I found a new locamotive I really like. It has a warped front railing fresh out of the factory so I didn’t buy it.
Do you guys have any tricks or a safe way to straighten a bent railing perhaps with heat somehow. It’s a typical plastic railing that comes standard on most locomotives.
It’s an Intermountain and I would really like to add it to my roster but only if I can safely fix the railing.
Your experiences with posible solutions or any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Since this is a new, unpurchased locomotive, I would approach them directly, providing stock number, where you intend to purchase it from, what’s wrong with it as a new model, still unsold, and ask if they have spare parts such as handrails available. They may send you what you need, because most importers (they’re not manufacturers, everything is made in China) usually have returned merchandise they can only cannibalize for making repairs.
Would it be worth 10 minutes to warm it with a proximal soldering iron tip and then applying pressure to get it to straighten at least somewhat? I believe it would alter it’s shape if sufficiently warmed, very carefully of course, and a wooden dowel, maybe notched to retain the warmed handrail, could be raised a bit, pushed, whatever, maybe both, and the item will hopefully be greatly improved once it cools.
A swap could work David. Often times I see junk loco’s on eBay or train shows for cheap. And I don’t think painting a two tone railing would be that hard to match.
Thanks for the link to the old thread Rich. That was very informative and I’m guessing Delrin is a type of plastic I can further research. I got a bit of a smile on my face at first, then I bummed out when I seen Brakie’s replies. I miss good ol’ Larry around here. Also some good ideas on wire soldering but would be a new endeavor for me and I’m apprehensive about a first-time guinea pig job. It would be different if I’ve done it before.
A great idea getting a new railing from the manufacturer NHTX. Unfortunately I contacted Bruce down at the hobby shop and he said the locomotive is new old stock from a collectors estate and the likelihood of getting a new railing is nil.
I’m leaning towards what you and David suggested Mike. I think I may just take my chances of finding a way to straighten the railing at a later time but finding a junk backup replacement somewhere first in case the repair fails.
rrebell, What is nuking? I tried looking it up and all I found in definitions was destruction references[(-D] Perhaps a slang term for some kind of a method you have if you wouldn’t mind educating me further.
Actually not a bad idea Selector as it does sound rather risky as well. Could be a possible fix if one was careful enough as you say after some experimentation I would think.
I would imagine the meltdown flashing point would come suddenly with no warning or any turning back if it happens.
I do have a couple junk locomotives around here I could practice with. I would think one would need to determine how near safe tolerances are to hold the soldering iron.
What I used may be a little more involved than most people here would want to bother with*.
Make a plate of material that is heat-resistant epoxy with a mold-like depression corresponding to the ‘correct’ railing shape – perhaps by molding and then carefully cleaning up the groove so the deformed plastic can be held in the grooves. Theoretically you could use a bunch of pins in a wood block to do the alignment jig. Etc. Use heat-tolerant weights to hold it flat if need be.
Then use a reflow gun or (with care) a hair dryer or heat gun to take the thermoplastic railing above its flow temperature, then let it reharden in alignment.
Thanks for the I-M link Ed. I was searching the net for something like that this morning and never did find that site. Appreciate it.
The microwave Dah! I don’t know why I didn’t figure that out Overmod. That one rrebell suggested I imagine could work but sounds too risky again. I might end up watching the railing twist up into a miniature pile of spaghetti through the glass[:'(] Your mold idea sounds ingenious but I don’t know if I trust myself enough to try it.
I’m starting to like Dudes idea of maybe it hit something and Eds re-post of that jacked green Southern railing from the rock slide, …N scale caution tape[(-D]
I wouldn’t even bother trying to straighten a plastic handrail. You’ll get better results by removing each handrail assembly (both side and both ends, too), then cutting out the railing portions.
Next, use a suitably-sized drill bit in a pin vise to drill a hole in each stanchion where the plastic handrail formerly was.
You can then use .015" piano wire to create new handrails that will stand-up to repeated handling and also to careless storage.
Simply thread the drilled-out stanchions onto the new handrail, re-seating the plastic stanchions in their respective positions, strictly vertical.
Next, use your X-Acto blade to apply a minute amount of ca to each side of each stanchion through which the railing passes - this helps to draw the ca into the joint…it won’t bond to the Delrin plastic, of course, but it will create a tight interface between the metal railing and the Delrin stanchion. Use the same procedure to solidify the lower end of each stanchion in the loco’s sills.
I first tried this on an Atlas RS-3, a gift from a long-ago-passed friend…
…but did only the side handrails, as the end ones were a bit more complicated.
