O16.6/O14 single Farlie

[Badger]

Does anyone know if there is an O16.6/O14 kit of a single Farlie available?

Thanks

Bob

[Mike Bellamy]

Not yet but there will be

 

I help Paul Martin with his EDM Models trade stand and I saw lots of photos and drawings at the 7mm Narrow Gauge show at Burton 3 weeks ago. A kit designer had started to design Taliesin for Wrightlines with the intention that this would use the existing power bogies from the whitemetal Double Fairlie. However with the sale of the Wrightlines business, the completed kit design is being offered to Paul.

 

At the same time, the guy who designed the kits for Linda, Blanche and Charles has said that he intends to do all variations of the Double Fairlies but obviously this is going to be a long term project. Paul has asked him to concentrate on the power bogie first so that he can marry the two parts together and make a complete kit - probably available some time next year.

 

Linda, Blanche and Charles available here http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/EDM_Models/Penrhyn/hunslet.htm

 

Mike

[ngtrains.com]

Not yet but there will be

 

I help Paul Martin with his EDM Models trade stand and I saw lots of photos and drawings at the 7mm Narrow Gauge show at Burton 3 weeks ago. A kit designer had started to design Taliesin for Wrightlines with the intention that this would use the existing power bogies from the whitemetal Double Fairlie. However with the sale of the Wrightlines business, the completed kit design is being offered to Paul.

 

At the same time, the guy who designed the kits for Linda, Blanche and Charles has said that he intends to do all variations of the Double Fairlies but obviously this is going to be a long term project. Paul has asked him to concentrate on the power bogie first so that he can marry the two parts together and make a complete kit - probably available some time next year.

 

Linda, Blanche and Charles available here http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/EDM_Models/Penrhyn/hunslet.htm

 

Mike

[ngtrains.com]

Ooops, clicked the wrong button too soon....

 

Mike is correct. EDM Models will eventually be releasing a kit for Taliesin. This will be a mostly cast white metal body with etched details. The body is at the stage of test castings being run off from the patterns. Originally it was intended for the Wrightlines power bogie but we now have a new etched design in preparation. The new bogie is at the stage where the first test etches will be done in a couple of weeks. The bogie includes a gearbox and is designed for 14mm or 16.5mm gauge. The kit will be supplied with our Fairlie wheels and will feature the axlebox and springing system used in our Linda/Blanch/Charles kit.

 

We are also working on a 7mm Scale model of Gowrie for 16.5mm and 14mm gauge but this is further in the future. Its at the stage of head scratching and testing ideas for driving the power bogie when there aren't enough tanks of boiler to hide the motor.

 

Paul Martin

[ngtrains.com]

It is my intention that all the kits in the EDM Models range will be available `off the shelf' eventually. The reason some of the items aren't that way at the moment varies from model to model.

 

With the Main Line Hunslet's there are references to "batch1, batch2 and so on. A batch consists of about 20 kits, this is set by economics and available time. The governing factor in this case is the money. The outlay on preparing a batch is significant so we do a batch, charge people on delivery then use the cash to finance the next batch. Currently batch1 kits are with their new owners, batch2 is at the stage where the etches and castings are being produced. Batch2 is pretty well spoken for. I would envisage that by the time we get to batch 3 [around September] they will be a stock item. The second factor is time. Its summer [can't you tell, its chucking it down here] so both of us are involved in running the real trains at the FR. Peter has been there this last week and I am driving Blanche on Saturday and Taliesin on Sunday.

 

Of the other kits: -

 

• the Bagnall is being re-tooled to remove the South African element
  
• the L&B engines are a limited run and sold out. The limit is imposed by WM castings and boilers in stock. The intention is to make it a stock item once the reservations are dealt with
  
• there are also a further 7 loco kits about to be added to the range - to be announced in a separate message later
  

 

There are also moves a foot to increase our accessories range which will interest you with regard to your declared other interests......

• production of our own wheels in house - range to include correct wheels for many NG prototypes, including the NGG16
  
• quartered extended axles to use matching fly cranks [as in the Linda/Blanche/Charles]
  
• a range of fly cranks to use with these axles, included correct ones for the NGG16 [which aren't right in the Backwoods kit]
  

 

Just for myself [at the moment] I have some part drawn replacement etches for the bogie frames for the NGG16 as I have one to build and I want to include our new sprung axleboxes [oops, forgot them in the list] and for decent valve gear on them instead of the poor representation in the kit. They are for my own loco an well down the `to do' list but will get done in the margins of other test etches.

