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At last some new 33s


owentherail
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Ah I see - even though an easy weathering fix  - the rad grilles attract so much detritus and don't stay clean for long at all.

 

On some 27 Hellys the black lamp brackets need a dab - but gives me something to do like the silver shafts on the buffers which Heljan omitted.

 

I'm surprised your happy with the flush coil springs on the bogie as this is usually the first port of call for Stanley.

 

Unless this is incorporated in the retool?

 

Ian

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4 minutes ago, Crisis Rail said:

 

I'm surprised your happy with the flush coil springs on the bogie as this is usually the first port of call for Stanley.

 

Unless this is incorporated in the retool?

 

Ian

 

The bogies lack depth but I think they were improved over the first releases. They are nowhere near the standard that you get on brand new models, but I can live with that, I don't expect a retool every few months!

 

The problem with the grill is that blue horizontal bar normally stays quite clean and is quite obviously blue, even on well weathered locos. 

 

Roy

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You maybe have some fair points Roy  - but I am more than happy with Heljan and my "fleet" of McRats (or that is a "mischief" according to Wiki) hardworked and abused Traction with the harshness of many a Scottish Winter that maybe hides a multitude of sins? - Maybe not so for the Cromptons on the Sunny South Coast as I remember all too well from the halcyon days of the 1970's.

 

The 70's where Lima was King - how times have changed.

 

Ian

 

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6 minutes ago, Crisis Rail said:

You maybe have some fair points Roy  - but I am more than happy with Heljan and my "fleet" of McRats (or that is a "mischief" according to Wiki) hardworked and abused Traction with the harshness of many a Scottish Winter that maybe hides a multitude of sins? - Maybe not so for the Cromptons on the Sunny South Coast as I remember all too well from the halcyon days of the 1970's.

 

The 70's where Lima was King - how times have changed.

 

Ian

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love my Heljan 33s (8 of them) - I also model the Scottish  scene mid-80s so have 3 26s and 2 27s and they are great. It just seems that more recently there are more and more errors. For example, the panels under the radiator grill are now printed (they were moulded) and are even missing altogether on 33012 where they seem to have missed printing them before weathering. then there is the white/cream issue with the green 33s.

 

I was disappointed that the change to LEDs didn't happen but as it is, in time, mine get converted to 21-pin and have bi-colour LEDs added anyway.

 

Roy

Edited by Roy Langridge
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2 minutes ago, Crisis Rail said:

 

Probably too busy working on the excellent upcoming 25 and 46 in "00" AND "0" 

 

Can't wait.

 

Ian

 

I am looking forward to see what has been addressed regarding issues raised with those. Hopefully that is a chance for Heljan to show that feedback is taken on board.

 

Roy

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24 minutes ago, amarr40 said:

It’s a shame that the Heljan UK manager doesn’t engage on this forum regarding these errors.

So he can be beaten up for the mistakes of a minimum wage chinese labourer 6500 miles away, whom will never meet, nor know, only finding out himself when some samples land 600 miles away in another country, that doesnt know class 33’s very well, before he may see them a while later....

 

Or are you suggesting he spends £10k a month on flights to China,hotels, meals, taxis to check in person..

if so i’ll take that job.. and you can pay for it on the rrp.. £10 a model on a 1000 models, and i’ll happily login from my hotel to be flayed alive whilst eating chow mein.

 

Heljans rrp is lower than others, you take rough with smooth,.. there generally much less knackers and lost spares on ebay, which must say something about performance.


another wise old man say..
“A diamond with a flaw is better than a common stone that is perfect.”
now he may be chinese wise man, if so biased.

:)

 

Edited by adb968008
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3 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Or are you suggesting he spends £10k a month on flights to China,hotels, meals, taxis to check in person.. if so i’ll take that job.. and you can pay for it on the rrp.. £10 a model on a 1000 models ?

 

Flights to China? - please keep up :D

 

(as for the meals...…)

 

 

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1 minute ago, adb968008 said:

So he can be beaten up for the mistakes of a minimum wage chinese labourer 6500 miles away, whom will never meet, nor know, only finding out himself when some samples land 600 miles away in another country, that doesnt know class 33’s very well, before he may see them a while later....

 

Or are you suggesting he spends £10k a month on flights to China,hotels, meals, taxis to check in person.. if so i’ll take that job.. and you can pay for it on the rrp.. £10 a model on a 1000 models ?

 

That's a little bit harsh. Ben himself said that he would try to stop the errors we were seeing and has taken time (very appreciated) to interact with us.

 

What we do need to see, however, is that feedback is taken on board, not ignored and then, later, when the same mistake is made, or still remains, be told that feedback was never given (as has happened on more than one occasion).

