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The future of loco kit building


Guest oldlugger

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MTK, there's a blast from the past, probably one that anybody who built their "kits" would rather not be reminded of!!

Agreed - but it could be worse. Q Kits, anyone? :O  I still shudder at the memories of the Class 28 'kit' that some well-meaning relative gave me...

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So what are the best and the worst kits that we have collectively tackled?

 

My vote for the best would have to go to a Judith Edge LMS Jackshaft drive shunter. It was the first time that I have ever built a kit and not had to alter a single part. Around 20 hours of fairly hectic modelling to complete it to a deadline. If anything had gone wrong, my friend wouldn't have got his birthday pressie in time. But it didn't!

 

The worst...... several candidates but for an etch, the already mentioned Jidenco Claughton and for a cast kit, the abominable McGowan GCR Atlantic. There are a small number of parts that can be used with modification and the chimney is pretty close. everything else is only good for chucking out or using as a guide as to how not to make the replacement bits. Still unfinished but one day I will beat the sodding thing........

 

Tony

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I once heard a joke that when it came time for the funeral of the owner of MTK (I forget his name), it was widely noted  that the coffin was cast in whitemetal, but the fact that the lid did not fit the rest came as no surprise.

 

Chris

 

 

Chris

 

That's an old one

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MTK, there's a blast from the past, probably one that anybody who built their "kits" would rather not be reminded of!!

Oh I don't know, in spite of their limitations, they filled a valuable niche in their day. There was a time when anyone wanting an EMU didn't really have any other choice. They could be made up into half-decent models with plenty of time, patience and filler. :D

 

DSCF2042.jpg

 

post-887-127084792542_thumb.jpg

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So what are the best and the worst kits that we have collectively tackled?...

I had already built some ABS white metal general merchandise opens to very good effect - which I still have - when my eye lighted on the K's BR/LNER 20/21T hopper, also white metal. So I ordered three via my local dealer. The white metal was a species of sludge, about as rigid as an over-ripe banana. Every part was significantly deformed so that no two fitted together. Having got the first one soldered up in some approximation of the right shape, it was impossible to make it free running, because as fast as the bearings were lined up they 'unaligned' as the wagon ran, due to the weight of the aforementioned sludge. To crown it all, the dealer had tactically ceased trading when I trotted back with the evidence for a refund...

 

I suppose this should have been confined to loco kits, drifted off subject. In which case the worst I experienced was the Stephen Poole ex-GER E4. Impossible to build and motorise as designed with the parts supplied. (Which I found odd as the closely related J15 had proved quite straightforward.) However with much interior carving and parts substitution we got there, and the K's mk2 motor lasted about 10 minutes in service.

 

The best is more difficult. I really enjoyed building my WSM - I think that was the kit maker -  ex-GNR D2, went together very neatly and looked right from the off.

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I picked up a WSM D2 as part of a job lot. It was an ancient kit and came without a chassis, but it went together well, and a scratchbuilt chassis completed the job.

I think the DJH castings take a lot of beating, but I hate their chassis. 

The SEF kits have improved greatly and their chassis are the best around.

The long gone Little Engines series of LNER locos were pretty good. The chassis were the first etched chassis that I came across, and the castings fitted together well, but did need filling, as the surface was often rough,

Nucast etc varied from very good to atrocious.

The Kay's J72 was one of the worst, with gaps everywhere.

I built a Stephen Poole N2. The castings fitted together well, but the strip brass for a chassis was a joke. It remained in its box for many years until I bought a Comet N2 chassis.

 

Thane of fife

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Worst? The Coopercraft B12. I think I've already mentioned it on this thread. As far as I know only 2 were ever completed. I don't know how many they sold. Their F3 was reputedly even worse. Oddly, it had the best instructions of any kit I recall building.

 

Best? Crownline J17, or more recently Arthur Kimber's J73. Well designed, simple and everything fitted. You couldn't ask for any more, really.

