Nu Cast kits

[coachmann]

In order to ease the pressure on Mike Stationmaster during his search, does anyone have shots of their Fowler 7F 'Austin Seven'' 0-8-0 they could post here please. NuCast and Gibson would be handy to view and compare. I sold my Gibson kit but have bought a set of mainframes now in case I need them.

[Arthur]

In order to ease the pressure on Mike Stationmaster during his search, does anyone have shots of their Fowler 7F 'Austin Seven'' 0-8-0 they could post here please. NuCast and Gibson would be handy to view and compare. I sold my Gibson kit but have bought a set of mainframes now in case I need them.

 

 

Not really what you're looking for Coachmann but here's a Falcon Brass (not your favourites I know   ) Austin Seven to start the comparisons. 

[coachmann]

Falson Brass notwithstanding, that's a fine looking Austin Seven. The model has captured the big boiler look, something I hope to capture when i get a kit. Thanks Arthur.

[Arthur]

Falson Brass notwithstanding, that's a neat looking Austin Seven and it has captured the big boiler look. That is what I hope to capture with my model, one day.  Thanks Arthur.

 

Ooops mean't Austin Seven!, will edit.  Thanks Coachmann

[Horsetan]

^^

Also produced under licence as the BMW Dixi, I think....?

[bertiedog]

Slightly off topic, The Austin Seven Song, performed by the writer, Clifford Rose, the famous Pantomime Dame, with a Youtube video of the Seven, my favourite car!!( apart from the Morgan 8....).

 

The other song is the Austin Workers march and song............

[DerekEm8]

Not really what you're looking for Coachmann but here's a Falcon Brass (not your favourites I know   ) Austin Seven to start the comparisons. 

 

Arthur,

 

Very impressive. Falcon must have re-drawn the artwork. the original Jidenco had two significant problems

 

1) The couplimg rods did'nt match the axle centres even though they were on the etch next to each other.

2) The one piece cabside/roof wrapper was too short and left a large gap on each side when fitted to the cab front.

[Penlan]

Also produced under licence as the BMW Dixi, I think....?

To be pedantic, Dixi Werke AG under licence in 1927 produced the German version of the Austin 7, the engine etc., (Austin production drawings were reveresed for printing) was transposed - royalties where divided 50:50 between Herbert Austin and the Austin Motor Co.,

 

Dixi Werke AG then went bankrupt in Oct 1928 and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, a well known producer of motor bikes at the time, bought the Dixi production rights, this was the first BMW production car - and continued as the Dixi until 1930, whence it became BMW (the model numbers were then DA2, etc.). BMW extricated themselves from the Austin agreement in 1932 and their models were BMW DA4 ......

 

Co-incidentally as BMW moved out of the Austin frame, Datsun moved in, their first car was made under license from Austin in 1933.

 

PS: the picture of the Austin 7 is a 1928/29 RK Saloon.

 

Penlan (aka Sandy Croall, International Registrar, Austin Seven Clubs Association).

[Horsetan]

.....Penlan (aka Sandy Croall, International Registrar, Austin Seven Clubs Association).

 

*facepalm*

 

I might have known!!

[Arthur]

Arthur,

 

Very impressive. Falcon must have re-drawn the artwork. the original Jidenco had two significant problems

 

1) The couplimg rods did'nt match the axle centres even though they were on the etch next to each other.

2) The one piece cabside/roof wrapper was too short and left a large gap on each side when fitted to the cab front.

 

Derek,

 

 

Thanks for that. It was a Falcon issue kit, I built it probably 20 years ago and don't now recollect the second of those problems but have a vague memory of having to work on the chassis a bit.  The one I do recollect is that the rear corner of the cab roof, where the upper edge of the cab cut out sweeps up was etched short and lined up exactly with the rear edge of the cab side sheet. When you installed the vertical cab handrail a little to the rear of the side sheet it's upper end, rather than meet the rear corner of the roof, just ended in mid air. I replaced the etched beading on the cab with fine wire, bent to the correct outline, and then filled the small corner gap with solder and filed it flat. The handrail then met the extended roof corner.

