Hello;
I am assembling the Walthers GCS Flatcar. I also bought the wood deck from laser kit and was wondering if the wood deck replaces the plastic deck or do I glue the wood to the plastic deck.Thanks for any help.
Bill
It replaces the in kit floor.
Those wood decks are designed to be placed over the existing decking. If you look closely, they come with an adhesive backing to make it easier to glue in place. I have several on my layout, and like them very much. BTW, from experience, it is a good idea to add extra glue when installing the wood onto plastic. Doing so insures your wood deck does not curl up over time.
Well lol we seem to have a disagreement here on whether the wood deck replaces or goes on top of the Walthers GCS flat. Many laser flat car decks do just stick on the top of the original (Athearn comes to mind) where the deck is an integral part of the molded casting but I built this kit and I think the laser deck did replace the original plastic deck which was separately molded pieces. Ditto for the P2K flatcars, where the deck is a separately molded piece – the laser wood deck replaces the original part
Actually that was a lifesaver for me – I built the P2K flatcar kit but was having some problems keeping the deck flat on the frame so I used Walthers Goo – and as some of you know, Goo releases gases for some time after curing. The gases caused the plastic deck to bubble and swell upwards, something I only discovered about two months after finishing the kit. I was able to pry off the pastic and replace it with a laser wood deck which of course I probably should have used to begin with except the kit seemed expensive enough as it was. (Goo can cause a real disaster if it is used to assemble or install a weight in a tank car that forms a sealed container – small escape holes need to be drilled.)
As an aside …This may sound odd but years ago Tyco had a 50’ flatcar which was a pretty decent looking casting and has a separate plastic deck molded in rather blond wood color. I was able to body mount couplers, replace the trucks and weather the deck and it turned out to be a surprisingly nice car, especially for Tyco. For years the only Tyco car that dedicated modelers took seriously was their gondola which by some coincidence is perfect for kitbashing into a variety of otherwise unobtainable prototypes.
Dave Nelson
Well I had already glued down the kit deck before thinking of asking this question. Thekit deck is good and with weathering should look great. I plan on buying another GCS flatcar so I will use the laserkit deck on that, should be a nice way to compare both flats.
Thanks for the help
Bill
You might find some photos on web, but remember that it is GSC - General Steel Castings - not GCS. Search engines aren’t very good at figuring out what you meant to write [:)]
See
http://prr.railfan.net/freight/freightphotos.html?photo=PRR_F41deck.gif&fr=clF41
and
http://prr.railfan.net/freight/freightphotos.html?photo=f41_cr715892_gallitzin.jpg&fr=clF41
for the PRR version.
KL
LOL right you are … lemming-like I just typed GCS and never thought about it.
Dave Nelson