Plastic chairs and MEK. Very poor bond.

[Stephen Freeman]

13 hours ago, fulton said:

Most of my trackwork is plastic based, but I have a timber viaduct where I used super glue to fix C&L plastic chairs to lime wood bulk timbers, the rail will pull out of the chairs before the glue joint fails, is there a problem using super glue?

Depends on the glue, some are made to use on plastic whilst some can cause the plastic to go brittle. You could of course use both Butanone and cyano, which might be better.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Stephen Freeman

[UpDistant]

Well it's coming up to the one year mark and there are so many circular arguments, it's almost unbelievable. Or not?

 

J Douglas Smith did some experimenting for the EMGS when plastic chairs first appeared and bonded the chairs to ply sleepers using butanone (aka Methyl Ethyl Ketone, or butan-2-one) to find just how strong the bond was between the ply and the plastic chair. He held the sleeper vertically and added weights to the jaws of the chair until something "gave" - it wasn't the bond, the jaws of the chair failed, so the conclusion was that the bond was strong enough.

 

There are only 4 components in this current scenario:

 

Ply sleepers - can be either traditional Brook-Smith, or laser cut

Plastic chairs - C&L or Exactoscale - very little difference, although the Exactos seem to soften more than the C&L

Butanone - nothing else but! Get a litre off Ebay, it works

A brush - currently using a number 6 - a loaded brushfull is sufficient for about 4 chairs - it needs to look wet 

 

I don't think you've said if your sleepers have been stained. If you have, what have you used? I have used the original spirit base Colron wood dye for thousands of sleepers - until I ran out and you can't get it any more. I read that the alternative water based dye does not penetrate the ply. This is easily observed by cutting vertically through a sleeper. As Hayfield has observed, it may have additives which provide a nice base for staining furniture and polishing to a wonderful finish. If that is the case, it's useless for our purposes. The alternative spirit based dye I'm using now is made by Rustins. I believe those made by Liberon are also water based. Do some experiments with unstained sleepers to see if there is any difference. 

 

Questions - Why are you wanting to twist the chairs? Are you threading your chairs onto your length of rail first and then sticking them down? Or, are you threading the rail onto chairs already stuck to the sleepers? If so, you are asking for trouble.

 

I've just finished sticking down about 4000 stained sleepers in my fiddle yard and I don't expect any problems.

[Ian Fisher]

Cant recall were this idea came from? But I had some good experience with a Loctite product used in the music sound industry wasnt cheap but did a great job on ply/ Peco Pandrols. Cant seem to find the one I used but this is very close to it.

 

Google just re found loctite 480.....

 

 

 

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/glues/9082802?cm_mmc=UK-PLA-DS3A-_-google-_-CSS_UK_EN_Adhesives_%26_Sealants_%26_Tapes_Whoop-_-Glues_Whoop-_-9082802&matchtype=&pla-341507982166&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjN-SBhCkARIsACsrBz6y8Uo_lPbkh6_ggIgaTZQozQtU_F_BHLusW81mtyOqEZcH8LFa_G4aAuC-EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Ian Fisher
add loctite 480 ref

[Jol Wilkinson]

On 14/04/2022 at 18:34, UpDistant said:

Well it's coming up to the one year mark and there are so many circular arguments, it's almost unbelievable. Or not?

 

J Douglas Smith did some experimenting for the EMGS when plastic chairs first appeared and bonded the chairs to ply sleepers using butanone (aka Methyl Ethyl Ketone, or butan-2-one) to find just how strong the bond was between the ply and the plastic chair. He held the sleeper vertically and added weights to the jaws of the chair until something "gave" - it wasn't the bond, the jaws of the chair failed, so the conclusion was that the bond was strong enough.

 

There are only 4 components in this current scenario:

 

Ply sleepers - can be either traditional Brook-Smith, or laser cut

Plastic chairs - C&L or Exactoscale - very little difference, although the Exactos seem to soften more than the C&L

Butanone - nothing else but! Get a litre off Ebay, it works

A brush - currently using a number 6 - a loaded brushfull is sufficient for about 4 chairs - it needs to look wet 

 

I don't think you've said if your sleepers have been stained. If you have, what have you used? I have used the original spirit base Colron wood dye for thousands of sleepers - until I ran out and you can't get it any more. I read that the alternative water based dye does not penetrate the ply. This is easily observed by cutting vertically through a sleeper. As Hayfield has observed, it may have additives which provide a nice base for staining furniture and polishing to a wonderful finish. If that is the case, it's useless for our purposes. The alternative spirit based dye I'm using now is made by Rustins. I believe those made by Liberon are also water based. Do some experiments with unstained sleepers to see if there is any difference. 

 

Questions - Why are you wanting to twist the chairs? Are you threading your chairs onto your length of rail first and then sticking them down? Or, are you threading the rail onto chairs already stuck to the sleepers? If so, you are asking for trouble.

 

I've just finished sticking down about 4000 stained sleepers in my fiddle yard and I don't expect any problems.

Liberon supply a water based  (called Palette wood dye ) and also a spirit based wood dye, which I now use as someone "borrowed " my previous stock.

[ozzyo]

Hello all,

 

this is the stuff that I'm using to stick down Exactoscale chairs to plywood sleepers that have been stained using a spirit based stain. I've not had any problems, apart from when I was doing some tests and that was due to me not putting enough of the stuff on the joint.

This was bought from the bay of e for abought £10. The link below should help?

SHL 500ml pure Methyl Ethyl Ketone MEK Butanone 5055341004557 | eBay

 

This is what it says on my bottle.

 

And a close up of the small print.

 

ATB

 

OzzyO.

Edited May 2, 2022 by ozzyo