General whinge at suppliers - say what scale things are!

[RobjUK]

Being fairly new to building rather that just buying single manufacturer ready to run, I've spent a vast amount of time over the last few months studying kits and parts plus trying to find suppliers for specific components.

 

Finding some things, such as certain detail castings and such as ready made pickups for home built seems to be a bit of a black art still; they obviously exist but apparently in some other dimension or something..

 

 

However, the single biggest problem I have had so far, is that when I do manage to find a specific part or kit via google - the suppliers never, or rarely, say what scale the thing is!

It can take far longer again, or be seemingly impossible to figure out if the item is 7mm, O, 4mm, OO or N etc.

 

 

I've had to resort to looking up the part number via Google to find another seller that does mention the scale, or use google image search on items.

And of course they are useless if it's that sellers own custom products.

 

With one supplier I was just looking at, the only mention on the entire site of what scale the items are appears to be in their "about us" page and nowhere in the store or catalog type pages...

 

 

So please, if you sell parts, kits, models or whatever - add the scale to the item pages! 

 

Rob.

Edited February 27, 2019 by RobjUK

[Bucoops]

Have to agree - I got all excited that I found a particular buffer type - had gone back and forth with the supplier over a few emails and all sounded good. Was just about to order when I realised it didn't say - turns out everything they sell is 7mm - yet nowhere on the site was that mentioned! Very good price though - 7mm buffers for 4mm average prices...

[Steamport Southport]

Rule of thumb is assume everything is 00 gauge or 4mm scale. Or H0 if foreign. Narrow gauge is 009 or the continental equivalent.

 

Worth bearing in mind that about 90% of British model railways fit into that bracket. The others really are niche scales/gauges, although the advocates of those scales will swear blind there is a massive market for them. 

 

Then once found do a quick search and confirm that it's the scale/gauge you want.

 

A useful guide is UK Model Shops. Most reputable manufacturers/suppliers are on there.

 

http://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/

 

 

 

 

Jason

Edited February 27, 2019 by Steamport Southport

[Oldddudders]

It isn’t just suppliers. RMweb OPs specialise in assuming you know their scale/gauge - of course you do! Dapol is a particularly dangerous area. Someone spots a new model and trumpets the good news under Dapol - but never gets round to telling you that it is in one of their two other scales that you don’t model.....

[sharris]

3 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

It isn’t just suppliers. RMweb OPs specialise in assuming you know their scale/gauge - of course you do! Dapol is a particularly dangerous area. Someone spots a new model and trumpets the good news under Dapol - but never gets round to telling you that it is in one of their two other scales that you don’t model.....

 

Maybe posters in the product areas could be encouraged to include the Scale/Gauge in the tags section of new posts with warning points assigned for non-conformance .

[cctransuk]

7 hours ago, RobjUK said:

 

However, the single biggest problem I have had so far, is that when I do manage to find a specific part or kit via google - the suppliers never, or rarely, say what scale the thing is!

It can take far longer again, or be seemingly impossible to figure out if the item is 7mm, O, 4mm, OO or N etc.

 

 

Unfortunately, by no means confined to retailers or producers.

 

You would not believe the number of orders for transfers that I receive which fail to specify the scale required; (and / or the delivery address)!!

 

This is despite repeated and detailed requests to do so, printed in red and italicised.

 

To err is human, I suppose.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood,

Cambridge Custom Transfers,

https://www.cctrans.org.uk/products.htm

[JeremyC]

In a similar vein, full and proper descriptions would be a help too. To give an example, I recently wanted to order some 7mm scale handrail knobs. The suppliers listed them as short, medium and long; very good, so how high is short, medium or long? (It mattered as I needed two sizes to keep the handrail along the boiler straight.) In addition the problems caused by inadequate descriptions are often compounded by no pictures either

Edited February 27, 2019 by JeremyC