The future of loco kit building

[MJI]

I think RTR prices will force a return to kits, especially for rolling stock

[Guest oldlugger]

It would be good Martin if that happened. Judith Edge Kits are a good example of very reasonably priced and accurate kits that are about the price of a current Hornby tender!

[t-b-g]

Looking back at old magazines, I don't think that price has ever been an issue in the decision to kit build.

 

In 1963 a Triang Britannia was 45/- (that is £2.25p in modern money!) whereas a Wills Crab kit was 77/- for the body only kit.

 

It would be very interesting to see the wheel turn full circle and for kits to be the cheaper option!

[coachmann]

I think RTR prices will force a return to kits, especially for rolling stock

Reality check (Prices taken from 7 year old catalogue) :-

 

GWR 14XX 0-4-2T kit complete...........£117.50

GWR Hall class 4-6-0 kit complete......£188.00

LMS Stanier 2-6-4T kit complete .......£154.00

LMS 4F 0-6-0 complete kit ................£158.00

SR Adams Radial 4-4-2T complete....£136.00

SR Schools 4-4-0 complete kit ..........£160.00

LNER K3 2-6-0 complete kit ..............£178.00

LNER J39 0-6-0 cmplete kit ...............£158.00

[Adam]

This might very well be the case for the younger, newer railway modellers who may never have opened a loco kit box before, with so many well detailed RTR locos available ready to plonk on layouts. The idea of having to solder or glue a complex kit of parts and make it run, could seem a pointless activity to young modellers.

 

It depends what you mean by younger, of course. I'm just past 30 but am bothered about making things and, going on people I know and friends of the family, that seems to be increasingly in vogue. It might be that the type of person you describe has always been the type that would have Superquick structures and unballasted track with out of the box locos and stock and thought that just fine (and why shouldn't they?). It has become easier to build a better version of that in recent years and I've no problem with that whatsoever, it's just a different thing. If you want a model of BR from c. 1957 to c. 1965, say, particularly of a mainline location on say, the London Midland, ECML, or even the SW mainline to Exeter after about 1960, the absence of really good Bulleid coaches and a U class mogul notwithstanding*, almost all the locos are available to an excellent standard of finish and performance together with much of the coaching stock and a good selection of the wagons. Anyone with a desire to model Wadebrige, c. 1960 can get just about everything you might have seen there RTR, Beattie welltank included! There are plenty of good layouts on the circuit and in people's attics that do this very happily. Any lack of point lies there: there is no need to. There has to be a desire to do so and where that comes from varies from individual to individual. In my case, it's something to do that bears no relation to the day job but engages my interests in a similar way.

 

This is a bit of a boon for those who work to EM or P4, especially since the mechanisms are generally reliable and not only convertible, but worth converting. These are, of course, the types more likely [gross generalistion but with some foundation I think] to be interested in something a little out of the ordinary even if they model that 8-10 year timeframe. The availability of all the core items allows kitbuilding time to be spent on the more obscure stuff. Mikemeg's threads provide cases in point: builing all those pacifics, let alone painting them would take an age and his NER loco's would not get done (or vice versa). Since I'm more interested in industrial railways and the things hung behind the drawbar of loco's, I can tell you that I'm very glad I need never build another 16 ton mineral kit or Maunsell corridor coach unless I really, really want to! In a roundabout way, what I'm suggesting is that for those who model the right area/locations the improvement in RTR actually frees time, and a certain amount of cash, to engage in more kitbuilding. Since I don't have to build the key items of stock, I end up building more, and more interesting locos. For me at least, this is a good thing.

 

Adam

 

* Someone is bound to produce a large scale RTR Adams' Radial sooner or later, probably about the time I actually acquire a Finney version. Do I care? No.

[Kenton]

Do those prices include wheels, motor and gearbox, and decals? Or is that just body and chassis? As they look more like today's prices. It really isn't that long ago that a DJH kit was around the £100 mark with wheels, motor and gearbox but now are around £150 without said important parts.