This one, built for a friend, is an older Atlas RS-1…
…which I found for a good price at a now-long-gone hobbyshop that was just a 5 minute drive from here.
I also repainted it and lettered it for its new owner, and, with a little more experience in this kind of work, also re-did the end railings, too…
A hair dryer will soften plastic. The hottest setting will actually melt plastic, so be careful.
Take them off and find a way to straighten them. Heat carefully, then let cool in the straightned position. Removing them from the jig before they have cooled will just return them back to crooked.
Ordinary hair dryer. Medium setting. The closer you hold the air, the hotter the railing will get.
Done several this way, as well as other tasks with plastic using a hair dryer for heat.
Cheaper than a new set, and a bunch less fiddling than forming new ones from wire.
I don’t know how brittle the handrails are on a IM SD40. They were awfully brittle on the IM u18B, so fiddling with the handrails might result in snapping. IIRC, the U18Bs took CA and MEK quite well. Easy repair.
If you use wire you’ll find phosphor bronze wire holds its shape better than brass wire. Correspondingly harder to shape. I’m pretty sure manufacturers used phosphor bronze wire when they used wire. I note Rapido is using real wire on some models, the brake lines on a recent tank car for example. Found that out after a big crash. Wire bends but it also straightens. Piano wire is very stiff and holds shape basically permanently.
I found some premade phosphor bronze stanchions the other day which I plan on using to construct replacement handrails missing from a BB Trainmaster kit and from a Kato RS2.
If you resort to heating the plastic railing use very hot water, don’t microwave it. Microwave is short wave radar frequency which excites water molecules in food. It can also apparently randomly excite other molecules so unless you do the research you may not find out if delrin is one of those. Microwave radiation is not hot and does not heat up anything like a normal heat source would, that would be infrared. Hot water is far easier to control and an ordinary meat thermometer can be used to check the actual temperature of the water when you work.
The key to straightening plastic is holding the plastic in position as it cools. Very hard to do with these handrails.
They seem to come in lengths in 1/16" increments. I can’t find 1/2" locally but I bought a pack of each of the other sizes for my repair materials inventory. I checked and the 1/2" stanchion isnt available from the above supplier, probably for a reason.
By far the hardest part of building wire handrails is forming all the stanchions. The actual handrail wire isn’t that difficult to shape as long as you get the total length of wire correct. End rails are a pain to shape properly but side rails are fairly easy by comparison. If you can buy the stanchions.
I also have two Proto 2000 GPs with faded and warped end handrails that won’t straighten. Looks to me like they were displayed in a sunny location somewhere and the sun heated up and faded and distorted only the front end handrail of each locomotive. That’s another project in waiting.
They are the models sold by the Canadian Lifelike distributor equipped with DCC with sound which are quite rare and very nice to have. Brand new as far as I could see. The only real issue is the QSI decoders which although very good decoders from the time are a bit power hungry on startup which my ESU Cab Control doesn’t handle well.
Those railings you did on your RS loco’s turned out mint Wayne[Y] I always enjoy checking out your work as it never ceases to amaze me. I know you model HO scale and I would be willing to give that a try. But I can’t imagine trying to drill those tinsel N scale railings when I’ve found mounting those tiny bridge shoes that are thicker pushing the tedious envelope.
I’m liking the hair dryer idea Douglas. I had a 2% grade on a bridge that had to transition to a level bridge and I forgot to form the end back to level when I assembled it. I taped the deck to the glass table, shimmed it and the hair dryer did reform it. It took a few tries and I had to hyperextend it to get to a happy medium because the memory wanted to come back.
Maybe I could use Selector’s idea with a V’ed toothpick (dowel) against the nose of the locomotive pushing the railing hyper-extended out a bit. And then take the hair dryer to it carefully. Meanwhile taking Mike’s very hot water idea with a pre-soaked cotton ball and stick it in there tight. Then let everything dry and cool off. It’s all worth a shot.
I called Bruce at Scale Model Supply a few hours ago and had him pull the Duluth Mesabi Iron Range locomotive off the shelf. He said someone had looked at it today and noticed the railing too. That will be the one time I’m glad someone noticed the bent railing.
First I’ll see if I can’t order a new railing off the I-M site Ed was so kind to provide. If not, you guys have graciously given me a lot of great ideas to work with here.
I wouldn’t count on replacement handrails being any better. Many models come from the factory with malformed railings.
The stanchions bother me the most. Many curve inward enough that a scale person couldn’t walk on the walkway or the hood doors open.
Another problem is when the stanchion spacing along the railing does not match the hole spacing in the frame, causing the stanchions to lean more and more from one end of the loco to the other.
