P.S. I posted the pics directly from my phone using Photo buckets mobile app .

Thanks for the help on that guys .

BTW. The tires are unmarked???

 

.
Dang! That's the 'Berries...

I've seen it happen with stock TYCO, TOMY & LifeLike tires...

Too bad it couldn't be an old broken TYCO (or other) track piece...

John
.

 

that's a serious reaction.
how difficult was it to remove from track?

 

It's melted Al. No removing the damage unfortunately .But the wheels are intact?!?!?!

Oh my bad .The car was barely stuck. Just touched it and it came right off .

I dunno wha happened

 

Could it be a reaction with what you use to clean track?

 

...........

 

I never use any kind of chemicals r cleaner .Just dust off.

 

.
If I can find the key to my old Timex watch display I converted for
slot cars, I'll post a pic of what stock Tomy & Tyco tires can do to
LifeLike track... Have a damaged Tomy or Tyco 9" piece, also... somewhere...

John
.

 

Same thing happens with the old Aurora Russkit controllers. In storage the flex plastic of the wire insulation leaves scars on the hard plastic of the bodies wherever they touch for a long time. I now wind the wires and put them in a small ziplock bag to protect the controller body from them.

The problem is common in old toys where some parts were hard styrene and others were vinyl or other soft rubbery plastic. Ideal's popular Pirate Ship from the late '50s is a common example.

For storage, the masts and rigging were taken down and laid in the hull. Today, most have imprints of the vinyl rigging pieces burned into the deck.

As I understand it, some flexible plastics are flexible because they contain a fair amount of liquid solvent. In minute amounts, that solvent seeps out onto anything the part touches, and over time the minute amounts add up to cause the damage.

But I thought silicone was inert and would not react with styrene. Maybe I was wrong.

-- D

 

I have read that the Mattel TYCO tires melted plastic track in a similar fashion that Joe described

 

Sometimes, even damage the wheel paint/wheel on the cars...

The tires on the Mattell HP X2 chassis' are *pre-deteriorated*...
Already cracked and out-of-round... Don't know if they *melt* the track, though...
Gonna try not to find out...

John
.

 

That's a shame since those track pieces a lot of money. I used to make 1/32 urethane tires with different liquid color adders and to this day all the tires are as good as when I first popped them from the mold. I blame the cheap tires in your case. Shame about that track piece.

 

Moebius had the same problem with the vinyl tracks in their first release of the LIS Chariot. They were melting the parts in the box right away. Old Aurora armor kits with tracks had the same problem.

 

I first brought this up back in 2007...

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=192012&highlight=melt+track

Joe

 

I first brought this up back in 2007...
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=192012&highlight=melt+track

I remember the issue also came up later in regard to the tires on the slot car chassis that Tyco/Mattel was clearancing out online for $3.00 each.

I was also very interested in JOEZ' reply in your 2007 thread:

I have swapped out the JL tjet wheels for the JL pullback wheels and found that the pullback tyres, when exposed to oil will begin to melt and make a sticky mess! The pullback tyres are a plastic/vinyl, me thinks.

Not quite the same problem, but related. I've been wondering how the JL pullback wheels would work on powered cars. Apparently not so well with the tires that came on them. Too bad. The wheels look so great.

I went into my parts box where my Weird Jack Rocket Science "Bag o' Blems" tires have been sitting for years in neat stacks. Happy to report no marks on the clear hard plastic of the box. Weird Jack's silicone is apparently not outgassing any significant amount of solvent.

-- D

 

Joe, dont forget that you can repair that track using goop. Remember Boosted's 4 way intersection came out really good.

 

Hmm

No kidding?? I don't recall Boosteds track.

I never tried to goop before. :wave:

Thanks

 

... and from now on, just display your cars on 9"R-90° curves. Then when the tires melt divots into them, chuck 'em out and just replace them with another from that beat-up box in the back of the closet.

 

A plasticizer is added to rigid plastics to make them flexible. An example of that is PVC, which is normally rigid, PVC tubing is flexible because it has a plasticizer. I used PVC tubing in the lab, but after a few years the plasticizer could leach out causing the tubing to get stiff. I suppose that if plasticizer leaches out of the tires it would soften a plastic like ABS, which is the type of styrene used to make sectional track. The tires could also damage the Sintra that is used for custom HO tracks.

 

Yet another reason to through the low quality sleazy urethane tires straight in the trash.

**********


Joe "Hmm

No kidding??"

Yessir Joe, Goop is really no different than another mud, spackle, or putty. Except the decided advantage that the color match will be identical and the bond will be permanent. I know O gauge straights dont grow on trees.

