delicate handrails, details and flimsy trucks


J

jerrytbirdsc

New Member
It's been 20 years since I was in the hobby, and I am used to Athearn wire handrails. It seems to me that the new stuff is too delicate to handle. I have been doing some repair work on a Proto 2000 GP7. I got the model second hand and it ran very slow and had a very high starting voltage. It's still on DC without a decoder. First I cleaned the wheels and square bearings, this model has Athearn knock off trucks. Didn't help, so I had to remove the main weight and found the gray wire to the top motor clip hanging by a single strand of copper wire. I repair the wire and start reassembly. By the time I'm done the handrails are loose at three of the four corners and one of the grab irons has fallen off the short hood. I know I never laid a finger on the front of the loco where that grab iron was. These plastic parts are barely glued on and when you go to try and glue them back nothing sticks.

I picked up an older Athearn Genesis SD75i from ebay for less than $50 and it was basically new, no detail parts or handrails installed yet. Turns out it has a bad rear truck, not enough play side to side with the wheel sets. So I try and disassemble this truck. I see two screws so I think boy this will be nice. Not, the two screws are there just to hold the two halves together and the bottom of the truck has to be snapped off first. Well there is no place to put a screwdriver to pry and when you force one in there is just cuts the plastic. This piece has to come off first or you will break the side frames. Well I just want to say that this is the cheapest flimsiest truck I have ever seen in HO. I have taken Athearn RTR and BB trucks apart dozens of times and never did any damage. This is progress? I know this is trying to be like a Kato truck, but I have a feeling they came up well short. The side frames with the copper pickup and bearing is held by a really thin piece of plastic with only a thin round plastic peg as support. I will not buy another Genesis model if they continue to use such a cheap piece. There is just not enough structural support for this heavy a loco. Especially, compared to my P2K SD50 that has a much beefier side frame support on the truck and it's a similar design.

What kind of glue works on plastic handrails and other plastic detail parts that go on trucks and shells?

Do Atlas and Kato have the same type of truck? Of the two which can handle disassembly and reassembly? Why do they add weight to the frames and have 1 ounce trucks made out of cheap plastic?

I like to fix things when I work on them not cause more damage. How do you guys handle these high detail Locos without damage? I just needed to vent a little, thanks for listening.

Jerry
 
You've got some catching up to do Jerry. The first set of Proto 2000 trucks I took apart I nearly ruined. They do come apart, just differently than you're used to. Early P2K stuff had more issues than the new issues do. You'll need the parts diagarm. You'll be able to see how things assemble from that. I did it with a set of early P2K PA-1's & got through it fine. Just be patient. It does take a lighter touch, that's for sure :)

The handrails & grabs on these models are typically heat staked in place. ACC will work if any come off. Apply it from inside the shell. They're engineering plastic, so solvent cements won't work on them. I found out all of this because I had a Proto PA-1 hit the floor. The second worst sound in the world!

True the plastic is thinner than on the old Athearn trucks but I have found them to be up to the task of pulling trains. Not sure about Atlas or Kato trucks, as I've never had to disassemble them, just lubricate.

Hang in there & go slow. The skills will come.
 
Alan has given you good advice. I had the same frustrations when I got back in the hobby three years. The first thing I do is get the body off and do a complete inspection. I can guarantee you there will be loose detail parts. Since many are only press fit or heat staked, they will often come loose in transport. I don't take any chances. I add ACC to everything I can get to from inside the shell. This keeps all the parts on the shell while I handle it. It's a good idea to check the bottom of the box carefully for any stray grab iron that may be lying down there too. Once you have the shell in good shape, place it in a foam cradle and don't touch it again until you're ready to reinstall the body.
 
Makes one miss the simplicity of the earlier Athearn blue box models, Atlas/Kato and Atlas/Roco engines. Atleast its a bit harder to knock the decails off my 2 brass engines. I love the new thin Athearn handrail looks, but hate how delicate they are. Mike
 
Jerry I hear you. To me most of the fine detail now is a turn off more than a turn on in the hobby. These details look great but they dont hold up like the older metail handrails. Especially when I was a kid, the only engines that still had handrails were the athearn bb metalones. All the ones with plastic handrails all lost atl east part to all of the handrails do to acidents. The athearn ones would get bent but I just gently bent them back. I wish all the locos now would come with wire handrails as they are so easily damaged. I havent had any experiance with other plastic details. I always used the aftermarket metal details on my engines, athearn bb. Never seem to have any issue. So you arent alone out there.
 
OK, more very basic help for the new guy. What glue is ACC? I see a lot of abreviations on line. Is there a place of definitions and descriptions anywhere?

Thanks again.
 
Russ said:
OK, more very basic help for the new guy. What glue is ACC? I see a lot of abreviations on line. Is there a place of definitions and descriptions anywhere?

Thanks again.
Click to expand...
In a nutshell, Superglue.

THere are a lot of brand names out there, lots of ways of saying alpha-cyanoacrylate. A local hobby shop should have a selection, from Gap filling to thin, and also while you are at it, you may want to look at accelerators. They are usually a spray that you can apply to a glue to make it set instantly. It beats sitting there waiting for it to set (1-5 minutes).
 
So things have changed a bit since I was a kid when we mixed flour and water together. :D Thanks for your reply. This thread was just in time. I was going back to by modelers glue. The type we use to put model planes and cars together with.

Thanks again.
 
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