Wrack and Ruin

A mid-life crisis in narrow gauge

The First Rule of Glue

…Don’t use Bostik! When will I learn not to buy this stuff? It dries squidgy and pliable, rather than hard. It might be fine for gluing paper and flies’ wings, but it’s a complete failure for anything where you want a rigid join - like, say, a plastic gear wheel on a metal axle. It lasted about five seconds, or roughly halfway round a circle of track.

Back to Loctite Superglue instead, which scares me because I always imagine I’m going to find myself stuck to the object, or the desk, or the ceiling afterwards. But it does work. Of course, immediately afterwards, the newly-opened tube commenced setting rock-solid internally to ensure that it could never be used again, like all the others I’ve ever bought (second rule of gluing). Very much a disposable product. But it’s done the job; goes like…well, like a train now. I need to buy some decent glue, like an epoxy-based one.

(In case you’re wondering, this was to mend a “Kamco Continental train set” bought off eBay - the aforementioned arthritic battery loco. For all its cheapness, and its ugly American outline, it’s not a bad loco, with a working headlight and even steam. I thought I was seeing things when the first curl of smoke drifted out of the top. There’s a little plastic bulb of oil inside (well, actually oil residue by now), which is presumably heated by a low current wire. The motor drives a single axle, which in turn spins another axle with a plastic peg on it that, once every rotation, pushes a long plastic bracket running the length of the wheelbase against the oil bulb, thus squeezing it and causing a puff of oil vapour or “smoke” from the chimney. Clever. I wonder where you can get replacement steam oil?)