Use a chunk of vintage L&J as your donor. While its cooking, degrease your O gauge piece. Box out the wounds with duct tape. (in case ya slip on the next step) Then use a 45 degree hobby blade to scrape the "wounds" flush. Just scrape the pile up material down gradually. Pre wet the wounds with 3502, then apply some medium thick pre-mixed goop (thats the base thinned about 50/50) to the wounds and scrub it in a little. No need to get real crazy, just be sure youve liquefied and kinda stirred it all together. It'll self level a to a point. Let that cure for a a coupla days.

It'll shrink back like most mud. Just add more as required. Once you have the wounds built back up and well proud of the track surface and it's had a week er so to thoroughly dry. Block it off with 320 sand paper and grit down to 1200. Then we'll talk about how to "stipple" in the factory asphalt texture and blend it all down so's ya can tell.

 

Joe, Bill is correct, goop is a great repair / fill media, I used it on the 4 lane intersection I built well over a year ago and no signs of any distress yet, I used it to fill gaps between the 4 pieces pretty much all over the intersection, and honestly after filling, drying, sanding and then treating the entire track with denatured alcohol you honestly cant tell where it was filled.

Since I was bonding pieces together I treated the surfaces with full strength testors liquid glue then a layer of goop and clamped them together to dry, Dry time is the key, let it sit, you can decrease the dry time if you lightly sand the top just to remove the shine and let it dry again, the shine does come back.

Boosted

 

Link to a goop recipe???

 

Its made of Testors 3502 liquid model Cement (Like this http://www.amazon.com/Testors-Liqui...35LOUWK/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1451706859&sr=8-13&keywords=testor+model+cement) and pieces of (in your case) a piece of a donor track cut into small 1/4" or so sized pieces, placed into the 3502 to melt into a consistency of something near pancake mix.

I dump out about 2/3 of the new 3502 into another GLASS bottle them add the pieces into the 3502 bottle until I get it where I want, if it starts to get too thick I add more 3502 liguid. Stir it occasionally as its melting the donor plastic, it will be ready to use in about 24 hours or so, and a little goes a long way, that is why I dont mix up an entire bottle.

Boosted

 

The plastic will dissolve a lot faster if you use a file on the donor track section to make smaller particles. The jewel cases that 1/32nd cars come in have black ABS plastic bases, it is the same stuff that track sections are made of.

 

Here ya go Joe http://w11.zetaboards.com/The_Slot_Lodge/topic/9449371/1/

Click on the pic under "How to make it".

I NEVER mix vintage plastic with modern plastic. Arbitrarily substituting an unknown relegates the process to an experiment, rather than a proven technique. The whole point of the exercise is to target and match the parent plastic, by selecting a similar era donor; so as to match both the color and properties of the parent. To do otherwise is just asking for a mishap. :freak:

Degrease the donor, use only clean, unpainted, unglued material. Quickly clip it into it into Chiclet size bits and pieces using a clean set of *****. It takes only takes seconds. There is no need to break a sweat mincing it into molecules. Thats what the 3502 is for.

Toss enough 3502 to just cover the chips and walk away. Come back 24 hrs later and your base mix is done. Just let the chemistry work without meddling. Why make it hard? :thumbsup:

The more ya mess and fuss with the process; the better chance you have of contaminating the batch with the type of duff, that potentially becomes inclusions in your work. It's one of the many benefits of making a batch. Any stray foreign matter migrates and settles into the bottom of the jar; then working medium is pulled from the top.

 

joe~pony, be sure to understand that Bill has taken Mike Vitale's formula to the Nth degree.
at least I think it was Mike Vitale that pioneered the GOOP legacy.
in any case, I have done some minimal work with the current GOOP idea and before there was even internet, I repaired O-gauage track that had been damaged when a wire from an Aurora Dragster fell off the car and fried shorting across the rails.
my experience was positive and I think I still have THAT piece of track.

 

Great Bill thanks ?

 

In the May 1969 issue of CAR MODEL magazine there is an article on page 38 written by Jim Keeler on how to make plastic "goop". He used cut up pieces of plastic "trees" that model car parts came attached to and Testor's Liquid Cement. I have been doing pretty much the same process except substituting pieces of Aurora 9" curve tracks to make goop to smooth out track joints and screw holes. I was using this method on my 4 lane banked oval back about 1985-1986. I am certainly not trying to take anything away from Mike Vitale, he is extremely knowledgeable and a master at his craft.


Bob Weichbrodt
Rawafx@msn.com
Winston-Salem, NC