Connoisseur Starter Loco Kit - Complete Kit Building Novice

[wollastonblue]

As part of my 2010 layout challenge, I am thinking of having a stab at O Gauge. As I have never built a locomotive or wagon kit before. Just wondered how difficult it really is? What sort of tools and bits do I need?

 

I have only ever built plastic Airfix, Faller, Vollmer etc kits.

 

Thank you for any guidance and help.

[dibateg]

There is some good stuff on Jim's own site regarding brass kit building -take a look:-

 

http://www.jimmcgeown.com/

 

I'd start of with some Parkside wagon kits - a natural progression from Airfix...

 

I hope that is of some help

 

Regards

 

Tony

[NeilHB]

I'll second what Tony has said, start off with a couple of Parkside kits and see how you get on with them. I've built quite a few of the Parkside kits and they do pretty much fall together.

 

Tool wise you'll be fine using the same ones that you use for 4mm scale kits, I use my tools for both 4mm and 7mm and its fine.

 

Jim McGeown's kits are very easy to put together, I'd never built a brass kit before and threw myself in at the deep end with his Midland Railway Milk van kit, it went together very well (once I'd bought the correct solder) and I then went on to build his starter loco kit...easy as pie!

 

Hope this is useful.

[craigwelsh]

I would recommend you build a Parkside kit first as the others have said and then possibly some track before you do a loco.

 

As for brass kits then the tools for this, especially to do with the soldering have been covered many times before if you search in other threads.

[Guest]

I bought a Connoisseur Starter Loco for a bit of extra practice while tackling the Hachette Flying Scotsman. I made a thread about it Over There.

 

The Connoisseur kit is about as simple as an etched loco kit can get. Though so far it's been a little trickier than Hachette's A1. Although the Connoisseur kit has a pre-rolled boiler there are still a couple of other curves to form. The smoke box I recall finding a bit awkward, and the instructions leave you mostly on your own to fashion a method of attaching the cab roof from scrap brass.

Being sensible you should probably go for a simple wagon kit before tackling a loco but I didn't find it too terrible piling straight into loco building.