Interior Bracing for busted piko roof seams

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GscaleRoyalGarden

Katie G.
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HI folks, I'm new here, thanks for having me.
So I have quite a few piko garden railroad buildings I am working on really revamping. They have been through multiple seasons of hot sunny weather and cold winter storage. I'm guessing that is what has led to the current situation. More than a few have split at the glue seam on the roof and begun to come apart. I have spent a lot of time scraping off old glue surfaces and reglue-ing with piko welding glue with various results.
What I think a good solution is to create some kind of internal bracing to support the angle of the roof and keep it in position on the building. My question is what is a good cost effective and durable material seeing as they will be exposed to all kinds of heat and weather conditions? Something fairly easy to cut would be ideal. Thanks for taking the time to read and consider my query!
 
Welcome to the forum! Have you a shorter name we can use?
Many people use aluminium angle to brace the joints of their buildings.
 
Here's what I've taken to doing. I'll solvent weld pieces of sprue to the inside of the roofs to add support. I use Tester's Model Cement for this. I'll add some five minute epoxy after the solvent weld glue has fully cured, usually 1 to 2 days later. I like to keep my building roofs removable so I can get at the interior when needed. I'll glue some pieces of sprue on to act as locators when necessary. The first pic is of my crossing keepers hut roof. This Pola building has been outside constantly since 2016. It houses a 4-channel switch decoder and reverse-loop module. I never got around to adding the additional epoxy reinforcement to this one but it has survived just fine.

roofs - 1.jpeg roofs - 1 (1).jpeg

The next couple of pics show another thing I've started doing. I used to glue down-spouts to the gutters of the roofs. After breaking them off many times I started to glue them to the walls of the buildings lined up with the gutters. Often I'll fashion a bit of styrene as a standoffs for the down spouts as seen in the second pic below.

roofs - 1 (2).jpeg roofs - 1 (3).jpeg
 
I have two part polyurethane resin poured in the roof channel for extra strength.
 
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Another suggestion would be 10, 12 or 15mm PVC equal angle trim - good and cheap from the DIY store, easy to cut and shape and glues fine to foamboard and buildings plastic. I've also used it for bridge making and platform edging and it stands up OK to being outside.
 
I tend to use Silicone to strengthen all of the joints, that with all of the other suggestions are all worth while. But one other thing I like to do with building edges is to drill fine holes and use wire to strengthen the joints.
 
GscaleRoyalGarden said:
Katie is my short name.
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HI Katie,

One thing I forgot to mention. Make sure you scrape any paint overspray off of the glue surfaces of your buildings when you assemble them. You will get a much better bond. The paint interferes with the styrene to styrene bonding.

Out of curiosity where in MI are you located?
 
phils2um said:
HI Katie,

One thing I forgot to mention. Make sure you scrape any paint overspray off of the glue surfaces of your buildings when you assemble them. You will get a much better bond. The paint interferes with the styrene to styrene bonding.

Out of curiosity where in MI are you located?
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Thank you I appreciate the suggestions! Paint is the next topic I am working with! Antrim county, as you can imagine we get a bit of all kinds of weather
 
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