Haggerleases

Izzy. Thanks so much for that comprehensive reply. I appreciate your effort. I was starting to think it was the composition of the chairs, so you may very well be right. I am going to get hold of some c&l chairs and see if they work any better. I guess if I don't figure out the issue I'll always wonder what caused it. Hand in pocket again lol.

Oh dear. After my reasonable trial results the other day, I made a length of track at the weekend. Pre-loaded the sleepers with butanone, added a decent smear of 'Poly Pipe' adhesive, put the rail with the pre-threaded chairs on the sleepers after painting a little butanone on each, more butanone on the sleeper after fitting to wick its way in, weighted it down etc. Looked great. Felt quite pleased with myself. Left it 12 hours or so to be safe, picked it up off the template and the thing basically fell to bits in my hand. Disaster. I think I'm going to have to admit defeat very soon. I need my track to be way more durable than this. my EMGS bullhead rail pulls out of the chairs very easily too.. I think I may be doing something fundamentally wrong, though I can't think what. Back to the good old soldering iron at this rate.

Cheers Martin, that's an excellent help, thank you for that. I'll have a look through the topic and see if I can hone my technique.

I'm a member of both EMGS and Scalefour societies, so I'm sure I'll dig them out from the various sheets. Steep learning curve, but worth the effort. Thanks fellas.

Martin. I'm normally an instruction follower of the highest order, but I've looked in vain on the Exactoscale website for any instructions on gluing chairs. Where on the site are you seeing this?

Hi chaps. Bit of success today. I used the Polypipe stuff. Brushed it onto a sleeper let it dry, then put a few chairs on with mek/butanone or whatever they're calling it this week. Worked much better. I couldn't budge them sideways, but could still (with more of a struggle this time) lift it off with a fingernail. The chair had bonded to the layer of polypipe adhesive, which had bonded to the ply. I think the polypipe stuff may need a little thinning. It is quite thick and gloopy. I think a factor is the temperature in my converted attic man cave causing the MEK to 'flash off' too fast. I'll continue the experiment in a cooler room and report back.

Worthwhile discussion guys, thanks ever so much for your comments one and all. Not easy being a beginner, you see all this amazing track and you think 'hmm, I'll give that a go, can't be too hard' and before you know it you're grinding your teeth in frustration. Having actually worked with a Pway gang in the early 90's I have to say the big stuff is a lot easier. Am sure the end result will be worth the pain.

Superglue does it, it bonds the plastic like hell to the wood, but it's very unforgiving, in terms of time and placement. It's long term strength is also suspect. What I'm saying is butanone isn't neccasarily the wonderful fixing method it's made out to be, and the various producers of chairs etc are not promoting a complete system. They're selling a product and relying on the end user to spend a small fortune on a whole shelf full of very nasty chemicals to find something that works. Not really acceptable in this age of caring for the environment. If you're selling a plastic chair in 2021 you need to specify how to fix it easily and cheaply to the various options available, with the least environmental impact possible.

Why would they produce that as a chair for plain track? What an odd decision? Unless it's just a beefy generic chair that looks like a bridge chair? Or casting other chairs in brass was difficult? It's a head scratcher for sure.

Tony, the problem I have is I'm not getting that lovely little rectangle of plastic left behind on the ply when I ping it off. There's virtually nothing left behind. All, its early days for me, I'm just experimenting, I have one of the British Finescale EM points, and very nice it is too, also a few lengths of EMGS flexi track, I'm pretty much trying every technique to find one that suits. I've soldered to rivets, soldered to copperclad, glued to plastic, etc etc, but I can't get away from the look of stained ply sleepers. They look amazing. I was quite impressed with the look of the DCC concepts brass chairs, but what on earth sort of chair is that?! I wasn't that bothered about track at first, as it was all about the locos and carriages etc, but the more you know, the more you notice! Damn stuff is a hobby in itself!

MEK and Butanone are exactly the same chemical, but with a different name. Let's get that straight. CH₃CCH₂CH₃. I have a fat bottle of MEK here. Its Butanone. Manufacturers however may have slightly different formulations. Just like petrol isn't just petrol. It can vary a great deal. That's why I asked for someone who had apparently found a winning formula. So, I have a bottle of MEK here that bonds plastic chairs to ply sleepers very poorly. You can push it side to side, and it won't budge. You can thread some rail through it, and pull the rail upwards, and it won't budge. But....twist it or put your fingernail at the side and lift? Pop, it's off. No good. So. Can anyone suggest a chemical that bonds exactoscale chairs to EM gauge society ply sleepers such that I cant just flick them off with a fingernail? This is why I said it's the 'Emperors new clothes.' there may be people out there who have track that seems fixed, but it isnt, and nobody dare check.. because when they find its ready to fall to bits, they'd have a load of work up in smoke. I want track that is rigid and durable, for many years. This stuff isnt cheap, but the way I see it at the moment, plastic to wood bonding the way we want it for our hobby, is deeply flawed, and nobody is calling it out. The only good bond is superglue. And that can be brittle. There isnt a good proven 'system' of plastic chairs and wood sleepers out there at the moment. I would be tempted to give up and go back to using 2.5mm rivets and solder, but guess what? the EMGS doesn't have those rivets in stock! And they haven't had them in stock for ages (Amongst other things). The dreaded 'Read More' button.... Frustrated.

Tony, what make of butanone are you using?

Most sources say MEK and butanone are two names for the same thing. How odd. Liking the look of that system Martin. I have Templot and found it very easy to use and it made perfect sense to me from the off. Perhaps my being Autistic helped? I found it a real pleasure to use and really intuitive. Perhaps another reason was I defenestrated Windows many years ago, and with using some of the more obscure flavours of Linux (I like to be able to tinker) im used to doing things a little differently. I'll watch the development of this with interest. Day off today so off up to my rather warm modelling room to play with chairs and various glues..

Adriank, I got on well with ply and rivet, and I may well come back to it! Cast chairs would be great. Rev. Denny and many other great modellers used soldered track with great success so I'd be in good company. I think my poor results with plastic chairs are making me determined to find a solution to my current problem though. I'm writing down my results with different combinations so I guess it's now science! I wonder if ABS is recyclable? There seems a lot of sprue for the amount of chairs attached to it. I will have to look into it. I hate waste.

Very chuffed (see what I did there) with your responses guys. Very helpful. I will report back with my findings when I find a method that works well. I wonder if rubbing thinned balsa cement into the sleepers would help? I have plenty of duco which I build my freeflight model aircraft with. I've ordered some of that polypipe stuff in the meantime, will give it a whirl.