 

These days the "extra" essentials cost as much as the etches and castings, and if you want specialised wheels or turned parts then almost as much again. As said above I think the component parts have inflated far more than the kits have.

[coachmann]

Complete kits - only paint transfers and couplings required to complete. It is an old West Coast catalogue and so I would expect prices to be quite a lot higher today.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...the satisfaction of getting that self-built chassis to run ... is something that still gives me a buzz after all these years...

... and sometimes the grind, the whine, the wow... But indeed it is fun. Now got to think of something that I need as a model, but that I cannot get a suitable RTR chassis for. And here's where we hit the inhibition of 'there's going to be a RTR model soon enough' because the loco that best fits that category for me is the Ivatt large atlantic. So I would rather spend my time on the more vital small black locos, that are never going to get a RTR model in my lifetime. And those I can do with RTR chassis parts.

I wonder what the percentage of RTR models vs prototypes actually is? 1% or less at a guess?

That sort of small number. Exception: diesel loco classes must be nudging 200% with numerous classes in service for circa two decades or longer typically having multiple RTR models over the years.

[Darwinian]

I suspect that it really depends on what sort of "modeller" we are talking about. Many people seem to be happy to run big layouts with lots of RTR, thier emphasis being on operation or scenery or just simply fun. As someone who came into model railways (after graduating from Hornby Dublo/Triang) via military modelling I'm one of those who likes building models.

 

I do have a Hornby 28xx because the box shifters were knocking them out at about £70 and I couldn't get close to buying a decent kit for that. I Don't particularly need one for my Rhymney Valley layout but I've always liked them. My 56xx is Bachmann but there isn't an up to date kit available (as far as I know) and it has been modified to an earlier condition. When they come out I'll get a Hornby 52xx because I've always liked these big tank engines and again the good kits are much more expensive.

 

However I have scratchbuilt a Rhymney P1, worked up a NuCast R1 and have a Finney Aberdare waiting for my attention. A 57xx will be produced from a high level chassis and reworked Replica body. One day I'll build a Rhymney K calss 0-6-2 ST but the P1 took me nearly 6 years! I'd also like a Taff Vale A class but the demise of the NuCast range has probably put an end to that, they rarely come up on auction sites.

 

Non-corridor RTR coaching stock is hopeless for my period (1928-32) so the time I save on the RTR locos will be available to build some representative coaches.

 

My concern is, are there the younger modellers out there building up thier skills to be able to tackle the more detailed kits being produced today. At 14 I could bolt together a K's 0-6-0 chassis, glue the body together and get something that ran (not very smoothly perhaps but well enough). It was several years before I could build a soldered together chassis that worked.

 

Adrian

[Happy Hippo]

Adrian said:

 

"I Don't particularly need one for my Rhymney Valley layout but I've always liked them. My 56xx is Bachmann but there isn't an up to date kit available (as far as I know) and it has been modified to an earlier condition. When they come out I'll get a Hornby 52xx because I've always liked these big tank engines and again the good kits are much more expensive".

 

Rhymney Valley? Now you're talking!

 

I was all set to buy the kit when I found out that a Hornby 42/52xx rtr was under half the price of a kit version complete with wheels and motor.

 

I shall punish my sins by opening the Mitchell kit of the 44xx and just looking at all those frets!

 

Regards

 

Richard

[Guest oldlugger]

It depends what you mean by younger, of course. I'm just past 30 but am bothered about making things and, going on people I know and friends of the family, that seems to be increasingly in vogue. It might be that the type of person you describe has always been the type that would have Superquick structures and unballasted track with out of the box locos and stock and thought that just fine (and why shouldn't they?). It has become easier to build a better version of that in recent years and I've no problem with that whatsoever, it's just a different thing. If you want a model of BR from c. 1957 to c. 1965, say, particularly of a mainline location on say, the London Midland, ECML, or even the SW mainline to Exeter after about 1960, the absence of really good Bulleid coaches and a U class mogul notwithstanding*, almost all the locos are available to an excellent standard of finish and performance together with much of the coaching stock and a good selection of the wagons. Anyone with a desire to model Wadebrige, c. 1960 can get just about everything you might have seen there RTR, Beattie welltank included! There are plenty of good layouts on the circuit and in people's attics that do this very happily. Any lack of point lies there: there is no need to. There has to be a desire to do so and where that comes from varies from individual to individual. In my case, it's something to do that bears no relation to the day job but engages my interests in a similar way.

