Good morning
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.
Thanks for your help in advance
TF
Hi TF. I cannot help you directly, but A similar thing happened to me, twice.
A broken railing was on a locomotive and I replaced it from one on a locomotive in my model scrap yard.
Another piece of pipework was missing of a locomotive and I managed to make a (not bad) repair from thick wire. Just don't look too closely.
Anyway. I am sure better answers will be forthcoming from others.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
TF, a lot of us has found ourselves in your situation.
I dug up an old forum thread on the issue.
There were several suggestions to soak the handrail in warm water and then weight it down. But the results were not satisfactory.
The rest of the suggestions, which were successful, were to fabricate new handrails out of thin wire.
https://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/174534.aspx
Rich
Alton Junction
TF,
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.
richhotrainI dug up an old forum thread on the issue.
That's quite a thread Rich, with some long gone old friends.
TF models in N scale, maybe track down the manufacturer and check into buying a new set of handrails, and, check Ebay.
If not, than replace with the wire. What size wire would you use for N scale?
Good luck TF,
Mike.
My You Tube
Nuking might work, works on resin castings to flatten and on dry transfers to make active again.
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.
Thanks for the help.
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 Perhaps a slang term for some kind of a method you have if you wouldn't mind educating me further.
Thanks everyone
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.
Thanks
Track fiddlerIt's an Intermountain and I would really like to add it to my roster but only if I can safely fix the railing.
Why not email the mothership and ask if they have any spare railings?
https://www.intermountain-railway.com/customerservice/csparts.html
I have heard from others that I-M is very good about helping with parts requests.
Cheers, Ed
By 'nuking' I presume he means 'microwaving'
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.
*as is so often the case...
You could always just leave it bent and say that it hit something.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD70DudeYou could always just leave it bent and say that it hit something.
211231_8_trafford by lmyers83, on Flickr
Finding N scale caution tape would be a challenge
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
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...
That friend later dropped out of the hobby, and another longtime friend was able to purchase it. It still runs great, and the handrails are still standing the test of time, too.
Wayne
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.
- Douglas
Evening
Those railings you did on your RS loco's turned out mint Wayne 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.
Thanks gentlemen
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.
Mark Vinski
All the railings are good except for the front one and that's exactly what it's doing Mark. The right side is caved in.
I'm planning on picking it up tomorrow so I'll be able to provide a picture before I try to fiddle with it.
Thanks for your kind comments, TF.
I'm not sure if they manufacture piano wire in a size small enough for N scale handrails, but Tichy's phosphor-bronze wire certainly comes in a variety of small diameters...the smallest that I use for HO is .008" in diameter, and is just about right for use as pipe for the retainers used on the ends of freight cars.
I also checked my supply of piano wire (from K&S), and the smallest I have is .015"....perhaps just a tiny-bit large for N scale, but I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't look out of place. The upside of it is that either a #80 or #79 bit will be sufficient for drilling out the stanchions.I don't generally use a #80...it seems like they're a jinx for me, with a very short useable life-span.However, a #79 drill bit is somehow more user-friendly for me. Back when True-Line released their HO scale models of the Dominion-Fowler boxcars, I missed out on them, but due to a printing error on one offering, particular to one specific prototype, they offered free replacement body shells to anyone returning the improperly-lettered originals to the store where they had been bought.
Much to my surprise, my go-to hobbyshop at that time, put the returned body shells on their "used" table, which was often my browsing grounds. I don't recall what I payed for them,...maybe four or five bucks apiece.
I bought as many as I could afford, as those particular cars had long been among my favourite prototypes.
After removing the improper lettering (done directly on the apparently un-painted bodyshells) I focused on the free-standing grabirons, which had been rendered in engineering plastic, no doubt for it's ability to stand-up to rough handling.To my eye, they looked overly thick, so I decided to remove them, leaving only the moulded-on bolt heads that represented the fastenings.Each car required drilling of 78 holes, just for the grabirons. I used a #79 drill bit in a pin vise, then went to work on the 13 cars that I had managed to acquire.I couldn't believe how well the drill bit performed, but as I got to hole 499 (the seventh car), the bit finally broke.
