Attaching Brass Handrails

[garethashenden]

How does everyone attach brass handrails to models? I'm fine making them and soldering the stanchions on but how do I attach them to the body? It's 44 tonner so the body and walkway are the same piece but a lot of the existing handrail holes aren't in the right places.

[mmagliaro]

Assuming the body is some sort of slippery "engineering plastic" like Delrin, I would suggest Walthers Goo.
As thick and klunky as it is, if you can get a teeny tiny blob of it on the tip of each railing wires before putting them into he
body holes, it will stick right away, and within a day or so, become semi-hard to form a really good bond that
is still flexible enough to stand up to clumsy hands.  Almost anything else like ACC or epoxy will never stick
to Delrin worth a darn.

Goo is amazing stuff for sticking small parts on engine bodies into mounting holes.  It's thickness is awkward.  You have
to make sure you have a fresh tube.  Get any of the older thick stuff out of the nozzle and get some of the more
liquidy Goo to come out before using it.   It's permanent flexibility keeps
the parts in and prevents them from snapping off or otherwise getting lost where ACC and even epoxies fail.

[garethashenden]

To further complicate things the body has been painted/decaled already. I was going to reuse the plastic handrails but they aren't in the right configuration for the prototype/era I'm modelling.

Also, Goo is unavailable as I'm in the UK. Would contact cement work? It's a similar consistency.

[craigolio1]

Drill out the holes to fit the smallest size of styrene rod that you can get.  Repaint the side sill with a tiny brush, re-drill the holes in the locations that you need.  Make the holes the smallest that your handrail stanchions can fit while still being held in by friction.

Substitute rubber cement for the Goo.

Craig

[ednadolski]

Are you sure it is Delrin?   Seems unlikely if already painted/decaled.

Sounds like you will have to plug the old holes and touch them up.  Then drill the new holes where needed and glue each stanchion into its hole with CA. You want to size the holes so that the mounting pins will be snug and not flop around before the glue sets.  If the stanchion is sill-mounted then carefully make a 90-degree bend in the mounting tab before installing.  Use the panel lines on the body as a visual guide to make them all straight and square.

I prefer to install the stanchions first, then solder the railings.  I use small strips of paper towel, wet with a drop of water and wrapped around the base of each stanchion to act as a heat sink.

Ed

[peteski]

That locos body (and walkways) is not Delrin.  It is either ABS or a similar form of polystyrene (styrene).  So whatever methods and adhesives you would use for gluing and painting styrene will work here.