Repairing Korean Lehmann plastic

[ge_rik]

Having recently acquired a couple of secondhand Toytrain chassis I've encountered my first Korean castings which, in a word, are carp!!

The mountings for the plate holding the wheels in place were split, resembling an opening flower, which meant the screws had nothing into which to bite and the gears no longer meshed reliably on the worms. I've tried Superglue but as you can see as soon as I try screwing, the mountings split again.

Anyone know of a glue which will do the job? Failing that I think I'll have to remove the mountings and fashion my own out of something a bit more durable.

Rik

 

[themole]

Stitch-weld with a 15watt soldering iron. Alyn

 

[ge_rik]

Stitch-weld with a 15watt soldering iron. Alyn

Never had much success with that - I usually get a load of smoke and fumes and end up with a misshapen lump. Maybe I'm a bit heavy-handed.

Rik

 

[ntpntpntp]

Bind the screw posts with wire to close them up then use epoxy resin to secure. If badly stripped inside, fill with epoxy, re-drill and tap.

Stich-welding works well for cracked cover plates etc.

 

[ge_rik]

Bind the screw posts with wire to close them up then use epoxy resin to secure. If badly stripped inside, fill with epoxy, re-drill and tap.

That sounds do-able. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a try. The holes aren't too badly stripped so I might get away with binding alone.

Rik

 

[Tim Brien]

For the cracked mount I would find a section of brass tubing slightly smaller than mount boss and hammer home to close up the crack. Due area usually embedded with grease/oil I seriously doubt that any glue could take hold.

Korean production started with the Porter locomotive and only lasted a few short years - basically rubbish - cheap motor, cheap plastic. Press reviews at the time were not at all complementary and spoke of very noisy drives. LGB should be made in Germany where some quality control is possible. At the time (early 1990's) Korea had not quite blossomed into the new economic tiger it became and so production costs were cheap. Aristo was also making in Korea at the same time (black box models).

 

[funandtrains]

I've bought quite a few of these off ebay and about 90% arrived with some chassis damage, some were repairable with solvent weld others have so many invisible hairline cracks that they are only suitable for the bin. I managed to repair a couple with new German made chassis molding spare parts but I have no idea if these are available anymore. The Otto chassis is identical.

 

[Madman]

Having recently acquired a couple of secondhand Toytrain chassis I've encountered my first Korean castings which, in a word, are carp!!

The mountings for the plate holding the wheels in place were split, resembling an opening flower, which meant the screws had nothing into which to bite and the gears no longer meshed reliably on the worms. I've tried Superglue but as you can see as soon as I try screwing, the mountings split again.

Anyone know of a glue which will do the job? Failing that I think I'll have to remove the mountings and fashion my own out of something a bit more durable.

Rik

Koreon castings are fish? I could not resist. And I am not the best speller either. Seriously though, all of the suggestions are good ones. You just have to be a doctor of plastics when you are doing the repairs, i.e. carefully.

 

[ge_rik]

Korean castings which, in a word, are carp!!

Koreon castings are fish?

I must have been thinking of pollock(s)!

R

 

[DoctorM]

I agree that they are a load of carp or pollacks.

I had the same problem with a Korean Porter, and decided that for a temporary fix I would Araldite a short length of brass tubing around the split post and fill the central hole with Araldite too. I waited for it to fully cure before drilling a pilot hole, and used the original LGB screw to reassemble it.

I am still running on the temporary fix several years later.