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Craftsman Lord Nelson


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I have the option to purchase an unmade kit at a decent price - and it includes romford wheels plus a can motor + worm (though I'm thinking I'd splash out on a highlevel gearbox).


Are these any good? The castings look decent, the rolled brass boiler doesn't look like it needs much work, and I'm pretty sure it's all there (the coupling rods might be missing, but I can fabricate those myself if needs be).

 

Any experience with this kit? Yay or nay? I don't want to get so angry a misshapen lump of whitemetal is launched across the room.

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I've built two of these before, no digital photos of them though, it's an excellent kit and I can definitely recommend it. All the Craftsman kits are very good and easy to build although the Nelson is by far the most complex, it's a real shame that they have disappeared.

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1 hour ago, Michael Edge said:

I've built two of these before, no digital photos of them though, it's an excellent kit

 

Agree Michael it is a very good kit being one of the first that I constructed and results in a very good model although I still had a lot to learn!

 

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713378268_IMG_6824(2).JPG.2838f8819a49901db4015d70cc8ba0a9.JPG

 

By way of comparison, Proscale V2 is just about complete apart from a little polishing and touch ups.

704244173_IMG_6817(2).JPG.3aae8f2b3fda3ebb702ecc12707531b8.JPG

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

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No experience of it, but funnily enough I bought one from Hattons for a very good price about a month ago. Complete with a set of Romford wheels. Looks good, crisp castings and the preformed parts seem to be well formed.

 

Although I'll have to check the wheels to see if they are the correct type. Sometimes you find they are generic, wrong size or wrong amount of spokes. Happened recently with a SEF GWR Saint where the wheels in the box were Hall size! Not a problem as I can easily find a use for them.

 

If you are missing rods I'm pretty sure that Gibson and Comet do them.

 

 

 

Jason

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15 hours ago, Nova Scotian said:

Any experience with this kit? Yay or nay? I don't want to get so angry a misshapen lump of whitemetal is launched across the room.

 

 

Hi,

 

I have just remembered that I have a spare mainframe and valvegear etc. for the Craftmen kit of the Lord Nelson. This has reminded me of one or two minor issues with the kit.

 

The frames and valvegear etch is very thin, you could almost say flimsy, rather like the prototype with regards the valvegear - Maunsell had to keep axle weight down so specified high tensile steel for these components and therefore saved a lot of weight and mass.

 

The other feature is the large frame cut-out for the motor mounting which really won't be required if you go with the excellent HighLevel motor/gearbox combination since it should be possible to mount this between the frames and still have a powerful set up. In addition, the motor will not protrude into the cab. I would also replace the kit return crank with the SR version made by Markits which is secured to the axle by a set screw and also pre-sets the lead angle of the return crank to the verticle when the wheel is at bottom dead centre. The added advantage being maintenence of the valve gear is much easier.  Its a very long time since I built mine but given my skill/experience level was very low, the results are acceptable.

 

Good luck and kind regards,

 

Richard B

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I’ve got one of these to build as soon as my wheels arrive from Ultrascale so guess it will still be a few months yet , but looking forward to the build.

A nice looking kit that looks well ahead of its time.
I’ll be building mine to P4 so already have the full Comet Chassis including rods and valve gear. Gibson do a nice set of  sprung SR buffers.

The only reservation I have is the rolled boiler.  If you’re building later versions the half etched rivets inside the smokebox are very difficult to get at unless you carefully unroll the boiler, even then you have to carefully punch them out otherwise the edge of the smokebox could get distorted. I decided to take the easier option and add the smokebox rivets after priming the model using Archers rivets.

What I do like is that you have the option of building the two members of the class that didn’t have modified boilers.

Take your time and enjoy the build.

Regards

Bob

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15 hours ago, 30368 said:

 

The other feature is the large frame cut-out for the motor mounting which really won't be required if you go with the excellent HighLevel motor/gearbox combination since it should be possible to mount this between the frames and still have a powerful set up.

Some people simply use some plasticard to fill this cutout. Cheap & simple :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Only just found myself in the right province and with an evening spare to check the kit out.

 

It seems in excellent condition; my worry about coupling rods was unfounded (the entire etch is there, there's just a spare one in the box for reasons unknown), the castings look pretty good, boiler and tender brass all good. The footplate is almost free of any twists or bends, unfortunately the etch with the valances etc does have some bending and I'll work to straighten it out. I *think* everything is there, including crankpins, spacers etc. I didn't see any bearings, and may either invest in some hornblocks or some good brass bearings.

 

All romford wheelsets in beautiful condition.

 

Shockingly, the motor is an untouched, unused Romford Bulldog that cost 20+ quid whenever it was initially purchased. These appear to be hens teeth now - do I put it on ebay to partially fund a highlevel gearbox/motor combo, or build as it was originally intentioned?

 

I'm very inexperienced on valvegear, so I'm feeling quite intimidated, but once I still down and start methodically working through it I hope to feel more confident.

 

Will try and post photos in December if anyone's interested.

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  • 6 months later...

I did get it - but not yet done anything with it - been too busy and want to upgrade my soldering iron before tackling it. 

 

Also considering splashing the cash on a highlevel gearbox and motor for it and flogging the Bulldog motor it came with to help fund.

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A Highlevel drive would be an excellent investment for it.  That is what I will be using, but haven't decided which one yet.  Probably a Roadrunner-Plus.

Cheers, Dave.

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11 hours ago, DLT said:

A Highlevel drive would be an excellent investment for it.  That is what I will be using, but haven't decided which one yet.  Probably a Roadrunner-Plus.

Cheers, Dave.

Would love to see your build - I'm going to try and carve out time in August if I don't make another trip to the UK, but I'll be slow and make a lot of mistakes, would love to watch someone decent do it!

 

I had done the calculations and was planning a 34:1 ratio with their 1320c coreless motor, giving a scale topspeed of approx 90mph which I thought was fast enough. I've not lined up the profile to see whether it's a roadrunner, roadrunner plus or other gearbox. Eyeballing it it looks like it will fit quite well with lots of space for added weight if needed.

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  • 4 months later...
14 hours ago, DLT said:

Hi,

Have you make any progress with your Nelson yet?

Cheers. Dave.

Watching your build with interest though!


COVID and a house flood (burst pipe, under high pressure!) this week - so once again any progress on my hobby is pushed out 3+ weeks from the hassle, and god knows how many weeks from the insurance deductible hit on my credit card...

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