Need help with roundhouse doors

I did this model years ago as an eight or nine stall roundhouse. Let’s just say the building and particularly the doors are a major PITA. But, it’s all very doable, especially if they structure is off the layout and you have easy access. As I recall, the protrusions from the doors slot into the recessed areas on the door frames. It’s no more complicated than that. Getting them to fit properly is another matter. What I’ve done (and re-done a few times when I’ve inadvertently knocked them off working on ballasting track going into the roundhouse) is to use CA medium density glue on the protrusions, put the door in place (i.e. open), then spray with in instant cure while you’re holding the door as you want it (i.e. I assume in the open position). If you have a bit more patience, I’d use Aileens Tacky Glue, wait a few minutes for it to start curing, then hold in place until it’s firm enough to let go. Last solution would be 5 minute epoxy. 

If I understand what you bought from Altoona, those pins are for when a door and the door frame have cylindrical protrusions with small holes in them to fit the pins. That way the doors can swing on the pins and are “operable.” The strap devices you have are usually for warehouse doors where the door and the wall frame are flat and even with each other. The straps go half on the door and half on the frame/wall. Not sure what those fork devices are. 

I’d take some pics to help you out but, I’m out of the country right now. It’s pretty straightforward and hopefully the descriptions will get you through it. Good luck. 

A Jerrman points out, it's a challenge to assemble. I'm to the process to doing a 9 stall #304 right now. In regard to the doors I didn't like or want my doors to stay open 24/7. Like you I wanted brass hinges and after poking around on the web I found some that are used for doll houses. These were to small and shinny for me. I did eventually find some that were a little larger and have an antique finish to them. This too was quite a challenge but a like the results. If your interested I think I still have enough to do 3 stalls. Address is in my profile. Here's some pics of how they turned out.

Newer molds from Korber takes a bit of dremel work to provide a hinge swing grove.  Old models had a slot behind the notches pictured.   A piece of detail lumber glued to the inside of the korber door panel holds the hinge in place.   As the plastic hinges broke I replace them with small piece of brass rod.  

Note the piece of wood holding the hinges in place. 

Several years ago OGR did an article on how to fix the IHC/Atls O Enginehouse doors with dollhouse hinges from Michaels. Those hinges are a big improvement than the plastic nibs for hinges that come OEM from the manufacturer.

BILL HUDSON posted:

 

i can certainly take a nipper and cut off the vertical part on the door (those do not appear to be sprues) and trial fit the remaining straight section to the frame slot and glue in place.  But I thought brass door hinges would add a nice touch.

Constructive comments will be appreciated.

Hey Bill. I will comment on the pics you provided.

Please see my attached pics below of my Korber build.

Yes, the doors are made to only be installed in the open position, they do not operate. You need to take a sharp knife and cut out the extra plastic in the door frame where the hinges will go. Then take the door and CAREFULLY position the hinges in the openings you just made. Hit them with some ACC and walk away. I did take a strip of plastic and glue it to the inside of the frame to provide a little stiffening. You can see that on some of the pics.

I built my RH over 20 years ago from an old kit. I am not sure if the new kits are any better. Nothing lined up on my kit and EVERY panel was warped to some degree. Even my roundhouse doors were warped as can be seen on some pics. It was like building a scratch built model from the supplied material. I made my own roof from thin plastic as the supplied cardboard did not work.

Anyway, good luck with the doors. The roundhouse does look impressive when finished and installed. Mr. Muffin now supplies "Wood doors" to replace the plastic ones in the kit if you want to keep the original design but just go to a wood product.

Hope this helps.

Donald

Donald,

Thanks so much for your advice.  My doors look exactly like your’s, but they are either wood or some sort of pressed fiber material.  I am now convinced that I do not need operational hinges as I prefer open doors in order to view the engines.   By the way, I also had to deal with warped walls.  One of the large sidewall sections was warped inward about 1/4” and a back wall section warped as well.  Had to clamp a stiff board to the sidewall section to hold it true while using hot glue.  However, hot glue could not hold it, so I reclamped it, used Gorilla glue, and placed support beams across side to side.  So far, that is holding.  Warped back wall section remains warped as I found no way to clamp it.  The warped sections prevented me from assembling a perfectly symmetrical RH.

You are welcome Bill. Yes. I agree, just go with the open doors. Overall, they look pretty good in that position.

