novice loco kit recommendations

[Michaelaface]

Hey everyone
I want to get in to building my own locos from kits

can anyone recommend a kit for me that fits the following criteria
- isn't too difficult to build
- doesn't cost loads (most of the ones I've seen seem to be hugely expensive)
- isn't an 0-4-0 diesel shunter (while I understand why these make good starting points, they'd be absolutely no use to me on a layout and don't hold any interest for me anyway)
- preferably a MR/ER steam loco that lasted to BR days (although big fan of the interesting pregrouping designs)

atm I'm considering something like craftsman Johnson 1p, although I read it's now a fairly dated kit, but the examples I've seen built look pretty good
http://www.craftsmanmodels.co.uk/cat.pdf

as for skills required, I'm not sure what's needed, but I feel I am becoming fairly proficient with soldering from building my own track from copperclad strips and finding it actually works!

[david.hill64]

The DJH starter it - industrial 0-4-0T - goes together well but fails your MR/ER test.

 

Do you want white metal or brass?

[Kelly]

South Eastern Finecast's P Class might be a good starting point for white metal. Small, no valve gear and not too expensive. Or you could try a white metal kit of a wagon first to get the hang of it without much outlay (same applies to brass really).

 

You'd need a soldering iron (low temp.) or epoxy glue for the white metal.

[Siberian Snooper]

I would agree with building a wagon kit or two, before starting on a loco kit, in your chosen choice of materiel. I f it doesn't go together right , white metal kits can be taken apart by putting the in near boiling point water and brass can be taken apart by using a hot air paint striping gun.

[gordon s]

I bought one of these a year ago as my first loco kit.  Like more than a few on here, it's still in the box……:-)

 

Took a look inside and it appears quite straightforward.  No valve gear to worry about, so that's a bonus for your first build.

 

http://www.djhmodelloco.co.uk/prodpage.asp?productid=3014

 

Edit:  I seem to recall reading somewhere that a 0-4-4 chassis is one of the hardest to set up and get running well, so that may not be an ideal choice.  Can anyone confirm that is the case?

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

£92.50 for the kit

£57.50 for the motor and gears

£41.00 for the wheels

 

£191 for an 0-6-0T that you have to make yourself.  And anyone wonders why kit building is a dying art?  I'm in the market too, I want to join Tony's gang.  But at those prices?

[david.hill64]

I bought one of these a year ago as my first loco kit.  Like more than a few on here, it's still in the box……:-)

 

Took a look inside and it appears quite straightforward.  No valve gear to worry about, so that's a bonus for your first build.

 

http://www.djhmodelloco.co.uk/prodpage.asp?productid=3014

 

Edit:  I seem to recall reading somewhere that a 0-4-4 chassis is one of the hardest to set up and get running well, so that may not be an ideal choice.  Can anyone confirm that is the case?

Good advice to stay away from any 0-4-4. The weight distribution makes it hard to get a good running loco that doesn't want to derail on the first set of points.

 

Edit for typo

[hayfield]

How about the Southeastern Finecast LMS Caley tank

http://www.sefinecast.co.uk/Locomotives/Bodyline%20Locomotive%20Kits%203.htm

 

Southeastern Finecast kits are a joy to build, the quality of castings are first class and Dave will supply replacement parts in case you have a problem/accident

 

This is a body line kit and can be built using either a Triang Hornby Jinty chassis (these are dirt cheap second hand) or there is an etched brass replacement chassis.The kit costs £39.95, the etched chassis is £29.95 but you would need wheels,gears and motor.

 

As I said you could use the Triang Hornby Jinty chassis as a cheap get me going. Along the line you could replace the wheels with Romfords as Markits sell axles designed for Triang Hornby Jinty chassis, Mainly Trains sell etched coupling rods which are much finer, later on you could buy a Southeastern Finecast  etched chassis, change the Markit axles so the wheels can be swapped to the new chassis to save money

 

Another route is to but an old kit built loco from either the RMweb market place or Ebay. strip the body down (paint stripper normally dissolves the glue as well as the paint) and rebuild it, which may be a cheaper route into kit building

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

How about trying one of the SEF bodyline kits first?  On a commercial chassis, you've got a sporting chance of ending up with something that runs, plus an easy introduction to kit building without having to tackle all the flailing bits.  Plus the prices are not so blood chilling.

 

There was a nice SEF buckjumper on Tony's thread a few weeks ago.  Chunky but cute.

 

edit to point out awesome synchronicity of the last two posts!  The Caley tank is on my 'possibles' list!

[david.hill64]

I would also think about using Markits wheels on any first time kit so that you do not have to worry about quartering. Easily done with one of the various tools that are available, but much easier with the Romford/Markit design.

