Hello- I have obtained an old (1959) MDC Roundhouse reefer kit (HO), and the roof casting has a slight (but noticeable) warp. Is it possible to straighten this? I know better than to try bending it cold, but is it possible to heat the casting and then bend it? If so, could you give me some suggestions on how to actually accompli***his? Advice appreciated! Thanks- Richard W.
By “casting” do you mean made from white metal? Or Plastic. There can be a difference, white metal is probably not bendable.
Bob Boudreau
You might be able to straighten it, by working it very slowly and speading the bend out over the roof, but its iffy. I’ve coaxed castings into shape this way, and I’ve broken a few.
If it breaks, just get some scale lumber and make a new (better looking) roof!
The roof casting is a zinc alloy casting (zamac). Quite brittle. I once straightened a bent roof overhang (zamac again) on the cab of an old prewar Lionel 226E steamer by GENTLY heating the portion of the roof with a butane torch and then slowly bending the overhang between two small pieces of hardwood. It worked (of course this destroyed the paint there, but I was planning to repaint the entire superstructure casting anyway), but it could have gone the other way and cracked right off! In them present case the roof casting is small, and the required correction is slight- but it still needs to be corrected before I can assemble the car. Everything screws together in these old Roundhouse diecast kits, and if there is a warp things don’t go together!
Cheers- Richard W.
I understand your frustration because the old MDC metal kits can build up into pretty nice looking, and very solid and heavy, cars. My experience with the old Roundhouse metal kits is that the metal is quite brittle. Impurities in the zinc alloy were common then – I had entire truck assemblies of a Varney F3 just crumble into dust for example, and some of the Lionel from the 1930s is infamous for having the metal swell and crack. Before you try to straighten the roof part (and I am not sure how I would go about that other than placing it between two pieces of wood, put them in a large vise and VERY gently tighten the vise) snoop around and see what if any parts from Red Caboose,Tichy or other manufacturers match it or come close in plastic. If it breaks it breaks and since it was not usable anyway, you’d be looking at a replacement. Or you may find a replacement part that looks so good you don’t even bother.
I broke one of the half-sides to an old MDC steel boxcar and managed to file and cut a part from a busted up MDC or Athearn plastic car that made a reasonable match. Interestingly however, while I matched the paint and the lettering pretty good, plastic looks like plastic while metal looks like , metal. That is why the old metal kits still have a look to them that the best plastic simply cannot replicate – it is hard to explain, more sensed than seen.
Dave Nelson