James Harrison Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 I'm looking at an unbuilt McGowans whitemetal GCR atlantic at the moment and considering whether or not to take a punt on it. I've no experience of building McGowan kits and I can't find much around the web on what their kits are like to build. Has anyone around these parts taken on a McGowans kit, and if so would you recommend them?- are the kits good or bad, what is the quality of the parts like, do they result in models that look like the real thing etc? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 I cannot comment on the Atlantic but I did build one of their WD 2-8-0 body line kits many years ago. It was amongst the cruder whitemetal kits I built, not on a par with K's or NuCast and nothing like a DJH. The boiler was a bit oval and the general finish a bit rough. It was posted quite recently on here that the original brass masters were very good but that the kits were let down in the casting. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwealleans Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 Pretty awful by today's standards. Soft metal, not great quality castings. Not that I've built a lot - mine may have come from the end of the life of the moulds. If you want a Jersey Lily your best bet at the moment might be to look at Worsley Works etches and source the castings elsewhere (Craftsman? or soem of the McGowan ones might be worth recycling). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted March 5, 2014 Author Share Posted March 5, 2014 I hadn't considered Worsley Works- I shall investigate! I do have some appropriate GCR boiler fittings lying in the spares box, so that might be a good way to go down. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwealleans Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 This chap used to offer what looked like new castings off the McGowan moulds, but his website seems to have been closed down. I have one of his B4 kits as well as an original McGowan one and as far as I can see they are identical. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 This chap used to offer what looked like new castings off the McGowan moulds, but his website seems to have been closed down. I have one of his B4 kits as well as an original McGowan one and as far as I can see they are identical. I suspect that might - just might - be Mike Wynn, former proprietor of Tru-Scale Models (Manchester and Rhyl) who was at his peak here in the mid to late 1980s. The stresses of running TSM caused something of a nervous breakdown, after which he moved to Spain and became a born-again Christian. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkC Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 I've got a couple of McGowan kits on the 'pending' shelf, so am a little concerned to read this thread. However, I have managed a couple of MTK diesel beasts in the past, and a (whisper it quietly) Q Kits Class 28, so 'should' be OK with them...time will tell Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 From my experience of one kit, they're not unbuildable, just crude in comparison to many others. The saving grace of MTK cast diesels was, at least, there weren't too many parts for them to get wrong...... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 I'd go along with that. They are more buildable now into a running model than they were when first released. This thanks first to the ubiquity of high speed rotary tools to 'excavate' space for motors, drive trains and wheels from the overweight castings, and second to the good choice of competent can motors and multi-stage gearbox configurations to create a smooth running fully concealed drive. Where I would propose caution is in the asking price for the kit. It is obsolete and out of production. No replacement part readily available if any essential piece is badly flawed or gets damaged beyond repair during the build. As such the price I would pay would be scaled to the value of the detail parts it contains, as these are always useable for projects. That may seem harsh, but in twenty odd whitemetal loco kit builds I only recall three where everything was as it should be. Endless letters in the bad old days asking for replacements for deformed, broken, absent, foamy, perforated or mould only part filled, substitute for clearly wrong parts from a completely different kit!, pieces. (The prizes go to GEM for the J36, Bec for the J17 and Stephen Poole for the J15.) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium t-b-g Posted March 6, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 6, 2014 I started an Atlantic from the McGowan kit many years ago. It is not an unbuildable kit. It just won't look anything like a GCR Atlantic when it is finished. I carved all the detail off the boiler/firebox/smokebox assembly, lowered it by 2mm and took 2mm from the back. I made new frames a new footplate and a new cab. The tender got a substantial load of alterations too. I got so frustrated with my slow progress that when Malcolm Crawley scratchbuilt this one for the layout the McGowan one pretty much stopped. I may finish it one day but unless you fancy a huge amount of work I would stay well clear. Tony Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkC Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 The saving grace of MTK cast diesels was, at least, there weren't too many parts for them to get wrong...... Very true... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Harrison Posted March 6, 2014 Author Share Posted March 6, 2014 I started an Atlantic from the McGowan kit many years ago. It is not an unbuildable kit. It just won't look anything like a GCR Atlantic when it is finished. I carved all the detail off the boiler/firebox/smokebox assembly, lowered it by 2mm and took 2mm from the back. I made new frames a new footplate and a new cab. The tender got a substantial load of alterations too. I got so frustrated with my slow progress that when Malcolm Crawley scratchbuilt this one New Layout 032S.jpg for the layout the McGowan one pretty much stopped. I may finish it one day but unless you fancy a huge amount of work I would stay well clear. Tony Thanks Tony, a very informative and useful post- even if it does confirm what I was fearing as a worst-case scenario. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 From my experience of one kit, they're not unbuildable, just crude in comparison to many others...... The McGowan LSW "B4" was taken over by SEF a few years ago and is now part of SEF's range, so they must have thought it was worth the trouble... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwealleans Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 I bet that caused some confusion. The kits I have are for the LNER B4. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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