[hayfield]

£92.50 for the kit

£57.50 for the motor and gears

£41.00 for the wheels

 

£191 for an 0-6-0T that you have to make yourself.  And anyone wonders why kit building is a dying art?  I'm in the market too, I want to join Tony's gang.  But at those prices?

 

 

Southeastern Finecast LMS Caley tank loco £39.95 (body kit) Triang Hornby Jinty chassis £10 s/h = Hours of pleasure and something others don't have. Look hard and you will find these chassis with scale Romford wheels

[hayfield]

Last month I bought/won a Caley tank off ebay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wills-Finecast-body-kit-for-LMS-ex-caledonian-0-6-0-tank-/321644492637?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=2kHhCxO70AaXEpbU3%252BPohU5fWjQ%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

As you can see its been started, no chassis but nearly half price of a new one. To date I had put it into boiling water to degrade the quick set epoxy resin (it had been glued together with too much glue) and is now back to a set of parts waiting for me to have some time to build, I have one in Caledonian blue (which I built) but on a Triang chassis, this one will be on an etched chassis

 

Another good Wills/Southeastern Finecast kit is the LMS Kirtley Flatiron, I have built a Wills one which was very easy again on a Jinty chassis, Southeastern Finecast kit has both an etched chassis and another etched sheet with smoke box wrappers etc and can be built to one of 3 differing (re)builds through its life and has cab detail.

[gr.king]

Possibly have a look at this for inspiration:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/64295

 

If you don't like the choice of prototype then try phoning the ever helpful Dave Ellis at south Eastern Finecast and ask his advice on which of his kits within your range of preferences is easiest to build. An inside-cylinder 0-6-0 is never a bad starting point, preferably one with fairly plain bodywork in a minimum number of pieces, and no "clearance" issues for working parts, something the maker should know about. I'd tend to avoid any old whitemetal kits at bargain prices on second-hand stalls as some of the old whitemetal stuff will be absolutely DIRE.

Sound as the advice to begin with a simple 0-6-0 may be, are bet there are plenty of us around who just had to try something fancier first, and paid the price for it!

[david.hill64]

Sound as the advice to begin with a simple 0-6-0 may be, are bet there are plenty of us around who just had to try something fancier first, and paid the price for it!

Tell me about it! My first kit was the K's beyer garrett! Took me an age to build! Complete with original wheels and motors it was - on reflection - a wonder that it could move under its own power!

[hayfield]

Tell me about it! My first kit was the K's beyer garrett! Took me an age to build! Complete with original wheels and motors it was - on reflection - a wonder that it could move under its own power!

 

 

Talking about jumping in at the deep end !!

 

Mine was a Dean goods in the 70's worked fine as it had a mk2 motor and pre quartered wheels

[s_ellinson]

South Eastern Finecast's P Class might be a good starting point for white metal. Small, no valve gear and not too expensive. Or you could try a white metal kit of a wagon first to get the hang of it without much outlay (same applies to brass really).

 

You'd need a soldering iron (low temp.) or epoxy glue for the white metal.

I'd agree about recent SEF kits as they're beautifully thought out, but the "P" is somewhat dinky - I'd got for something a little larger in their range.

[hayfield]

I still believe the bodyline kits prove a good introduction into kit building, Building chassis can be a bit daunting and to be honest expensive (Wheels £35, motor £18 Gears £18 and £20+ for a chassis) as against a modest outlay for a s/h working RTR chassis, which if replaced in the future for an etched one no real loss

 

Link to SEF's bodyline kits http://www.sefinecast.co.uk/Locomotives/Bodyline%20Locomotive%20Kits%202.htm

[ROSSPOP]

Hi

 

You have already mentioned that you are proficient with soldering having made your own track that works.

Brilliant as many on these forums tremble with fear at soldering.

I would suggest having been there myself that you follow your idea of trying a Craftsman kit. They are easy to learn on and are forgiving if you make an era.....just unsolder and have another go.

 

Providing you are with oo or even EM and are not going to compensate the chassis you will find even an o-4-4 is quite straight forward.

[Katier]

£92.50 for the kit

£57.50 for the motor and gears

£41.00 for the wheels

 

£191 for an 0-6-0T that you have to make yourself.  And anyone wonders why kit building is a dying art?  I'm in the market too, I want to join Tony's gang.  But at those prices?

 

 

 

 

Apart from the simple pleasure of running a loco you built yourself, the biggest bonus is being able to run locos which aren't available RTR. For example in 7mm most NER loco's available are kits and NER/LNER is a fairly popular region so you can see the only option you have is kits.

