Parkside wagons plastic

[ardbealach]

Working on a recently purchased 4mm Parkside wagon underframe kit PA07, it seemed to me that the plastic used in the kit of parts was a lot more brittle than earlier kits I had purchased.  The parts seem to be easily damaged even just when cutting them off the sprue.

 

Has anyone else found a similar change in the quality of the plastic used in the production of the parts?  Or is it my modelling cack handedness? [Alisdair]

[Mark Saunders]

Is it Peco/Parkside or Parkside ?

 

 

[ardbealach]

Peco Parkside (AM)

[Kylestrome]

55 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

The parts seem to be easily damaged even just when cutting them off the sprue.

 

Parkside parts were never that easy to cut off the sprue. Sometimes it's necessary to make a cut on both sides and gently break the parts off. It's generally a good rule to make the cut some way away from the part, and trim or sand away the excess.

 

David

[ardbealach]

Thanks for that Kylestrome, but I was beginning to think that the formula for the plastic had been changed to a harder compound from the earlier Parksides that I had built.  [Alisdair]

[westernviscount]

The wheels are useless in the new kits so I would say it is likely economies have been made elsewhere. I don't know this to be true of course. 

 

I am sure you have found your own work around but I tend to use a sprue cutter to snip the main runners attached to the part I need., then use a curved scalpel blade to complete the removal. 

 

Cheers

[Steamport Southport]

3 hours ago, Kylestrome said:

 

Parkside parts were never that easy to cut off the sprue. Sometimes it's necessary to make a cut on both sides and gently break the parts off. It's generally a good rule to make the cut some way away from the part, and trim or sand away the excess.

 

David

 

I use sprue cutters now.

 

Something I noticed that a lot of the plastic kit builders were using. They cut those thick sprues quite easily.

 

Some instances they aren't suitable, such as when the parts are in very narrow places. But I wouldn't be without them.

 

They're just a reasonably priced pair from Revell (I think) but the ones in the Humbrol tool sets look the same. They might actually be made by Xuron. I've have to check.

 

 

Jason

[Steamport Southport]

3 hours ago, ardbealach said:

Thanks for that Kylestrome, but I was beginning to think that the formula for the plastic had been changed to a harder compound from the earlier Parksides that I had built.  [Alisdair]

 

I'm wondering whether they are using harder ABS like they do in the O Gauge kits. Now that can be a pain to work with.

 

In the O Gauge kits the chassis is made of black ABS and the body is polystyrene. Some plastic glues won't work on the ABS. Mekpak does though.

 

 

Jason

[Theakerr]

Over the years I have found with several suppliers that their plasticity seems to vary.  I know for a fact that age plays a role and I also understand that if the kit has been exposed to sunlight, as in say a display case, it will em-brittle.   I recently acquired an old
Wills LNER Lattice signal kit that I have had to junk because the plastic was so brittle.  In that case it was age and fortunately I had only paid a pittance for it. 

[MrWolf]

I have had similar issues with kit plastics,  sometimes it is the compound, sometimes it's production irregularities. I know that some of the old Ratio kits were like glass, whereas the Parkside kits seemed to be much tougher. Also the thinner the part, the more affected by the heat of the moulding process it will have been.

I don't know what Airfix and Tamiya were using thirty years ago, but I wish that everyone else would!

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

As for the current Dapol/Kitmaster plastic, it makes me glad Parkside use the material they do!

 

Mike.

[MrWolf]

That is apparently recycled plastic. I think that I have made a comparison with stale cheese elsewhere

[JeremyC]

 

A change in the hardness of the plastic in Peco Parkside kits might simply be that Peco use a different supplier for the raw material than Parkside did. It could also be that Peco are using the same plastic they use in other products to reduce the number of different grades they need to stock. Having said that I haven't noticed any difference in the plastic used in their '0' gauge kits except some underframe parts previously always moulded in black (e.g. axleguards) are sometimes now in other colours (just makes painting slightly more complicated).

 

18 hours ago, westernviscount said:

The wheels are useless in the new kits so I would say it is likely economies have been made elsewhere. I don't know this to be true of course. 

 

I am sure you have found your own work around but I tend to use a sprue cutter to snip the main runners attached to the part I need., then use a curved scalpel blade to complete the removal. 

 

Cheers

I assume you are talking about the 4mm kits. Unless there's been another change, when I last built 4mm kits they came with Gibson wheels. The change from Markits wheels to Gibsons took place some time prior to Peco acquiring the range. I understand this change was originally due to supply problems with the Markits wheels.

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by JeremyC

[MrWolf]

Oddly enough I have used and heavily modified quite a lot of 100% Peco kit items or parts and find that the plastic is very easy to work with.

[Nickey Line]

21 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

I'm wondering whether they are using harder ABS like they do in the O Gauge kits

 

As far as I'm aware Parkside have always been using ABS for all their chassis, O, OO and N.