I quickly replaced it with a new one, which broke immediately, and a second one which did the same. The third attempt went well, and lasted to the end of the 13 car group. Here's one of them under construction...
...and one in-service...
I later bought a dozen of Accurail's version of the same cars, but have no intention of removing the moulded-on grabirons, as they're pretty-much to-scale...
I did re-sheath the "board-type" roofs and changed-out many of the cast-in-place "wood" doors with leftover parts from other kits. The one shown is from an Athearn Blue Box car.
I also have four that I scratchbuilt, long before the offering from True-Scale. They're intended to represent boxcars that can be readily converted to covered hoppers...
I can't imagine that drilling out N scale stanchions could be all that difficult, especially if only for a couple of locos. A good Optivisor and a decent draughting compass, with a sharp point to create "starter holes" should make the job manageable.
Again, Impressive work Wayne! Those grab irons sure look great. A lot of attention to detail and I would imagine bending all the wires at just the perfect spacing at 90° was quite tedious.
The only manufacturer of Factory locomotives where the detail has impressed the heck out of me is Scale Trains Rivit Counter's line. But man those are spendy. Hopefully the guts of those things are as high quality as the shells. Don't come across those too much anymore. I came across a Union Pacific four truck turbine diesel with tenders recently. Those are certainly beautiful to look at. The desire was definitely there but I can't get myself to spend that kind of coin. Apparently others can because it was gone the next day.
Drill bits can be funny. I remember that as well in custom construction work. I would have one of my smaller drill bits that would last a long time. I would kinda bum out when one of those good luck bits would finally snap. Then grab another one and like you said it would snap quickly. Perhaps the high carbon steel was too high carbon being more brittle in that one or impurities in the mix.
Gonna pick up my warped railing DMIR this morning. I just couldn't let that one go. In the past I have sometimes developed a serious case of model remorse when I pass on one that I really like. I don't want to feel like that again
Here's the DMIR SD45T-2 I picked up this morning. It's flipped in the box to display the bent railing, right front. Sorry about the subpar pics.
Bruce showed me a bunch of DMIR 70 ton ore cars from the same estate that he hadn't stocked yet. These things are very hard to find so I decided to buy the lot.
I guess the guy was a serious collector but never got around to building a layout. Looking at the wheels you can tell none of this stuff has ever left the box.
I'll be replacing the trucks with micro trains. I don't like the post that connect the coupler on the Atlas ones.
Thanks for looking
Track fiddlerHere's the DMIR SD45T-2 I picked up this morning.
Nice engine TF,
If it was mine, I think I would remove the bent railing and do a reverse bend over a round surface, starting with something around 1/2" dia. and moving down to a smaller diameter if the bend doesn't get corrected. I would also add a bit of heat with a hair dryer when it is bent around the cylinder. Obviously it goes without saying that the process should be done gradually.
There is the risk of the railing breaking, but if you apply the force in small increments, hopefully that won't happen. I suspect the paint will break off but that is easily fixed.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Some good ideas along the lines I'm leaning toward Dave. I agree on using a safer controlled heat such as a hair dryer.
I think it will have to be hyper-extended as well so the deformed memory doesn't come all the way back. Small increment adjustments sounds like a plan
Thanks for your input Dave.
A word of caution about applying heat from a hair dryer. In the past, I have experimented with warped handrails that I had replaced with straight ones. I first tried an actual heat gun on the lowest setting, and it began to melt the plastic. So, I switched to a hair dryer with even lower settings. But, heat is heat.
What is does is soften the plastic by melting it. It is not obvious at first, but melting is taking place as the plastic softens. Soaking the warped handrail in warm water is the safer method, and it works to some extent if the warmed plastic is immediately weighted down. In my experience, using warm water softens the plastic without melting it. But, overall, I have never been able to fully straighten warped plastic handrails.