 

Some scales of course you are almost forced into kits, unless running limited amounts of old stock, or foreign vehicles. 3mm/ft or TT for example, but for modern image a lot of the kits try to be build and mount on existing chassis.

[garethashenden]

£92.50 for the kit

£57.50 for the motor and gears

£41.00 for the wheels

 

£191 for an 0-6-0T that you have to make yourself.  And anyone wonders why kit building is a dying art?  I'm in the market too, I want to join Tony's gang.  But at those prices?

The simple answer is to not get the motor, gearbox, and wheels from DJH.

[Barry Ten]

I was recommended to try and 0-6-0 tender loco as my first kit, which I think on balance was good advice. The kit I chose was the DJH C2X which turned out to go together pretty easily. I soldered the chassis, but all the rest of it was done using araldite. 15 years on, no bits have ever fallen off so I wouldn't hesitate to build another white metal kit using glue. I didn't order the kit from DJH directly, so it didn't come with one of their gearboxes, but after some tribulations with an open frame motor and single-stage gearbox, I finally installed a DJH can motor/gearbox and have been very satisfied with the running. Recently I added tender pickups as well, to cure the odd tendency to stall over uneven trackage.

 

My own guidance when going into the kit was to read some of the books by Rice, Wright etc as preparation and try to follow the advice as best I could.

 

Although a C2X doesn't fit the region you're interested in, there'll be plenty of kits for similar 0-6-0 locos. From that basis you can go onto consider other wheel arrangements. My next was a King, then a pannier, than a 4-4-0, then a Castle. I'm now back to an 0-6-0 goods loco and that's proving a real pain!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hayfield]

The simple answer is to not get the motor, gearbox, and wheels from DJH.

 

 

Looking at Markits website wheels,axles crankpins and balance weights are £42.50 (wheels are now £5.50 each!!  Mashima motors £21 now and a 2 stage gear box (Comet) £17 They are not too far off the pace.

[gordon s]

£92.50 for the kit

£57.50 for the motor and gears

£41.00 for the wheels

 

£191 for an 0-6-0T that you have to make yourself.  And anyone wonders why kit building is a dying art?  I'm in the market too, I want to join Tony's gang.  But at those prices?

 

Of course in that light it doesn't look attractive, but it was a stalwart of KX and Hornsey in my formative years and really the only way to get a reasonable looking loco other than the Lima one.

 

Kiss of death buying any kit though these days….:-)

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/93626-Hornby-announce-lner-j50/

[edcayton]

I'd go for the 0-6-0 tender loco.

 

1) The rtr market is woefully short of these"do-anything" loco's.

 

2) do the tender first as practice

 

3) yes, get a bodyline if you can, but if not the 0-6-0 is just about the easiest chassis.

 

4) almost certainly plain black, and filthy.

 

Ed

[jwealleans]

There are several different skills in building a loco and you can try them in stages if you're careful.

 

You can solder. Can you solder whitemetal? If that's what you want to learn, get hold of something like a BEC J17 or (better) a Wills J39 on Ebay, chuck it into Nitromors (if glued) or boiling water (if soldered) and you have a kit. It may have come with a chassis - if not, a Hornby 0-6-0 (Ebay again) will almost certainly fit. Alternatively, South Eastern Finecast have already been mentioned.

 

Are you more interested in building a chassis? Comet J72 (Mainly Trains do a pack which includes other bits), a Bachmann/Mainline J72 body off Ebay or a show and away you go.

 

If you want to build a brass loco in its entirety, Jim McGeown (Connoisseur Models) has made some of his 4mm kits available again in small numbers. They're the ideal 7mm starter and even shot down to 4mm I'd have said easier to tackle first than a Craftsman kit. That said, my first etched loco was a Craftsman A5 and I managed with that. Jim's site also has some very useful general notes on building brass locos which you can download.

 

For wheels, if they do the size you want, look for W & T - a fraction of the cost of Markits/Romfords and they self-quarter onto the same axles.

 

For motor/gearbox, High Level. The most forgiving to assemble and Chris sells the cheapest Mashima motors on the market.

 

There are a number of people who post their first kitbuilding efforts on here, so read up on their experience. If you start your own thread, you won't lack for advice (whether you want it or not). The trick is to find the methods and materials which suit you best and stick with them.

 

One other thing - nearly £200 for an 0-6-0 tank may seem a lot when you can pick up a Hornby J15 for £100 or a Bachmann J11 for £70. Work out how many hours you spend researching it, building it, detailing and finishing it (without counting the hours you then spend running it) and it isn't much per hour. Compare that to the cost of, say, watching that many hours of films in your local multiplex.