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My Bachmann 37 chassis looks like a banana ....mazak issue ?


rob D2
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  • AY Mod changed the title to My Bachmann 37 chassis looks like a banana ....mazak issue ?
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My normal point of contact there for such matters is on hols at present but it may be worth making initial contact with the service department by phone next week and see if you can email the pics over for an initial assessment. They keep samples from each batch so they can check if any of theirs show signs.

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Will do Andy , 

I put this up really to see if anyone else had experienced similar as I’ve never seen such a thing on a Bachmann .

its like the mazak block has got a bit of a bow and is pushing the flexible plastic ends of the sub chassis down 

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I've found Bachmann pretty supportive. If working from home however, I'd take the block off, and check it for square, principally on the bottom of the casting. a gentle (and I mean gentle ) attention with a file might well cure the problem.  Remember to check for 'wobble' when doing this, otherwise it'll end up wobbling the other corner. 

 

In the first photograph, there appears to be dross inclusions at the point of casting. You can see these with the 'rough wave effect' at the extremities of the block. The three main problems might be dirty metal ( not cleaned off before pouring ), metal at wrong temperature,  incorrect material composition, etc. 

 

Have a look on Wikipedia about Zinc Pest. Remembering that an outside contractor will sometimes use the cheapest possible zinc scrap to enable the order to be made.  After all, it's only for toys.....   

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42 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

I can't recall any Bachmann Mazak rot problems since the early N class waaaayy back mid/late 90s.

 

Quite a few of the revised all wheel drive Class 42 Warships disintegrated. Chassis blocks and bogie blocks equally affected.

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4 hours ago, thaddeus said:

 

Quite a few of the revised all wheel drive Class 42 Warships disintegrated. Chassis blocks and bogie blocks equally affected.

 

AFAIK these seem to have been restricted to D800 in green and D804 in blue....?

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11 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

I can't recall any Bachmann Mazak rot problems since the early N class waaaayy back mid/late 90s.


The running plate on my positively geriatric N class disintegrated about 3 years ago but Bachmann still replaced it FOC. I was well impressed with their customer service attitude. I hope you find the same.

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Sorry to see this Rob!

 

I’ve had exactly the same issue with the chassis block from my Bachmann Mainline Blue 37242, also produced in 2015 by Bachmann at exactly the same time as they did their EWS 37174 above.

 

I ended up sanding down bits of the metal and some chassis plastic that was now sticking out below the bodyshell line, and will monitor - it’s the one I turned into that grey 37262 a few months back..!

 

Fortunately it doesn’t appear to be quite as bad as Heljan’s exploding 47s but perhaps just a bad batch of metal affecting Bachmann’s 2015 releases.

 

Cheers,

James

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2 hours ago, 37501 said:

Concerning indeed!

Does anyone know if there were any other Class 37s produced in 2015 please?

 

John

Lots I’d imagine , there was a database of models somewhere ?

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I have emailed Jenni at the Bachmann service facility , with the photos , for comment. Will report back on what they say.

 

Incidentally, the first sign I had of this issue was that the 37174 shell was hard to get over the chassis block, maybe it’s actually expanded .

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8 hours ago, rob D2 said:

Just out of interest, compare the patina on the dark brown one ( knackered one ) with the light grey of the 2007 37672. Hmmmm.

 

 

55A956F2-4ADA-462B-8794-7069406AE0B3.jpeg

 

IIRC That cracked / crazy paving paint effect is a sure sign of Mazzak rot (As the metal expands it literally rips apart the paint).

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