellow glue works too. As does Aleene’s Tacky Glue - which is my preference.
i’m screwed then. before i realized that the undersides just snapped to the hopper or boxcar i would always glue the weight down, with Goo. now i have to be careful because where my trains are it can get to be over 100 degrees in that room. i’ll probably have warped cars then.