Modern Traction Kits

[74009]

4-DD thread started...

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/154362-building-an-mtk-4-dd-double-decker/

 

Stuart

Edited May 8, 2020 by 74009

[mphoey]

On ‎25‎/‎01‎/‎2020 at 11:16, hayfield said:

I have at least one old MTK catalogue, but I have seen things on here which I had no idea were available, the 1988 has a 4mm scale Irish section, also have some W&H catalogues with lists of models in.

can you scan or photograph the irish section please as no one ever seems to have a list

 

[hayfield]

 2 pages from the 1988 catalogue

[Il Grifone]

Shouldn't they run on 21mm track or am I being pedantic?

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, Il Grifone said:

Shouldn't they run on 21mm track or am I being pedantic?

 

It;s a MTK kit, were they ever designed to be built ?

 

[Il Grifone]

Did the kits ever see the light of day?

[Darius43]

26 minutes ago, Il Grifone said:

Did the kits ever see the light of day?

I recall seeing the MTK 80 class kit (or at least the box) in a model shop window in the early 1980s. I can’t remember where exactly but it might have been Victors or Hadley Hobbies or possibly the Harrow Model Shop.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

Edited June 21, 2020 by Darius43

[Darius43]

I see there’s an MTK AM10/Class 310 kit on the Bay of e at the moment.  Not seen one of those by MTK before.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[Northmoor]

32 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

I see there’s an MTK AM10/Class 310 kit on the Bay of e at the moment.  Not seen one of those by MTK before.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

I have the sides and ends which I snapped up on eBay about ten years ago.  Knowing how difficult they appear to be to make, it's about #94 on my project to-do list.  I'm still at the renovating damaged Series 1 Airfix kits stage.....

[Il Grifone]

As high as that?  

[andyman7]

I've got a part built Class 310/AM10 in the pile too, turned up in an auction lot a couple of years back. And today I took delivery of a rather nice Class 27, running on Triang bogies. It has seperate wire handrails and sprung buffers, and is not a bad effort.

Edited June 26, 2020 by andyman7

[47164]

Latest project finished, MTK 40 , this was the basket case some of you may have seen being on sale last year by a south York’s retailer for stupid money... I just kept watching it until they saw sense. Sits on a mainline 45 chassis so is a tight fit, but runs beautifully.

Now dressed as 40012 one of the Crewe infrastructure locos using railtecs excellent transfers 

[John M]

On 22/06/2020 at 04:05, Il Grifone said:

Did the kits ever see the light of day?

 

MTK appears to have produced the 001 or A Class Co Co for Model Irish Railways (MIR) as a body line kit during the late 80s early 90s.   

 

I built a 21mm gauge 001 Class about 30 years ago using the MIR/MTK body kit in combination with a scratch built brass chassis with Athearn SD9 mechanism.

 

The design of the kit, fit and quality of the castings was similar to other MTK diesels. 

 

The finished loco just about passed the 2' rule, but the combination of whitemetal body and Athearn mechanism 019 had good haulage capability and operated smoothly and reliably at several exhibitions.

 

 

[andyman7]

My latest MTK acquisition is also a class 40 but joy-of-joys this one predates the availability of commercial 1-Co-Co-1 chassis and features a marvellous lash-up underneath powered by an early (Triang) Hornby Ringfield mechanism borrowed from an early SIlver Seal tender drive loco, with pickups provided by the gubbins of a Triang X337 motor bogie minus armature. And it works! Apart from replacing the missing glazing I'm inclined to leave it as it is, it is very much of it's time, weighs a ton and would have turned heads in the mid 1970s.....

Edited September 5, 2020 by andyman7

[Northmoor]

I'd do the same, it looks really nicely assembled so keep it as it is, although might renumber it; D326 is the Great Train Robbery loco.  (I've no objection to anyone else having D326 layouts, or even to the Great Train Robbery diorama that was exhibited, but I wouldn't want it myself).

[andyman7]

3 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I'd do the same, it looks really nicely assembled so keep it as it is, although might renumber it; D326 is the Great Train Robbery loco.  (I've no objection to anyone else having D326 layouts, or even to the Great Train Robbery diorama that was exhibited, but I wouldn't want it myself).

I'm aware that D326 is the Great Train Robbery engine but don't have an issue on this model as it's not glorifying the event and the loco continued in service, however the numbers are the wrong typeface for green SYP so for that reason it may get renumbered at some point.

[roythebus]

My MTK Cravens parcel car has recently re-surfaced, that runs on a pair of Lima bogies. There's also an unbuilt 140 railbus lurking somewhere unbuilt as usual!