 

BUT (a big but) we do not know what the constraints are on Ben. He may well be going back and raising issues but being told they are not being fixed. We can hardly expect him to come on here and bad-mouth his employer.

 

Roy

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11 minutes ago, Roy Langridge said:

 

That's a little bit harsh. Ben himself said that he would try to stop the errors we were seeing and has taken time (very appreciated) to interact with us.

 

What we do need to see, however, is that feedback is taken on board, not ignored and then, later, when the same mistake is made, or still remains, be told that feedback was never given (as has happened on more than one occasion).

 

BUT (a big but) we do not know what the constraints are on Ben. He may well be going back and raising issues but being told they are not being fixed. We can hardly expect him to come on here and bad-mouth his employer.

 

Roy

I do agree, but he walked in to a right brawl over the 45 EP.

 

“"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" 

 

I’d dont blame him for giving it a wider berth, some comments were quite personal too.

We did once have a chinese manufacturer join the forum too, but he lasted only a morning following racist jokes.

 

If were talking about life change decisions, or multi-million projects you could understand the scrutiny, but a few hundred locos.. from their perspective.. just let em go, the market will still buy them, why submit yourself to torture, over minor errors that probably cannot be controlled or not worth to chase ?

 

The Network Rail HST is a far bigger whopper with its slanted writing, 20 minutes and a bit of blue paint on a cocktail stick will fix the 33.

 

 

 

Edited by adb968008
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Yes - there are pages and pages on the upcoming Helly 46 as Ben has answered quite correctly and strongly himself  - some justified some in my opinion pure rivet count pettiness. All documented out there in the domain for all to see - I am firmly on the side of Heljan and quite reasonably content with their output  - if anything I am disappointed that my 27's haven't yet  prototypically spontaneously combusted :D

 

At one time criticism of manufacturers on this forum was a banning offence.

 

Ian

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5 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

 

We did once have a chinese manufacturer join the forum too, but he lasted only a morning following racist jokes.

 

 

 

Don't get me going on that one. I'm married into a Chinese family and get really hacked off with people making comments that were "only in fun"...

 

Edit: and I don't just mean here on RMWeb.

 

 

Roy

Edited by Roy Langridge
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29 minutes ago, Crisis Rail said:

 

Flights to China? - please keep up :D

 

(as for the meals...…)

 

 

Shamless off topic plug, but the best chinese meal I've eaten, outside of China, or indeed Asia pacific Region, is this one..

 

http://www.1805.co.uk

 

it is in Bournemouth, so if your looking at 33’s its pseudo relevant to the topic, but only just... so if there was a $10k a month trip to QA 33’s in China, my first and last meals on expenses would be here, before/when I fly out :D

 

Anyway, back to reality of nit picking trivialities of the latest blue 33.

 

my only complaint is 33008 is the wrong version, I wish it was TOPS only, no headlight, 1960’s logo, HYE... thing with 33008 is theres 33008 different variations of its livery, no two days in service were the same...Its probably the most tweaked livery on a BR loco, Ive counted about 12 variations of Green.

Edited by adb968008
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32 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Shamless off topic plug, but the best chinese meal I've eaten, outside of China, or indeed Asia pacific Region, is this one..

 

http://www.1805.co.uk

 

it is in Bournemouth, so if your looking at 33’s its pseudo relevant to the topic, but only just... so if there was a $10k a month trip to QA 33’s in China, my first and last meals on expenses would be here, before/when I fly out :D

 

 

Hmmm Bournemouth.....

 

Is that Redknapps fave eatery gaff?

 

We're never away from Purbeck - Swanage and the Cromptonfest

 

ian

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Unfortunately the bodyside radiator grill on the new tooling 33 is about its worst feature, and so much better on the older version. It stands far to proud so any other errors related to it stand out as well. Not painting the surrounds blue is a silly mistake and what makes it worse is that it was correct on the previous Gaugemaster version. Silly errors like this should not happen - not just Heljan but all manufacturers - because it is obvious and so should be spotted when checking a painted sample before the main production run is authorised.

 

We know than factories can, shall we say, make changes without approval and in those cases a manufacturer should be able to reject the production run as not being what was commissioned, but I can see why Heljan may not want to do this for one loco. But others have - remember that Bachmann sent a batch of BR Blue 2-EPBs back to China so the reversed vehicle numbers could be corrected.

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1 minute ago, brushman47544 said:

Unfortunately the bodyside radiator grill on the new tooling 33 is about its worst feature, and so much better on the older version. It stands far to proud so any other errors related to it stand out as well. Not painting the surrounds blue is a silly mistake and what makes it worse is that it was correct on the previous Gaugemaster version. Silly errors like this should not happen - not just Heljan but all manufacturers - because it is obvious and so should be spotted when checking a painted sample before the main production run is authorised.