 

This is a bit of a boon for those who work to EM or P4, especially since the mechanisms are generally reliable and not only convertible, but worth converting. These are, of course, the types more likely [gross generalistion but with some foundation I think] to be interested in something a little out of the ordinary even if they model that 8-10 year timeframe. The availability of all the core items allows kitbuilding time to be spent on the more obscure stuff. Mikemeg's threads provide cases in point: builing all those pacifics, let alone painting them would take an age and his NER loco's would not get done (or vice versa). Since I'm more interested in industrial railways and the things hung behind the drawbar of loco's, I can tell you that I'm very glad I need never build another 16 ton mineral kit or Maunsell corridor coach unless I really, really want to! In a roundabout way, what I'm suggesting is that for those who model the right area/locations the improvement in RTR actually frees time, and a certain amount of cash, to engage in more kitbuilding. Since I don't have to build the key items of stock, I end up building more, and more interesting locos. For me at least, this is a good thing.

 

Adam

 

* Someone is bound to produce a large scale RTR Adams' Radial sooner or later, probably about the time I actually acquire a Finney version. Do I care? No.

 

I mean teenagers and below; young people coming into the hobby for the first time.

 

Simon

[Adam]

Well, that's another sort of question and, in all seriousness, I'm not sure how much the teen end of the spectrum is such an important issue. If my conversations with traders are anything to go by, kits tend to go to returnees or new starters aged thirty or forty something. The 'future of the hobby' type of debates always strike me as starting in the wrong place since those with the time and space to indulge in something like a layout tend to be that much older. I wonder, does it matter if teen modellers are or are not building loco kits?

 

They're not the key market and never really have been if my reading of the relative prices is correct. Dad's early modelling was in card and plastic rather than out Keyser or Wills boxes. I doubt he was alone in this, my impression of many of these kits is that they were quite expensive and not all that complicated. A High Level kit, for example, is a different league of complexity.

 

Adam

 

[buffalo]

Just when was this mythical past when "young people coming into the hobby for the first time" took up their soldering irons and hammers and started bashing bits of brass? Whilst a small number of us may have progressed from balsa wood planes or airfix plastic to white metal locos at a tender age, my impression is that most who did so successfully did so rather later. Given that we see a wide range of ages tackling kit building of one form or another on RMweb, I'm far from convinced that things are much different now from what they were twenty or forty years ago.

 

Nick

[A_S]

If anything is the death of kit building (in my opinion) it will be the quality of the instructions - Ok, if you have been modelling for years or know how a steam loco works (in detail) you will be fine, but if your coming in from the outside (like many younger modellers will be) they will just take one look and walk away.

 

As someone that is around adam's age (but late 20s) and comes from building tamiya 1/20 and 1/12 racing cars where the instructions are clear, concise and step by step i look at the instructions on my £400+ 7mm kit and think:

 

A.) where on earth do I start

B.) How on earth do I understand/interperate that drawing

C.) How on earth do I understand which bit is which when it is not annotated or referenced anywhere

D.) How do I ensure I don't miss something.

 

I think the instructions on 3 of the 4 kits I have built or am building are poor in the extreme for someone coming in from the outside and luckily I enjoy it enough to stick with it and I'm not scared to ask questions (here or GoG) but for many won't be the same.

 

Kit building is hard enough as it is without the added complications of deciphering the instructions!

[buffalo]

If anything is the death of kit building (in my opinion) it will be the quality of the instructions - Ok, if you have been modelling for years or know how a steam loco works (in detail) you will be fine, but if your coming in from the outside (like many younger modellers will be) they will just take one look and walk away...