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Best? well, not a complete kit but Kemilway's chassis kit for the Kitmaster/Airfix Standard 4MT mogul was he best chassis I've ever built. Complete with forked joints, as appropriate, in parts of the valve gear, and superb etchings, complex but it went together very well.

 

Best complete kits?, DJH in the whitemetal (and brass bits) field, their WD 2-8-0 and Std. 9F (under the Model Loco banner) spring to mind. In etched brass, MPD's L&Y was a pleasure to build. Any of the Judith Edge industrials and RT Models Sentinel are all excellent kits.

 

Worst?, McGowans WD 2-8-0 body kit, the castings were very crude. MTK? Their punched aluminium DMU bodies were fine but the castings?, well some were just dreadful.

 

Here's the MPD Lanky 0-6-0;

 

post-6861-0-75815900-1404306364_thumb.jpg

 

Seen double heading with this;

 

post-6861-0-93207400-1404306432_thumb.jpg

 

Falcon Brass, ex Jidenco, LMS 'Austin Seven' 0-8-0. Aside from a glitch with the rear corner of the roof, it was etched too short to meet the vertical handrail, it wasn't a bad kit at all.

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Worst? Perseverance's 1988 attempt at a "Light Pacific" chassis kit must surely be a contender. It was OK until you tried to assemble either the slidebars or the trailing truck....

 

Best? In terms of simplicity, Connoisseur's "Y7" 0-4-0T from the long-gone 4mm range. Even though shot down from the 7mm kit, the basic structure went together really well. Also, the Crownline/PDK Bulleid Q1.

 

Worst? The Coopercraft B12. I think I've already mentioned it on this thread. As far as I know only 2 were ever completed. I don't know how many they sold. ...

 

It wasn't many, as there was only the one batch, I think.

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^^

 

The great pity was that the chassis appeared to be a reasonably competent design, but the boiler was somewhat, er, undersized.

 

Still, there's always the Crownline/PDK B12 - not much wrong with that one, and the boiler is the right size!

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Although I am mainly interested in modelling Irish railways I went through a phase of kitbuilding British locos in OO & EM.

 

My first attempt was a Westward T9 which had porous castings and  insufficient clearance for EM wheelsets without major modifications. I eventually scrapped the whitemetal footplate and scratchbuilt a new running board and valences in brass as a base for the whitemetal superstructure, in hindsight a more satisfactory result would have been achieved scratchbuilding the superstructure in brass,

 

Although the chassis design is considered to be ancient I generally found the larger DJH locos to be excellent and easy to assemble building several Austerities, 8Fs, a 9F and a rebuilt West Country.

 

The best a Comet Ivatt 2MT 2-6-0 a real pleasure to build, although a rtr version is available I am still tempted to build another.

 

For the builder or kit designer one of the benefits of modelling Irish railways is that a rtr manufacturer is unlikely to bring out a rtr model of one of the 100 odd classes of steam loco and literally hundreds of designs of rolling stock. The downside for the kit manufacturer is a very limited market for steam age kits as the majority of Irish modellers tend towards modern image thanks to the availability of small but high quality selection of rtr models.

 

So in a way I would be better to stick to scratchbuilding

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... Westward T9 which had porous castings and  insufficient clearance for EM wheelsets without major modifications. I eventually scrapped the whitemetal footplate ...

Now that you look back on it, why did some manufacturers persist with whitemetal footplates? Were they cheaper to produce than etched ones?

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I had the same issue with the M&L Grange body kit (to fit the old Mainline Manor chassis). The footplate was dreadful, mould lines and moulding pips along rivet lines and thin valence edges. It was just impossible to clean up.

 

It, too, was scrapped and replaced with one scratchbuilt from nickel silver.

 

I was surprised as M&L had a generally good reputation.

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In 4mm the worst was a DJH S15 mostly fitted together but was totally wrong like a lot of theirs. Best Finney M7.

