Hands up, how many of you have just glued the doors to the roundhouse after giving up on hanging the doorframe with the doors dangling on those silly little hinges.
I will try again tomorrow when I am rested, but I am about to wave the white flag on this one. Unless I am missing a trick on how to do it.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
They can be delicate.
I replaced mine by super gluing piano wire in place. Much more reliable.
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!
Brent, I resisted gluing the doors in place, although I never bother to close any of the doors. I agree with you that the pins are insufficient to hold the doors in place, allowing them to swing open and closed.
My advice? Wave the white flag.
Rich
Alton Junction
I just had a thought, what if I used a little dab of Vaseline or lithium grease to hold the hinges in place while I mounted them. That might just do the trick.
Mel has a reasonable idea. But if you just want them to hold in place coat the top of the pin with liquid electrical tape. It's very rubbery.
I would use servos, but I have 18 stalls. That would get expensive fast! But I'm envious yours work that way Mel
After a Caribbean vacation where the hotel had many permanently open spaces, I decided my roundhouse lives in a weird weather vortex where it doesn’t need doors.
BATMANHands up, how many of you have just glued the doors to the roundhouse after giving up on hanging the doorframe with the doors dangling on those silly little hinges.
I just began construction of a nine-stall Walthers roundhouse and haven't reached the door installation step just yet.
There's a small pin at the top and bottom of each door half. Is the problem that glue gets in the hole? It looks pretty straightforward to me but maybe I'm missing something?
Are you refering to the 933-2900 Roundhouse, Brent?
Sounds like the same way my Volmer roundhouse doors are done. Did mine by making sure the hole in the hinge were open enough (one was defective so I used styrene pipe to replace it). The doors themselves bend a little, just enough to set them. Also of note is I had to add some Grant Line door parts to the bottom as the roundhouse was designed to go with Marklin track.
The locomotive shop at Lowbanks was originally a Vollmer roundhouse, but lack of sufficient space compelled me to re-construct it to better fit the available real estate. A few years ago, I decide to modify to doors to an annex area. I simply skipped modelled hinges altogether, although I believe Grandt Line offers some working ones.Instead, I simply bent some wire into "L" shapes, drilled the bottom of the door jambs, and ca'd them in place, with one leg of each "L" sticking up. At the door's header, straight pieces of wire, projecting down at both corners, serve the same purpose. The doors, top and bottom, were drilled to accept the wires, then the doors were flexed just enough to install them on the pins.
They work well, and nobody has commented on the lack of hinges...my friends aren't above commenting on such things, so I guess that they simply haven't noticed.
Wayne
I built a 9-stall Walthers "Modern Roundhouse" a couple years ago (933-2900). I don't recall having any trouble with the doors. There were things I had to fix, and the roof still needs work once I light up the interior, but the doors were easy.
I put the internal structure up and put the side and end walls in. Then I put in all the roof window frames. At this point it was a stable structure. Then I stuck the doors into the floor hinge holes and lowered the front wall door frame into place on top of the doors, one stall at a time. Using a needle point applicator, I applied glue to the door frames and the internal structure. As each door frame went in, I glued it to the previous one until all were glued.
To this day, all the doors open and close just fine. We never close them, but they could be.
Thanks for sharing your step-by-step, Paul. It looks like the construction of this Modern roundhouse will have to take a few deviations from my usual construction techniques — what with the windows being sandwiched between the interior and exterior walls — that will make painting a little more challenging.
I appreciate the tips on the door sequence.
Regards, Ed
I've spent decades researching roundhouses and other railroad structures and am now in the midst of building an O scale 2-stall brick enginehouse. Stall doors in brick or masonary roundhouses and enginehouses were usually strap hinges on the doors, lifted and dropped onto L-shaped "hinge pins" firmly embedded in place, so the "pins" can't be seen from a distance. MR has had several articles over the years to show how to animate doors, usually using stiff wire or slender rods going straight down into the top of your railroad's "foundation" and operated underneath, and others have generously commented here. Model Railroading is FUN!
Deano
Ed, the kit is 933-3041.
The doors go into place well enough and I have no issue's with the hinges, however, when trying to mount the door frames with the doors in place the doors fall out. That is why I am thinking a little tiny dab of Vaseline on the hinge will be just enough to keep the doors in while mounting them and they will still operate afterward.
Once the doors are mounted they are kept in place by the post you are mounting them to. I haven't given up yet.
Could you use a bit of tape to hold them in place while the frames are setting? I looked at the instructions and I can't see very well what would be the problem. Let us know what happens, I'm also in the process of assembling one (I'm still working on the floor!).
Simon
BATMANEd, the kit is 933-3041.
Thanks, Brent. Paul and I were speaking of the "Modern" Roundhouse... different model.
It looks like Walthers couldn't get the doors on straight, either:
933-3041_cornerstone_three-stall by Edmund, on Flickr
I just removed the nine-stall Heljan roundhouse that I've had on the layout over twenty-years because I wanted to "upgrade" to the newer Walthers #2900 Roundhouse.
Good Luck, Ed
snjroyCould you use a bit of tape to hold them in place while the frames are setting?
The frame post you are gluing the frame to hold the doors on once in place, so tape won't work. I think a tiny bit of Vaseline is worth a try.
It is like trying to screw a canning jar full of pears to a lid that is glued to a wall without the pears falling out.
Ed,The nice thing about the double wall construction is that you can "whitewash" the interior walls just like the prototypes did without masking anything. I also painted the lower 8 feet or so of every column, again matching prototype pics I had.
For gluing the rail into the floors, I used 15-min. epoxy. 5-min. epoxy was too fast because not only do you have to neatly apply the stuff to two pieces of 18" rail, you also have to gauge it. There's just enough space in the floor slots to make things go out of gauge on your if you're not careful. 15-min. was just enough time to do one stall at a time. Sure, one could go faster, but not as neatly.
Oh, and the floors may not exactly be perfect 10-degree arcs. I ended up shimming and filing the floor joints to get all the stalls to point to a common center (IOW, the center of the turntable). These are big pieces of plastic and they can warp just a bit to put things out of whack.
Deano,The roundhouse at Southampton St. in Boston was built in 1915 and featured unusual wood roll-up doors. These were built like a roll top desk, with pieces of cable embedded through the planks. They even had person doors that were part of the main doors and rolled up with them. The reason is that this roundhouse had varying size door openings due to the angle of the house vs. the turntable.
or perhaps a bit of silicone. Could something have been done earlier in the construction process? I would prefer to avoid that problem when I get there in my own roundhouse project...
snjroyor perhaps a bit of silicone.
Silicone will set/dry and then the doors won't swing. You want something that will allow the doors to always swing on their hinges.
After doing 18 stalls in HO scale I have had experience with them....I just didn't install them, and set them off the side. I have it modeled as though they are replacing the doors on the stalls.
(My Model Railroad, My Rules)
These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway. As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).