But it was the same, or worse, twenty, forty and (probably, I don't know) sixty years ago and some of us survived without having resources like RMweb where we could request help from others.

 

Nick

[Clive Mortimore]

I am not much of a kit builder, not there have been many good kits in my field of modelling, 1960s diesels. I do enjoy scratchbuilding more than kit building. Why?

1. All RTR and kits have mistakes which need correcting, so do my scracthbuilt locos but they are my mistakes and one day I will put them right.

2. As A_S stated kits intsructions are not always helpful, having none as a scractchbuilder I only have myself to blame when it does not go well.

3. Scratchbuilding is fun, kit building can be if the problems are easy to sort out. Opening the box presents no challenge, well with some of the modern packaging that is not true.

 

Both scratchbuilding and kit building gives me that little bit of sense of pride...I made that.

 

There will always be people around who want to make their own models, who else do you know who has scratchbuilt a Class 31 (4 RTR models have been released) and a Class 37 (6 RTR models , 3 of them by Bachmann). Mine are not as good as the RTR ones but I had fun making them. Model makers will keep kits on the market after the RTR bubble has burst.

[Barry Ten]

I'd also like a Taff Vale A class but the demise of the NuCast range has probably put an end to that, they rarely come up on auction sites.

 

Not to rub it in or anything, but here's mine - and I'd love to say I built it, but it was bought as a completed model from my local model shop

a few years ago:

 

 

I also have an Aberdare class and Armstrong goods built by the same owner.

[A_S]

But it was the same, or worse, twenty, forty and (probably, I don't know) sixty years ago and some of us survived without having resources like RMweb where we could request help from others.

 

Nick

 

True, but times change. Suggesting that "because it was like that 40 years ago" does not stack up in my opinion. Society has changed and expectations have changed.

 

 

40 years ago programming a computer was only for those with degrees in maths and engineering but 40 years on the technology is more user friendly, resources, help are readily avalable and everyone is doing it.

[t-b-g]

Just when was this mythical past when "young people coming into the hobby for the first time" took up their soldering irons and hammers and started bashing bits of brass? Whilst a small number of us may have progressed from balsa wood planes or airfix plastic to white metal locos at a tender age, my impression is that most who did so successfully did so rather later. Given that we see a wide range of ages tackling kit building of one form or another on RMweb, I'm far from convinced that things are much different now from what they were twenty or forty years ago.

 

Nick

 

I built my first loco kit when I was 12 (a Ks "bodyline" J50) and started a scratchbuild (which never got finished and was dreadful!!!) when I was 15. I managed a Nu Cast V2 by the time I was 16. I still have my first ever model, a small hut, supposedly corrugated iron but made from corrugated cardboard in 4mm scale. I was about 7 years old at the time. The main joy of modelling, for me, has always been (and will conmtinue to be as long as I have a bit of eyesight and skill left) making things. If I lost the bit of skill I have, I would still want a layout from RTR sources but it wouldn't be quite the same.

[Guest Max Stafford]

I enjoy a kit-build myself. The biggest problem I find is that those kits I require to build the most (J37, N15, C16) are out of production or of barely-usable quality (CR Jumbo).

 

A big NBR-shaped hole in the market there!

 

Dave.

[MJI]

Reality check (Prices taken from 7 year old catalogue) :-

 

GWR 14XX 0-4-2T kit complete...........£117.50

GWR Hall class 4-6-0 kit complete......£188.00

LMS Stanier 2-6-4T kit complete .......£154.00

LMS 4F 0-6-0 complete kit ................£158.00

SR Adams Radial 4-4-2T complete....£136.00

SR Schools 4-4-0 complete kit ..........£160.00

LNER K3 2-6-0 complete kit ..............£178.00

LNER J39 0-6-0 cmplete kit ...............£158.00

 

 

Looks like some kits would end up being around 80-90 and a lot of locos are now over 100

 

Look at coaches hitting high 30s, wagons around a tenner.