[westernviscount]

5 hours ago, JeremyC said:

 

A change in the hardness of the plastic in Peco Parkside kits might simply be that Peco use a different supplier for the raw material than Parkside did. It could also be that Peco are using the same plastic they use in other products to reduce the number of different grades they need to stock. Having said that I haven't noticed any difference in the plastic used in their '0' gauge kits except some underframe parts previously always moulded in black (e.g. axleguards) are sometimes now in other colours (just makes painting slightly more complicated).

 

I assume you are talking about the 4mm kits. Unless there's been another change, when I last built 4mm kits they came with Gibson wheels. The change from Markits wheels to Gibsons took place some time prior to Peco acquiring the range. I understand this change was originally due to supply problems with the Markits wheels.

Are markits the old romford ones?

 

I thought Gibson were a good quality wheel and the latest peco 4mm kits have been supplied with some fairly ropey ones. They are all black and with metal axle and tyre, with a plastic wheel disc. The mould of the wheel disc is not always true so there is a pronounced wobble to most of my most recent builds. 

[Steamport Southport]

2 hours ago, Nickey Line said:

 

As far as I'm aware Parkside have always been using ABS for all their chassis, O, OO and N.

 

Quite possibly. I've just never had any problems gluing the 00 versions together. But the O gauge wagon kits can be difficult to glue in my experience. Or were at the time, this was about 1998 to 2000 when I switched to 7mm for a few years.

 

It wasn't gluing the underframe to the body. It was attaching the myriad of small black parts to other black parts. Parts like brake gear and door springs, the little rings that go on the buffer shanks ended up being superglued as they kept coming apart. Humbrol liquid poly wouldn't "bite" but Mekpak worked much better.  It was mostly BR minerals of various types.

 

 

Jason

[MrWolf]

PThere's been plenty of complaints about RTR wagon wheels doing that as well. I have a heap of 4mm kits from thirty plus years ago that I am wading through, most of which have either no wheels or plastic wheels fit only for the bin. It doubtless won't suit the purists, but I have been fitting Bachmann wheels. They are readily available, much cheaper than true 'scale' items only a couple of quid dearer than the problematic RTR wheels and most importantly they are concentric.

[Steamport Southport]

The problem with Hornby and Bachmann wheels is they just won't fit many of the kits.

 

It's more clearance problems than quality. The newer versions are good.

 

 

[Ian Kirk]

While I had the kits that became Parkside (including the first four O gauge ones) They were always moulded in standard HIPS. ABS (which is more difficult to work with) was only ever used for a few small mouldings (buffers etc.) where the added strength was useful. And I don't imagine Parkside did any thing differently.  HIPS becomes brittle if moulded at too high a temperature, or later in life if aged exposed to UV light. Otherwise all should be well.

 

best wishes,

 

 

Ian

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, westernviscount said:

I thought Gibson were a good quality wheel and the latest peco 4mm kits have been supplied with some fairly ropey ones. They are all black and with metal axle and tyre, with a plastic wheel disc. The mould of the wheel disc is not always true so there is a pronounced wobble to most of my most recent builds. 

 

Alan Gibson (Colin Seymour) must have his work cut out as a cottage industry manufacturer whose products have become the default for what is undoubtedly the leading range of 4 mm scale wagon kits. I find a simple L-shaped back-to-back gauge solves most problems.

 

If you're throwing out Alan Gibson wheelsets, toss them in my direction!

Edited March 12, 2021 by Compound2632

[Nickey Line]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

It wasn't gluing the underframe to the body. It was attaching the myriad of small black parts to other black parts. Parts like brake gear and door springs, the little rings that go on the buffer shanks ended up being superglued as they kept coming apart.

 

Butanone works well on these parts, much more aggressive.

[Nickey Line]

22 minutes ago, Ian Kirk said:

While I had the kits that became Parkside (including the first four O gauge ones) They were always moulded in standard HIPS. ABS (which is more difficult to work with) was only ever used for a few small mouldings (buffers etc.) where the added strength was useful. And I don't imagine Parkside did any thing differently.  HIPS becomes brittle if moulded at too high a temperature, or later in life if aged exposed to UV light. Otherwise all should be well.

 

best wishes,

 

 

Ian

 

Well I guess you're someone who should know! I bow to your superior knowledge... 

[Nile]

3 minutes ago, Nickey Line said:

 

Butanone works well on these parts, much more aggressive.

aka MEK .

I reach for EMA Plastic Weald if MEK doesn't work.

[Steamport Southport]

16 minutes ago, Ian Kirk said:

While I had the kits that became Parkside (including the first four O gauge ones) They were always moulded in standard HIPS. ABS (which is more difficult to work with) was only ever used for a few small mouldings (buffers etc.) where the added strength was useful. And I don't imagine Parkside did any thing differently.  HIPS becomes brittle if moulded at too high a temperature, or later in life if aged exposed to UV light. Otherwise all should be well.

 

best wishes,

 

 

Ian

 

It was just those little bits I was having a problem with. It was mostly the buffers and dangly door stops on things like 21T and 24.5T minerals.

 

No big deal as long as you use the correct glue which I wasn't originally.

 

I still think about modelling in 7mm again at some point. Still got them all.

 

 

Jason