Plastruct Piping & Elbows - Is there a trick to this?

Is there a parting line in the pieces that is preventing them from connecting?

@BillYo414 posted:

Is there a parting line in the pieces that is preventing them from connecting?

No, it's the fact that the nipple on the elbows is too small in diameter to snug up with the piping.  The result is a wobbly, poor connection.

George

@G3750 posted:

No, it's the fact that the nipple on the elbows is too small in diameter to snug up with the piping.  The result is a wobbly, poor connection.

Well that's no good. I would try hot glue at that point. Or expanding glue. You need something to take up the slop I would figure. Hopefully somebody else has the answer. @Alan Graziano might have some experience with Plastruct given the scope of structures he has built.

If they make tubing one size smaller you could use them as inserts to hold two pieces together. Rather than CA a liquid solvent cement is much stronger. Plastruct makes some and Micro Mark sells a Tenax 7R replacement called “Same Stuff”. Its bonds styrene in seconds.

Pete

Maybe Alan Graziano could help. He’s the master of Plastruct piping. He made 2 structures for me. Outstanding work and great guy to help if needed.

Gene

Thanks all!  I did try the Plastruct Plastic Weld and it does work better.  Unfortunately, it doesn't fix the poor machining of the elbows and styrene tubing.  We'll have to live with that.  Lots of paint, I guess.

George

@G3750 posted:

Thanks all!  I did try the Plastruct Plastic Weld and it does work better.  Unfortunately, it doesn't fix the poor machining of the elbows and styrene tubing.  We'll have to live with that.  Lots of paint, I guess.

George

👍

What I've discovered:

1. These elbows and other fittings are appropriate for the Butyrate tubing, not Fineline styrene tubing.  It's a subtle difference and explains my difficulty.  And the styrene tubing doesn't have fittings for it (at least not that I've discovered in my older print catalog).
2. To fix my problem, I can use a piece of 3/16" styrene tubing inside the 1/4" styrene tubing.  The nipple for the elbow will fit inside it and make for a snug connection.

George

George

glad you found the solution.

i just 3D print pipe connections i need,

@AlanRail posted:

George

glad you found the solution.

i just 3D print pipe connections i need,

George,

I just e-mailed you.

Butyrate pipe from Plastruct with the fittings is the way to go. If  you use styrene pipe, you can use flanges on all joints.

@G3750 George-   Alan is the master but I did a small project for a track cleaning car I built. I bought the matching pipe and fittings from Plastruct and everything worked fine. I used CA glue on all of the joints.

@RSJB18 posted:

@G3750 George-   Alan is the master but I did a small project for a track cleaning car I built. I bought the matching pipe and fittings from Plastruct and everything worked fine. I used CA glue on all of the joints.

That is amazing!  Beautiful work.

George

one piece  3D prints that would be difficult to make with Plastruct.

they have no function just layout trivia.

@G3750 posted:

That is amazing!  Beautiful work.

George

Thanks- I bought an All-nations track cleaning car and decided it needed some upgrades....

Bob,

You did a great job with the cleaning car. I would like to see Alans mock-up printed out. It looks pretty cool.

Hey George, one of the things I found from building a lot of my own plastruc piping stuff over the years is that when you're building something' it's right in front of you and you're focusing on it, and then when you put it on the layout for a while as something new it is where your eyes will go right away, after a few weeks or months it will just blend right in with everything else and you won't notice all these tiny imperfections

@Alan Graziano posted:

Bob,

You did a great job with the cleaning car. I would like to see Alans mock-up printed out. It looks pretty cool.

Thanks Alan. It was fun to build.

Here are a couple pictures of AlanRail's mockup.  We should have a contest to decide what we should name it.  I sprayed a little rust colored paint on it and haven't decided what color to paint the control wheels.  I got busy with other projects, but want to do something cool with it.  Maybe a flat car load and a bunch of people looking at it and trying to decide what it is?  I was going to use it for my Far East Imports company lot, but it doesn't look like an import from that part of the world to me.  Anyway it will be a conversation piece how ever it's used.

Art

@Chugman posted:

Here are a couple pictures of AlanRail's mockup.  We should have a contest to decide what we should name it.  I sprayed a little rust colored paint on it and haven't decided what color to paint the control wheels.  I got busy with other projects, but want to do something cool with it.  Maybe a flat car load and a bunch of people looking at it and trying to decide what it is?  I was going to use it for my Far East Imports company lot, but it doesn't look like an import from that part of the world to me.  Anyway it will be a conversation piece how ever it's used.

Art

Looks like a Flux Capacitor to me......

This creation looks like a hot water tank since it has the coil pipes on the one side. Maybe you mix in some solvent to help create the cleaning agent that is circulated through the tank.

it will be called the hot water solvent injection tank. What do you think ?