 

We know than factories can, shall we say, make changes without approval and in those cases a manufacturer should be able to reject the production run as not being what was commissioned, but I can see why Heljan may not want to do this for one loco. But others have - remember that Bachmann sent a batch of BR Blue 2-EPBs back to China so the reversed vehicle numbers could be corrected.

 

The EPB bodies were not sent back, a whole new set of bodyshells were made and provided for a swap.

Roy

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2 minutes ago, Roy Langridge said:

 

The EPB bodies were not sent back, a whole new set of bodyshells were made and provided for a swap.

Roy

 

You may be right. I thought a new batch of bodies were produced and sent out to retailers for those who had already bought the incorrect ones, but all those models still in the Bachmann warehouse were sent back to China to be corrected. But that's nitpicking :-)

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Mines arrived...


4DEA6EBF-7427-4D12-ADA2-278A2CB7B316.jpeg.bc953753bd6e4fd9535095a640e4d76a.jpeg

 

before...

A327DA5D-9F79-43AA-8907-BA56BE06C99D.jpeg.d85ceafd95b097e3d341d0b7c807acab.jpeg


after

20D9CD87-E9AF-4151-A136-1146EFBA3479.jpeg.54b0df2fa7dc4c404bf4964172187fbe.jpeg
 

6DD2C3A4-1D17-4366-BD68-649971932A42.jpeg.0807bec63344544fc0799020435fc685.jpeg
and after a few minor embellishments below the body line...

6C6D0328-77EB-428F-A8EE-F97F7EAF9B34.jpeg.3d318dd9afd96b1539daaedda9fdd0e2.jpeg

 

 

It does stand a little proud, its a push piece, I think it would benefit from opening up a void and refitting it, but the blue does make it visually look less impactful

 

Thanks to @Roy Langridge for pointing it out, I do agree its better with blue, its a 3 minute task, didnt even require masking.

 

3BEFB28C-307B-440B-AA83-D444C6C8583A.jpeg.91ee6e946a695089e7e4e9d8251a1f4e.jpeg

Edited by adb968008
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16 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

It does stand a little proud, its a push piece, I think it would benefit from opening up a void and refitting it, but the blue does make it visually look less impactful

 

Thanks to @Roy Langridge for pointing it out, I do agree its better with blue, its a 3 minute task, didnt even require masking.

 

 

 

As you say, it looks a lot better. Why or why was it not like that to start?


Anyhow, three minutes or not, this is the model where I have decided to take a stand.

 

As an aside, I have just spotted the nameplate is in the wrong place. With the radiator on the left, the nameplate should be between the windows, not under one. Once again, correct on the Gaugemaster version :(


Roy

 

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1 hour ago, Roy Langridge said:

 

As you say, it looks a lot better. Why or why was it not like that to start?


Anyhow, three minutes or not, this is the model where I have decided to take a stand.

 

As an aside, I have just spotted the nameplate is in the wrong place. With the radiator on the left, the nameplate should be between the windows, not under one. Once again, correct on the Gaugemaster version :(


Roy

 

I’m going to order some bespoke nameplates...

”Sulky”.

 

:o
 

That or as the paints not dry yet, scrape it off and send it back. ;-)

 

on a serious note I may pick out a few colours below the frames (Grey speedo cover, yellow Talisman clips etc).

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39 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I’m going to order some bespoke nameplates...

”Sulky”.

 

:o

 

Sorry, was only when I saw your side-on shot that it leapt out at me. Doesn't look balanced.

 

At least it has the right fuel tank, unlike 33111 which I had to swap.


Roy

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14 minutes ago, Roy Langridge said:

 

Sorry, was only when I saw your side-on shot that it leapt out at me. Doesn't look balanced.

 

At least it has the right fuel tank, unlike 33111 which I had to swap.


Roy

Got to admit the nameplate is a bummer.

removing it is a bit more if a job as it’ll need varnishing to cover the sheen after removing it, not hard but not 5 minutes either.

 

i may try some exploratory work on the plate, Heljans printing is not usually as clean as Bachmann's to remove.

Definitely a more doh!-worthy issue than the black grill.

2 minutes ago, JSpencer said:

Two Sultan's and Eastleigh's from the same manufacturer in the same livery only different toolings neither really correct! I wonder how that happened.


3 actually...

 

3312 was the first..

https://www.hattons.co.uk/16936/heljan_3312_class_33_0_diesel_33025_sultan_in_br_blue_with_grey_roof/stockdetail.aspx
 

If I were a betting man, my guess would be 1st attempt was a tooling error, despatched off cheaper with weathering, and the 2nd correct batch has been rushed.

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