 

 

I had one of the class 40s many years ago, the gearing supplied by MTK was all up the creek as it wasn't a reduction gear, a large gear wheel mounted on Triang X04 (or similar) drove a lay shaft through a smaller gear1 It wasn't possible to make it into a reduction gear as the motor then wouldn't fit or the holes in the gears were the wrong size, I can't remember what. 

 

At the time they were really all that was available apart from the few diesels produce by Triang, Hornby and Trix.

[andyman7]

The GWR Railcar that started this thread has an original MTK motor bogie fitted - it runs erratically like a bag of spanners but is kept 'as-is' for novelty purposes (the Railcar itself is well built and a pretty ornament). I think the Class 40 illustrates well the sort of home-spun solutions people used when trying to get workable models.

 

I've got an unbuilt MTK Cravens parcel car in the stash, if I ever get round  to doing it I suspect I'll go down the Lima route as a fairly lo-fi way of getting a functional model out of it. 

Edited September 7, 2020 by andyman7

[47164]

A couple of class 33’s in progress, certainly one the best MTK offerings.

[johnb]

MTK ah yes! I've built, many years  ago now, the Cravens Parcels unit  as Test Coach Hydra in RTC red/blue complete with mis-matched bogies as it had at first. It potters around quite succesfully with a Tenshodo Spud bogie.

The other, which I have yet to finally complete, cab windows mainly, is a less successful build of Test Coach Iris, again in red/blue, using one of the 'Buckingham twins' Derby units sitting on a hacked Hornby Class 110 chassis.

Both are buried in my 'must-sort-out-sometime' box.

 

John

[andyman7]

Hang on, it looks like you're producing a very nice scale model from that kit, that's well beyond expectations!

[cctransuk]

1 minute ago, andyman7 said:

Hang on, it looks like you're producing a very nice scale model from that kit, that's well beyond expectations!

 

...... and one in the eye for all those who say that MTK products are rubbish and unbuildable!

 

John Isherwood.

[47164]

For me part of the trick is the glazings as even  with rtr models the face can look wrong without flush glazing, it always seems to go without saying that Mtk glazing can be consigned to the bin.
 

I am getting to grips with the liquid products .... just takes loads of practice.

 

I generally use thin Perspex sheet and file with nail files from boots, the sheet doesn’t burr unlike some products and can be a nice tight fit, .. just takes about 20 mins per window, and takes paint well such as on cab side windows. I have experimented also for the latter with cutting an insert and adding in thin plasiticard which can look even better.
 

 

[Halvarras]

Here is D601 Ark Royal built from an MTK kit in 1993. It runs on a pair of Tri-ang EM2 bogies salvaged from a wreck purchased for a fiver in the mid 1970s in case I ever got around to building a D600 (it took 18 years!) Within that time I was fortunate to locate a brand new armature for the motor. The motor bogie (which looks ripe for a repaint!) is fitted with Milholme turned brass wheels, the trailing end has Romford wheels running in Peco brass bearing cups and additional pickps.

The original cast roof sections were heavy and stood way too proud of the much thinner cab roofs so to resolve this and lighten the load on the single motor bogie a Tri-ang Mark 1 roof was shortened and reprofiled to fit between the cabs - the roof profile is therefore a little too flat (similar to those early Heljan Class 33/0s!) but has etched fan grilles - correctly offset - and exhaust ports with other features scratchbuilt. 

The upper side radiator grilles were smoothed and scribed vertically to represent the later type, and the double central pair of grilles reduced to single on one side, as per prototype. The headcode boxes were formed from plasticard. The front gangway doors were A1 Models Class 26 from my bits box, and the buffers, bogie air tanks and lamp brackets came from their Hymek detailing kit.

The single coupling hook is deliberate!

 

[Halvarras]

To go with D601 on my Cornish layout I also built this MTK Hawksworth SK. It has a pre-formed brass body shell, aluminium floor, cast ends and underframe trussing. It was supplied with Mainline Collett bogies, I added Lima corridor gangway connections left over from a DMU conversion and an interior from a scrap Mainline SK. There were no rainstrips 'rolled in' so these were plastic strip superglued in place (that was fun!)

After priming I hand-applied white around the window area and masked off the lining with strips of Alfac masking tape as sold by Howes (I really miss the versatility of that stuff!) Other colours were hand-painted and the whole thing satin spray-varnished. 

I've considered an update by repainting a Hornby model but the flush glazing is so tight-fitting these days I can foresee problems when refitting it - and that assumes I could get it out in the first place!