 

Paul Martin

EDM Models

www.ngtrains.com

[ngtrains.com]

You must know a different Pete McParlin to the one I know (joke). Seriously the NGG16 kit is an OK kit but its not a model any NGG16 ever built but is a hybrid of many of them. I can't give you an exhaustive list as I have sat down with the kit, real drawings from South Africa and all the pictures I have taken of the ones we have captive in North Wales. Here are a few snippets though...

 

 

• The water tanks are riveted which is early NGG16 or their forbears yet they are the shape of the later welded versions
   
  
• The fly cranks are all the same shape and the shape supplied is wrong. The real things cranks are a different shape on each of the three axles on a bogie. The kit cranks are symmetrical around a centre line whereas the real thing is anything but with a large off centre bias to the weight end of the crank (that'd be a lot easier to explain with a drawing or picture but I don't have the time to do that at this morning)
   
  
• The valve gear offends my eye as something akin to Hornby 1970's with the engine in mid gear and with the combination lever and union link sitting at all the wrong angles
  

 

We have debated these things at length with Pete, most years in May he has organised a week of`drive an engine' experiences on the FR & WHR for a crowd of fellow model manufacturers from the USA and I usually make sure I go along as the supervising FR driver. Pete's usual defensive response is that the kit is generic. It was also designed for 009 and has been inflated [or shrunk less as the artwork is actually drawn to 8mm scale initially) and suffers some of the usual problems caused by switching scale. I am sure it makes up into a model that most would be delighted with. Unfortunately, I am not most people and I can't accept the compromise and, as someone with an acknowledged valve gear fetish, I can't live with the supplied valve gear. I am fortunate enough to have one of Pete's RtR NGG16's and for awhile it sat on a shelf in front of my work bench but the crazy valve gear got on my nerves and it had to go back in the box.

 

Perhaps if I could cure my valve gear fetish I'd get more built but that would still leave the dangly, carry no weight, always falling off the track pony trucks to annoy me. If I get time tonight I'll see if I can put together some pictures to illustrate the points above.

 

On to your other questions.....

 

• Minimum Radius - I don't design for a specific minimum radius as such. That would actually be bonkers. In an extreme illustration why would you try to design an 0-8-0 to go round the same curves as an 0-4-0 when the real thing wouldn't. What I try to do, if the engine is appropriate, is to design them to run on our group layout Henmore Dale which has 22" curves and some ropey bits of track where gauge widening has been taken to an extreme (not necessarily intentionally). The Hunslet kits as 0-4-0's will run round 15" curves but as 2-4-0's they'll do 22" but I haven't experimented to discover the minimum they will do. Of the future kits Gowrie is likely to be the one challenged on minimum radius if I persist with the present drive scheme as it involves a motor in the ashpan and a drive shaft to the bogie, so the limit would be the bogie frames hitting the shaft in an extreme corner.
   
  
• I have no plan for a working FR/WHR coupler. The Hunslet kit includes an etched version and the kit designer uses these on his layout and says he prefers the look of them. To me they are just an exercise in frustration to use and not practical on an exhibition layout. Also on our layout which already runs with a mix of Kadee's and Bachmann tension locks it'd just be yet another incompatible coupler. We could debate whether there is a market for such an item, whether it could be made to work and so on but at the end of the day the EDM Models guiding principle to whether it got produced would be invoked. That principle is basically, if I want one it may well happen, if I don't its got no chance. Working FR/WHR couplers cause me enough frustration at full size without shrinking the headache.
  

 

Paul Martin

EDM Models

[rough & ready]

I know it's a long time since the last post, but having recently completed an NGG 16, I thought this might prove useful.

 

I made one alteration to the valve gear to improve its appearance, and that was to shorten the combination lever by about 2mm.

I just cut off the top end where it starts to widen out for the hole, then soldered the bit I cut off to the rear of the lever,(if you don't there isn't enough width to drill a new hole),

Drill a new hole to take a 14ba,(or m1) nut and bolt.

This alteration brings the union link nearly horizontal and improves the looks no end. Also, with the bit soldered to the rear of the lever, it eliminates the need to bend it.

Plus as I chemically black the motion with casey gun blue before final assembly,(solder wont stick to blacked metal), It now looks great.

I have built the motion so that I can dismantle it at a later date to sort out the mid gear issue. Maybe!