Zinc pest strikes again

Yes - but on ancient yet beautiful steel lithographed Varney box cars in HO from the 1950s.  Bob Stevenson, of Stevenson Preservation Models, cast me some beautiful brass replacements.

The trick is to control shrinkage.  There are ways to do that, on short run castings. Fortunately, about 90% of my trains are free of die cast parts.

This has happened to me as well on an Atlas O scale beer reefer floor casting many years back and I contacted Atlas at the time regarding the problem. They told me that replacements were to come in a "few months", which to my knowledge never came in. So I ended up making my own floor out of modified plastic flooring from floor that I found on line. Because of my bad experience I am avoiding purchasing any more cars like that.

Unfortunately, NOT going away anytime soon. 😐😐😐

Not as long as companies choose to have our trains made in countries where they chose to skimp on quality control with their metal casting process.  Lionel learned this in the early years, as did others.  Tight control of the metal mix quality in diecasting yields quality products.  I have not seem much from the late prewar/postwar era that have zinc pest from Lionel or AF.  Its a shame we still have to deal with this issue on modern products.      Mike

I wonder how widespread this particular case is? I have about 25 of the 40 foot ones and about that many of the 36 foot ones. Last time I checked I didn't notice that on any of mine.

I figure if it happens to some of the ones I like the most I will borrow parts from the others to fix them. Hopefully none of the shells will be damaged as a result of this but it wouldn't surprise me. 

artfull dodger posted:

Not as long as companies choose to have our trains made in countries where they chose to skimp on quality control with their metal casting process.  Lionel learned this in the early years, as did others.  Tight control of the metal mix quality in diecasting yields quality products.  I have not seem much from the late prewar/postwar era that have zinc pest from Lionel or AF.  Its a shame we still have to deal with this issue on modern products.      Mike

American Flyer 3/16ths O gauge trains from the years right before WW 2 are frequently victims of zinc pest - it's nearly impossible to find a 574 NKP 0-8-0 that hasn't exploded or crumbled from shell to frame to drivers and extending throughout the tender as well. Boiler castings for the Hudson, Challenger (Northern), Pennsy K-5, Atlantic have all been affected by impure zinc used in castings (tender shells/tender frames/diecast sideframes are subjuct to rot and warpage) - following the war the quality of zinc/diecasting improved greatly and postwar Flyer S gauge is relatively unaffected.

I have that car.

No problems with the floor on mine so far.

Reading about this problem (not just Atlas) makes me appreciate my ScaleCraft cars even more.

Jim,

Unfortunately, this is a VERY common problem with Atlas Woodside reefers. You can try contacting Atlas and see if they still have replacement frames. If they do, it's just the frame. You have to swap over all the detail parts.  If Atlas has no replacements, and is not planning to make more soon, your options are pretty limited. Best best is to make one out of plastic. For more information, search this Forum with keyword "zincpest". You will get an education.

BTW, Weaver troop transport cars are also known to have this issue. 

Chris

LVHR