 

7mm probably carriage and wagon West Country class. Best well that's got to be the saame as above closely followed by a DJB 517 class

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Although I am mainly interested in modelling Irish railways I went through a phase of kitbuilding British locos in OO & EM.

 

My first attempt was a Westward T9 which had porous castings and  insufficient clearance for EM wheelsets without major modifications. I eventually scrapped the whitemetal footplate and scratchbuilt a new running board and valences in brass as a base for the whitemetal superstructure, in hindsight a more satisfactory result would have been achieved scratchbuilding the superstructure in brass,

 

Although the chassis design is considered to be ancient I generally found the larger DJH locos to be excellent and easy to assemble building several Austerities, 8Fs, a 9F and a rebuilt West Country.

 

The best a Comet Ivatt 2MT 2-6-0 a real pleasure to build, although a rtr version is available I am still tempted to build another.

 

For the builder or kit designer one of the benefits of modelling Irish railways is that a rtr manufacturer is unlikely to bring out a rtr model of one of the 100 odd classes of steam loco and literally hundreds of designs of rolling stock. The downside for the kit manufacturer is a very limited market for steam age kits as the majority of Irish modellers tend towards modern image thanks to the availability of small but high quality selection of rtr models.

 

So in a way I would be better to stick to scratchbuilding

 

Considering the quality of your etched kits so far John I think you should stick to kit production! Some GNRI prototypes to slot alongside the SSM range would be nice, especially when it comes to coaching stock...

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I build all of them Bill. I do not posses even one unbuilt kit except several K's vacuum packed kits which I like to collect. The A3 pictured above is well underway. As I type two kits from DMR are winging their way to me and both will be built before the end of November. In my book, if a loco takes more than 40 hours to build it's a badly designed kit.

While I wouldn't imagine that I could build as fast as you, 40 hours modelling for me would be about half a year!

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Thinking about the etched foot plates for whitemetal kits, is it worth considering making one for a K's 14xx. The reason is that I have a k's kit in pieces and a Comet chassis which I bought ready built. The two don't fit as the K's loco is too short. I am quite happy to build a brass footplate but I don't fancy cutting out the valance (is that what its called under the footplate?). Any thoughts please

 

Sorry its off topic slightly

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Thinking about the etched foot plates for whitemetal kits, is it worth considering making one for a K's 14xx. The reason is that I have a k's kit in pieces and a Comet chassis which I bought ready built. The two don't fit as the K's loco is too short. I am quite happy to build a brass footplate but I don't fancy cutting out the valance (is that what its called under the footplate?). Any thoughts ....

 

I can see an aftermarket opportunity here to fit replacement footplates to correct or repair RTR and kit models, e.g. Bachmann Maunsell "N", Bachmann "O4" (non-ROD version), Branchlines SECR "O1", K's/NuCast "Duchess", etc.

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Best kit (in OO, anyway) - anything by High Level, with Judith Edge up there in a photo finish.

 

Worst? A wide field here; some of the K's kits were pretty poor (especially the ones where the moulds were getting past it and the metal quality had deteriorated) and there's a special mention for the original Wills Buckjumper - which really was nice enough, but couldn't actually be built into the loco it purported to be without a great deal of extra work!

 

But the prize, I think, goes to the Mallard GWR Railmotor, which could be built up into a smashing model but which suffered from the disadvantage that it had been designed and marketed in stages, the original version having been non-powered. The castings were pretty poor too.

 

How much to have something built for you? Well, my own preference is for little Victorian tank engines (though beggars can't be choosers!) and they can be fiddly little blighters, though at least there isn't usually much in the way of outside valve gear to worry about. So they cost more than they look as if they ought to - say twice the cost of the original kit for the building, plus cost of motor, gears, wheels etc at cost where required.

 

Complicated paint schemes - which the Victorians loved, of course - can send the price for finishing through the roof. And before you ask, I'm booked solid until Christmas...

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