 

Then Parkside wagons are a lot cheaper (and better) than RTR

[mikemeg]

Someone above, Adam I think, used my North Eastern kit building and Pacific r-t-r conversion threads as an example so can I offer my two pennorth? For me the decision as to whether to kit build a prototype is easy; does Arthur Kimber produce a kit of it and does it require test building. But what Arthur does is to produce kits which no-one else does (at least when he introduces them, no-one else does the same loco), either as a kit or as a r-t-r model. So there is no conflict with any r-t-r offerings. If I want a Q5 or a J73, a J24 or an A6, then I either kit build one or I scratch build one and with the A6, I did both.

 

Those of us who model in EM or P4 do have an enforced choice as to how to provide any given prototype as there is no r-t-r offering which is EM or P4.

 

Turning to those models available r-t-r, then for me there are two objective questions :-

 

Could I build this model as well as the r-t-r model? Increasingly the answer to that question is no. As long as the dimensions and form of the locomotive are properly researched and executed, then some of the current generation of r-t-r models are just superb. Look at the Bachmann A1, A2, D11; the Hornby A3, A4, B1, O1.

 

Even if I could match or exceed the build quality and level of detail of an r-t-r model, could I finish it as well as the finish on that r-t-r model? Again, if the answer is no, and more often than not it is no, then I will opt for the r-t-r model.

 

There is no sentiment in this decision process; there is no desire, on my part, to produce an inferior kit or scratch built model of an available r-t-r model, but one which 'I built'. That would simply give me no satisfaction at all.

 

There is merely the desire to produce as good a model as I can by the most expedient means possible. So, for me, that means that until the r-t-r suppliers cover every single type of locomotive which I could want, I will continue to scratch build or, if one is available, kit build. But if there is a good r-t-r model available, then I'll seek to use that as the basis of a P4 model.

 

That is why I would never now build a white metal kit, there are better kits and much better materials available. Why would I build a kit which has three inch thick platework (cab sides, tender sides, etc.) when I can get much closer to scale thicknesses with .005 and .010" brass and nickel silver. No the modelling world has moved on from those kits. They might have been good in their time but that time has past!

 

If you look at Arthur's NorthEastern kits and John Bateson's Great Central kits, both of these suppliers are relatively new entrants to the etched kit market (even though Arthur has been designing kits for a number of years), which must say something about the health of that market.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

[coachmann]

True, but times change. Suggesting that "because it was like that 40 years ago" does not stack up in my opinion. Society has changed and expectations have changed.

 

 

Many of the kits still available are now around 40-50 years old, so what makes todays men any different today that they cannot do what men did yesteryear? Too much nannying....gone soft? Many kits might now benefit from a decent etched chassis. I rather suspect that most folk on RMweb prefer to buy RTR (I do these days) but it doesnt prevent me building the things I really want. And no, I wasn't born with a soldering iron and paintbrush in me mits.

[Earlswood Nob]

Good morning all

The plus side of kits are looking at the model and saying; "I did that myself"

One advantage of kit building is choosing your own mechanism. With the range of gearboxes available today, one can choose motors and gearboxes to suit personal needs.

The first kit I built was a Wills LNER J39 with a Triang chassis bought from Alex Bowie of Modelmania at Norbury Station about 40 years ago. I remember him saying to me; "Anybody can build a model to run fast, but good slow running is more skilful". The Wills J39 now runs with a new chassis and a High Level 54:1 gearbox, I recently ripped an XO4 type motor (albeit 5 pole) from a Little Engines LNER T1 humpshunter and replaced with a Mashima 1428 driving through a High Level 108:1 gearbox. It's now more pleasing to watch it crawling along the track.

Whilst the J39 is available in RTR form, how else would I get a T1?

P.S Does anyone know the wheel spacing of the 0-10-0 Lickey banker? I fancy building the DJH kit, but with a scratchbuilt chassis rather than the DJH offering.

Earlswood Nob

[Poggy1165]

For me the reason I buy kits is that they enable me to model something that no RTR manufacturer is ever likely to offer in 7mm scale. Simple as. Whether there are enough people like me to create sufficient demand is another question, and one that does worry me a tad.