 

Arthur

 

 

[JeremyC]

Pushing this topic a bit further off course just to satisfy my curiosity, does anybody know if there was a connection between NuCast and a company called East Coast Joint Models. I've just finished a V4 by the latter that's been lying in my loft for 20 odd years and it seemed to me that the design of the kit was very similar to my NuCast V2 and K2.

 

Allowing for its age it wasn't a bad kit.

 

Jeremy

[DerekEm8]

Pushing this topic a bit further off course just to satisfy my curiosity, does anybody know if there was a connection between NuCast and a company called East Coast Joint Models. I've just finished a V4 by the latter that's been lying in my loft for 20 odd years and it seemed to me that the design of the kit was very similar to my NuCast V2 and K2.

 

Allowing for its age it wasn't a bad kit.

 

Jeremy

 

Is that the same kit that Adrian Swain (ABS) has had for a number of years. ??

[JeremyC]

Is that the same kit that Adrian Swain (ABS) has had for a number of years. ??

 

I would think it's the same one as my kit's box has ABS Models typed onto the printed East Coast Joint Models Label.

 

Jeremy

[f#m]

Does anyone here have one of the Y5 coffee pot kits that they could supply me with pictures of?

[Deano]

So, just as a matter of interest. How does someone make a decent master for a mould to be taken from if you wanted to make something out of white metal? Are they made from thin plastic? Steel?Or scratch-built from brass etc etc etc?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Dean.

[bertiedog]

Solid brass, silver steel, and bronze, all silver soldered, or brass brazed, with milled, filed, and chiselled surfaces, or machined CNC surfaces, the item made to expansion factor dimensional allowances. I add details with a Taylor Hobson reduction pantograph engraver and milling machine from over sized master parts..

The item has to have draughtihg allowances, undercut allowances, or elimination, resist heat and wear and tear, and have a polished mirror surface on all faces, mine are finished with optical grade polishes........still fancy making masters?

 

Stephen.

[Deano]

thanks Bertiedog, and the rivets are milled in too?

[Jol Wilkinson]

Solid brass, silver steel, and bronze, all silver soldered, or brass brazed, with milled, filed, and chiselled surfaces, or machined CNC surfaces, the item made to expansion factor dimensional allowances. I add details with a Taylor Hobson reduction pantograph engraver and milling machine from over sized master parts..

The item has to have draughtihg allowances, undercut allowances, or elimination, resist heat and wear and tear, and have a polished mirror surface on all faces, mine are finished with optical grade polishes........still fancy making masters?

 

Stephen.

 

You put all that effort in and you still make it out of whitemetal?

[Poggy1165]

I come to this argument from a slightly unusual and minority angle, as my main interest is building wagon kits in 7mm scale. I have built from brass, plastic and resin kits, and from some that have mixtures of parts. I have experienced excellent and appalling kits in all formats. I would suggest that what matters is not the materials per se, but the choice of appropriate materials for particular jobs and the kit design itself.

 

I don't want to waddle off down the familiar road of slagging off manufacturers, because frankly with my specialised interests I am grateful for almost any kit as long as it's not totally useless. But I do think some members of the trade could boost their sales enormously if they applied a little more thought to the process.

 

My favourite kits of all were the white metal (yes, white metal) kits of the late lamented Roundfield Engineering. I don't know how these guys did it, but they did things with white metal that bigger (and presumably richer) companies find quite impossible. The castings fitted together perfectly and didn't have any distortions, the buffer housings had holes in them to precisely accept Slater's buffers (no drilling!) and there were even white metal fold up parts that didn't fragment. If there was any 'flash' on the castings at all it was minimal. They were a joy to build. (The only fault with them was that they were North Eastern, not Great Central.)

 

In my previous incarnation I did built 4mm locos (and wagons) from cast white metal, and my recollection is that the quality varied enormously. Some kits were dire, others were excellent. I think it's probably true that a brass kit is likely to be a better bet for locos, but I don't believe this is automatically the case. A badly designed etched kit is no one's friend.

[bertiedog]

Posted Today, 18:28

 

thanks Bertiedog, and the rivets are milled in too?