It may be a little late now but what I did with my warped walls is "heat them up a little" in a toaster oven set to a low temperature. Once they got just slightly warm, I took them out, placed them on a sheet of plate glass and then placed a piece of MDF and some heavy books on top to help straighten them out. That method took out a lot of the severe warps.

I like the Korber products and have a few of their structures. However, I still experience issues with warped castings. I recently purchased their two stall engine house (concrete walls with brick inserts). It was $175 I think. It was such a struggle to get the walls straight (even with stiffeners) that I took all the wall pieces and laminated them to a .25" piece of MDF. I then attach the MDF to my walls and used the building as a background "flat" in my engine service facility. 

Regardless, good luck with your doors and post some pics. I would like to see the finished build.

Donald

Donald,

I used my Dremel tool with a side cutting bit that is a very good fit to cut the OEM slot through to the back of the door frame.  With trial fitting I got the doors in place and glued with Loctite super glue.  In the process I managed to break off a “hinge” on two doors.  At least now I know the doors are wood.  Using some leftover thin stock I glued strips to cover the hinge areas.

Having gone through the most difficult RH assembly job I have ever attempted I am close to making a costly decision:  not use the RH and get 3 single-stall engine houses.  I have spent hours trying to fit track from the ATLAS TT to the RH left and right bays.  In my layout’s available space the outer edge of the TT must be no more than 6” from the entrance to the middle bay.  Thus, I had to bend Flextrack at a radius that I am sure would not allow passage of most of my scale engines which require O72 minimum curve.  With separate engine houses I can move them individually to get the fit(so I hope).

I have not fitted roof sections.  Given the RH is not perfectly  symmetrical, that will be a another “pita”.

Enclosed are a few shots in, of course, a partially completed status.  Note the frosted window glass.  I have always preferred frosted windows on industrial buildings.  The unpainted beams I added in an attempt to keep the thing from collapsing inward.  It has helped.

Regards. Bill

Hey Bill. Thanks for the pics. You did a good job knowing what you had to work with. As said before, those older Korber RH kits are a bear to assemble. Nothing fits quite right. I said it is like a scratch build using the supplied material. Plus having almost every plastic piece warped out of the box does not help either. Your doors look good and I also had the same  issues with breaking hinges.

When I got mine finished....I had areas like you have that are just frustrating. You could use a little camouflage like green bushes or ground cover to hide some of the obvious gaps. Will the back of the RH be visible? I was lucky, mine was not so the imperfections never got seen. I also used some Squadron Green putty to fill in between the wall sections where the gap was noticeable.

I understand the frustration in getting the stall tracks to line up on a tangent line with the TT. It take a little math to determine the position of the RR in relation to the TT. I forget. I do not remember the angle of degrees each stall is located from either the outside wall or the centerline of an adjacent stall.

Maybe I missed it but who supplied your TT? Sometimes the manufacturer has information available for placement of the RH in relation to the TT. Maybe use a straight edge and line up the TT with the first stall of the RH. Keep moving the RH back and forth in line with the straight edge until you have a straight line from the center of the TT bridge thru the center of the RH door and then thru the stall. You may be surprised how much you need to move the RH away from the TT in achieve a straight line. After the first stall is in alignment, the other two should line up the same way with no additional work.

Anyway, good luck with whatever decision you decide. You cannot beat the "wow factor" with a RH..

Take care.

Donald

I always wanted a roundhouse. I scratch built an automated turntable years ago and have always used it but getting around to building a roundhouse was on my list. Found the Korber 3 stall kit and bought 3 of them. Since my layout was already established I had to make the Korber fit the the tracks in place and the space available. Needless to say this was a massive kit bashing project. I made 2 of the 3 stall units and one 5 stall. All of them are somewhat shorter than the kit so a lot of cutting and modifying was in order. The doors, well that was another matter. Since I have a 3 D printer I designed and printed hinges. Then I designed and built automatic openers for the doors. The doors are controlled by an arduino and a stepping motor for each door. When I select the track to use the automatic turntable system, controlled by an SMINI and JMRI produced an output that the turntable uses to activate and index. I used that signal to to control the automated doors. I also 3 D printed LED light fixtures and junction boxes and receptacles and wall switches and installed wiring on each wood frame. Those also are controlled automatically based on the stall selected. I have spent about 5 months part time working on this and now have everything working and installed with the exception of install the roofs. I spent hours cutting and grinding and filing the kits red castings. That was a major pain. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would rate this kit a 15 for difficulty. I am happy with the result but boy was it a project.