Served up on a Plate...

[The Johnster]

This is in the nature of a cautionary tale and guidance for anyone foolish enough to buy second-hand old-tooling kits.

 

On the Bay of e, which is where many of these adventures start, a week ago, were a pair of Parkside LNER plate wagons at a fairly good price, because they were in the older packaging with the plastic wheels and no transfers.  Now, a Parky plate has been rattling around in my head for a while, as I like these wagons and their BR derivates. so I bit.  They arrived on Friday, and I've been playing with them over the weekend, Monday, and today.  Before we go further, let me comment that I am sure that Parkside have updated this kit and many of my 'issues' will not be relevant to a kit bought new now.  Don't know how old they are, but they had price labels for £1.40, each.

 

Ok, here we go, plate 1.  Not good on first examination, main deck and solebars warped badly.  A four-wheeled wagon, especially a long wheelbase one, must be square and level so that all four wheels sit square on the rails, otherwise it will never run satisfactorily and you might as well not bother.  I nearly didn't, but decided that with nothing to lose by trying, I'd have a go.  Perhaps the solebars will be able to pull the deck back into line, they're warped but flat on the tops...  First job was to attempt to straighten the deck, and I thought I'd got it improved quite a bit, then I looked at the solebars.  Bent but I tried to straighten them, succeeded a bit, but the top surface had a ridge along it, so that had to be taken down to flat with a sanding block before offering it to the underside of the deck.  This piece includes the w-irons, axleboxes, and tiebar so it is quite delicate and not really suitable for the firm handling neccessary in sanding...

 

Then we came to the next problem.  Another vital requirement of a 4-wheeled kit is that the solebars, which contain the axleboxes and the axle holes, are butted as firmly as possible against the raised positioning bars under the floor, as it is essential that the axles fit loosely in the holes, but not so loose as to be liable to falling out.  On these kits, the wheels are temporary until I can get hold of some bearings for the axles, but I put them in for reasons I will explain shortly.  But there were prominent moulding pips and circles on the inside edge of the solebars, right where they are going to foul on the positioning bars, and given the delicacy of the piece, removing them was a bit fraught and accompanied by much bad language.  Stupid kit design; I'm used to Parkside's being 'shake the box', but this one was obviously going to be difficult!  One of the plastic buffers is attached by sprue sections to the solebars on the underside, meaning more awkward pip removal on a delicate component, stupid kit design.  Getting the buffer off without damaging it is not easy, either, but it doesn't matter because you are going to be using Bachmann metal turned wagon buffers like me, aren't you?

 

But we got there eventually, and the solebars were glued to the positioning bars.  You have to line them up at the ends by sight, there is no guidance or template.  Stupid kit design.  It did straighten the floor deck up a bit, though.  Instructions suggested putting the wheels in at this point to try-run it; the kit wheels were plastic rubbish and I threw them away in case I was ever tempted to use them.  I used Bachmann 3-hole wagon wheels. and they were a little bit loose in the axlebox, stupid kit design, but the wagon ran.  Not well, but it ran.  Next job is the brakes, and these are on a piece of rectangular-section sprue which acts as the mounting block, which is insanely difficult to cut out from the rest of the sprue, thick enough to need a snips which you can't get into the limited clearance properly, all the while risking damage to the delicate handbrake and more buffer detail on the same main sprue.  Again, a lot of dressing work is needed to make the top of the rectangular mounting block reasonably flat and level.  Stupid kit design. 

 

Putting the brakes on to the model is full of traps for the unwary as well.  There is no method of positioning them accurately, so I decided to fit them around the wheels, which I left in as a positioning guide.  You need to jiggle things around a bit to get them to sit right, paralleld to the solebar, in line with the wheels, and as close to them as possible while allowing free-running, but there is no room to get your fingers in between the solebar and the brake mounting plate, or any means of holding it up while the glue goes off.  Stupid kit design.  I used Lego blocks and had to break them out with a pliers because the glue penetrated under them.

 

But we're nearly there now. Handbrake levers, check they're on the right sides, then the sides and ends.  Do the ends first, takes a bit of holding them in position when you want to have a teabreak to get them square.  Stupid kit design.  Sides should sit on the side of the floor and the ends, but they don't, actually correct as they are drop sides and fixed ends.  Bit of flash and pips on my sides, care needed to remember not to cut/file off the slight protrusions over the bottom edge at the centre and ends.  Leave it overnight for the glue to go off properly, we'll do the buffers and couplings in the morning...

 

No, actually, we won't, because the whole fornicating thing has warped back to it's original misshapen form overnight, and the glue has sealed it in this position.  It's rubbish, useless, landfill.  Stupid kit design waste of Friday and Saturday evenings mumble grumble mutter groan... 

 

So I wasn't looking forward to kit no.2. 

 

Had a look at it last night and it was a good bit more hopeful; floor flat and square and solebars only slightly out.  Same design problems, but the learning curve of kit no.1 prepared me for them.  As soon as the wheels went in and I try-ran it with just the deck and the solebars, it was obvious that this one was going to do it's best to make up into a good, well-behaved, wagon, rather than fight me every step of the way to no avail like the other one did!

 

Took my time, prepared for the issues rather than being caught out by them, and, success!  It's not too bad, I ended up with a good little plate for a fairly low price instead of two for a bargain.  I don't think that anything could have been done with no.1, it was too far gone to begin with and I should probably have binned it on sight.  It's wierd, because both kits are from the same original dealer with the same price tag on them, which suggests they are probably the same production batch and have been stored in similar conditions, yet one was warped all to b*ggery and the other one has made up into a decent model.  Bachmann screw-in NEM mounts, with their couplings, have been glued to the floor and are the right height.  Needs brass bearings, painting (BR Grey, I think), and transfers.  It's been ballasted between the brake mountings with an old steel weight that I think might have started it's life in a Dapol Fruit D, and runs very smoothly.

 

I'll post a photo of it when it's finished!