Basically, yes, copied by the engraver or CNC, but commonly fitted as separate rivet heads and soldered, again silver solder, not soft, or properly riveted on, with a hammer if it is through sheet material. The head size has the same allowance for the casting metal expansion, although with small sizes this is overlooked by most master builders.

 

All of this applies to commercial work for "rubber" or hard (but still flexible) silicon moulds, simpler home process masters can have soft silicon moulds made, where the master could even be wax, soft soldered, or even glued. Silicon cures "cold"( there is some heat produced by the chemical reaction)

 

If vinyl moulds are made the master must resist about 200C, and the casting itself must be made in resin or cerrobend.

 

Stephen

[bertiedog]

You put all that effort in and you still make it out of whitemetal?

 

It's the only way to make masters for true whitemetal production, with vulcanised moulds, if anybody says otherwise, they have never been involved in it, or are thinking of silicon cold moulding, slightly different, where softer silicon moulds are made, as done by wargamer figure suppliers etc.,

 

 

The best whitemetal parts demand the very best masters, if the master parts assemble into the finished kit's shape, then it is an indication the master maker does not know the intricacy's of the expansion allowances. Casting grade Whitemetal expands on cooling and this has to be allowed for. Pewter is different, you cannot in theory use the same masters to simply change from whitemetal to pewter, (which is exactly what some makers have done....)

 

It is commonly thought the masters are the same size as the final parts, they are not if correctly done, and this is where so many attempts by people to make kits fails, with moulded parts that "don't quite fit" together.

 

Wills got it right, as did most K's etc, but some makers failed on this point. The masters of the whitemetal kit were the German makers , Merker & Fischer, whose locomotive parts fitted the same as Plastic Airfix, bar very tiny amounts of flash. They even plated parts for kits, with no special finishing.

 

Several UK kit makers understood the expansion of alloy when cooling, but failed to allow for the process in all 3 dimensions, only making a cursory 2d attempt, (if any at all), to allow for this alloy expansion factor. One caster I knew had not even checked with Frys to ask for the factor to make allowances.....another was MTK , who knew about it, but dismissed the effects...no wonder parts did not exactly match.

 

It is not a black art, it just needs the knowledge to get results that work.

 

Stephen.

[Deano]

Thanks Bertiedog, as a former toolmaker (turner.. grinder.. miller.. traditional m/c and cnc programmer operator etc with an engineering degree I find this fascinating. Unfortunately gauges and press tools were my forte and not moulding! Sorry, but more questions... so which white metal (there are thousands of them)? Where are the nuggets purchased and that elusive expansion factor for the white metal used... where can you find them?

[bertiedog]

Thanks Bertiedog, as a former toolmaker (turner.. grinder.. miller.. traditional m/c and cnc programmer operator etc with an engineering degree I find this fascinating. Unfortunately gauges and press tools were my forte and not moulding! Sorry, but more questions... so which white metal (there are thousands of them)? Where are the nuggets purchased and that elusive expansion factor for the white metal used... where can you find them?

 

The metal suppliers like Frys, Tiranti, and Neales*can supply the data, but you may have to use pewter, lead free which has different behaviour, if the item has commercial retail aspects, as lead should no longer be used.

 

For craft uses lead remains legal, and it is the lead/ bismuth mixes that expand on cooling. There is also contraction, but the overall factor allows for both.

 

Some people still argue that the tolerances overcome the issues, but I am willing to bet that Merker and Fischer would not have employed them!

 

Masters are absolutely critical, look at US Kemtron's lost wax masters and you will realise what goes into them......whitemetal is just as critical, but was sometimes deeply abused as a process by some UK firms.... they just did not use good enough masters and then added dodgy casting methods, burnt moulds, re-used castings, no temperature control,.. the list went on....

 

*Neales website has gone, check they are still in business

Stephen

[bertiedog]

If you want to test unknown alloy, take a slip gauge of 1 inch, make a mould , and then cast a sound copy, and measure the cast accurately, divide the two and you have the factor to adjust the process,

Then calculate, and correct the slip set, re-do the test mould and cast,another copy, it should then be exactly one inch long.........if only all UK kit makers had done this simple test!!!

 

Stephen.

[Deano]

Thankyou bertiedog for sharing what you know, I shall do some research now.