You have to come very close to 'melting' it for the warp in the plastic to be relieved.
I'm sure you'll be relieved when I skip the detailed discussion of polymer physics. But in order to relieve the 'set', the plastic material has to be heated enough that it 'forgets its assumed shape' ... and this is close to melting temperature, and may well be higher than 'hot water' (or, depending on copolymer, maybe even boiling-water) temperature.
The point of the 'groove' and to a lesser-extent the pin-and-weight jigging is to allow the rail to come close to melting temperature without losing its shape (or its paint) when it cools back down.
It is possible that using a higher-boiling liquid or oil, and something like a lab or candy thermometer that reads accurate temperature, can give you the controlled heat appropriate to particular types of railing plastic. You do fine temperature control the same way you start cooking mashed potatoes (where you hold the taters at 163, but not over 165, degrees until the starch all reacts)... you have a glass of cool liquid and pour little splashes of it in while watching the thermometer.
Yep, if you use a hair dryer, you're gonna wanna know what you're doing.
One thing is to remove the handrails from the loco or else the part of the loco that is close to the gun; the sill, the cab, or the pilot might be damaged.
Lay the handrail on a flat surface where the warp is...if you can... then weigh down flat with a board, or a metal weight from an old BB freight car, etc, so that only the part of the rail that is causing the warp is exposed. (that's where the heat needs to go, with the rest of the handrail protected by the weight). Then hit it with the hot air, but remove the hot air after a few seconds. Repeat the process over several minutes. It heats the plastic slowly. Let cool. Look at the results.
Practice with another spare handrail if you want. Most things in model railroading take practice to get it right.
But again, my experience with Intermountain handrails...not necessarily the SD40 (n scale?), is that the rails are fairly brittle. So I would be cautious about tryning to unwarp any IM plastic handrail.
Having taken only two semesters of high school chemistry (or was it in physics class), I remember that pretty much every solid substance in the world has a melting point. Even the world itself. No matter if the heat comes via air, water, nuclear fission, Photon Torpedo, or other means.
Personally, I wouldn't want to work with water or oil that was hot enough to melt plastic. I'd rather use a device that controlled the direction of the heat and was easily held by hand as to manipulate it successfully.
A hot soldering iron tip held for a few seconds at a time below the affected railing part will only heat the space and items within about 1 cm of the tip, unless of course one leaves the tip there for several seconds or more. The idea is to place the tip below the bent part, maybe 1 cm below, two at most, hold-two-three, and remove, do it again, and once more, and then let it cool. Remove the probe or dowel notched to hold the rail in the condition most proximal to the intended end-state and see what you have accomplished. Repeat until you ruin the handrail or get it close to what you can live with...if it happens at all.
This is a self-teaching opportunity to learn how to use the soldering iron for this purpose, so t'will require caution, multiple trails, and see if there isn't going to be some progress at some point.
I've done this to plastic details a few times using a hairdryer. That's as much heat as I'd be comfortable putting on to these types of thing. There's a fine line between getting the result you want and total disaster. Typically you heat it and move it a bit and repeat.
TheFlyingScotsman I've done this to plastic details a few times using a hairdryer. That's as much heat as I'd be comfortable putting on to these types of thing. There's a fine line between getting the result you want and total disaster. Typically you heat it and move it a bit and repeat.
The key is to remove the handrail and lay it flat, unwarp it with a weight of some sort so that it takes the shape you want it to take. (As long as the handrail is not a brittle type of plastic). Expose only the the most warped parts (usually its a few staunchions). I usually just cover up the top half of the stauchions because the warp is usually in the bottom half near the sills.
It shouldn't come close to the melting point. You don't soften the plastic then try to shape it flat.
You hold it flat with weight then apply heat to the exposed part to release the tension that forms the warp.
It takes less heat that way. But, you may not get the warp out the first time so try it again with a little longer heating time.
If you use the high heat setting and hold the dryer an inch away from the surface for about 20 seconds, you will melt the plastic.