Metropolitan Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 .....that is simply because you choose a scale (OO) which has artificially deep flanges to enable your trains to stay on the track. If you chose to use prototypical track and wheel standards then you would be forced to rethink your strategy. Dave And should, therefore, Hornby and Bachmann be forced to rethink their strategy? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71 Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Hornby and Bachmann believe the 'toy' market to be their main source of income (no argument from me) with scale modellers some way down their list of potential sources of income. Their decisions are purely those of the 'bean counters'. Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
halfwit Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 No. If you had read my post in full you would see that I was referring to my own experience and the example of my Bachmann O4. Why do all the modern RTR have a rigid chassis? Because they run better as do kit loco's.with a rigid chassis. Or are all RTR loco's bad runners in your mind? Hey! Maybe Hornby ought to fit CSB's to their loco's to solve their terrible running problems? Or perhaps they should all have wobbly compensation systems? The fact is that I believe compensation to be an absolute nonsense..As do Hornby and Bachmann. John, whilst I respect you as a forum member and as a loco builder, could you please stop knocking compensation/springing - its all getting a bit tiresome and adds nothing to the debate.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Cram Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 And should, therefore, Hornby and Bachmann be forced to rethink their strategy? Its them that got us into this mess in the first place. If they had produced either a 3.5mm model or a proper 4mm model rather than the hybrid they chose then we wouldn't have the multitude of guages that cause all the problems. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 After taqking care not to get paint onto the working surfaces of sprung chassis, a solid chassis became my preferred type, built on a glass plate of course, and with the middle axle allowed to drop slightly below the outer two the maintain electrical conductivity. The Bachmann LMS 3F Jinty is like this......Oh how I wish Hornby would have adopted this for their six coupled LMS 4MT tanks then i could use Insulfrog diamonds and slips! I was told DJH absorbed a lot of public money experimenting with castings and one-piece whitemetal boilers (later pewter then milky-bar resin). Where they made mistakes was in the detail and a number of their LMS and BR kits didn't quite capture things as they should have. But if we are talking good kits, then Wills Finecast were there many years before. Their SE&CR 4-4-0 and 0-6-0 were a delight and even the railway company initials were visible on the tender axltbox covers. If they do not look so good today (I cannot comment not having seen any recently) then it is plainly down to the worn or not well made moulds, or whitemetal quality (too much lead/not enough silver) or the casting machine operator. I have a theory that springing is not stricly necessary if track is laid correctly. To test this, perhaps I should re-gauge some P4 wheels to 00 gauge. I'll let you know if I have to eat my hat! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
N15class Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 It is strange I first used compensated chassis on oo gauge locos as experiments for when I start EM or P4. I was suprised how much better they ran even on the narrow track. The bodies stayed a lot level on point work etc and moved more like the real think. I have not had modern RTR locos in my hand. But the older RTR stuff that I had seen and worked on, had built in slop. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Barry O Posted November 18, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 18, 2012 Take one Airfix MkIId coach - remove wheels - add P4 wheels - bingo! ( done at York Show many years ago to add some stock for Ian Futers' then latest creation) - no other compenastion necessary John Interestingly some of the Bachman locos do have some form of axle "wobble" - and my Proto 2000 E8s ( Co-Co) and Berkshire (2-8-4) have suspension and come from the same factory as used to make Hornby - they work well - so RTR can be procured with some built in suspension. In my own stock shunters seem to work better (in O and OO) with a degree of compensation. However, I don't always compensate and its really horses for courses. Bill Stott started Nucast to fill a big whole in the market - no one else produced a Q6 or a V2 and Bill wanted one himself. When first introduced his party trick was to get anyone to select a kit and then put it together without glue ( I the major components) - over the years the moulds have suffered and as Bill Bedford says - who can make masters any more? ... and is it worth it as the cost of whitemetal is very high. I think the future is a lot brighter than Metropolitan thinks - the variety of ways to provide kits and detailing parts has grown enormously and will fill a niches so long as the RTR market doesn't delve into providing things like Industrials and specific very small numbered classes ( like a J63) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Bill Stott started Nucast to fill a big whole in the market - no one else produced a Q6 or a V2 and Bill wanted one himself. When first introduced his party trick was to get anyone to select a kit and then put it together without glue ( I the major components) - over the years the moulds have suffered and as Bill Bedford says - who can make masters any more? ... and is it worth it as the cost of whitemetal is very high. Part of the production process should be renewing the moulds - rubber moulds won't last forever and if the masters are available then there's no reason why this shouldn't happen. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium t-b-g Posted November 18, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 18, 2012 Totally agree with you James. If the original moulds and castings were good, it should be possible to make new moulds and castings from the original masters. Any chance we can keep this thread away from the tired old compensation/springing/rigid/P4/EM/OO debates that usually end up with a thread being locked? We all know that there will never be agreement on such issues and a few comments designed to antagonise those with other views seem to be creeping in. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Clive Mortimore Posted November 18, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 18, 2012 John, whilst I respect you as a forum member and as a loco builder, could you please stop knocking compensation/springing - its all getting a bit tiresome and adds nothing to the debate.. Hi Paul I am going to defend John on this. He has expresssed his views and then had a number of counter arguments to them. He has only replied again stating his views. If there were an equal number of members agreeing with John as there appears disagreeing with him then he would not stand out so easily. I will now agree with John, I always have problems with wobbly chassis but not so many with rigid ones. The best running I have had apart from RTR are the chassis I have made myself. These are only a limited number as most my scratchbuilt diesel locos use RTR power bogies, that do wobble. My kit bulit mainline diesels are very few and they too have RTR bogies if bulit by me. Clive Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenser Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Hornby and Bachmann believe the 'toy' market to be their main source of income (no argument from me) with scale modellers some way down their list of potential sources of income. Their decisions are purely those of the 'bean counters'. Dave I'm really not sure they do. Bachmann have a minimal presence in the train set market in the UK , and multiple "Hornby are going wrong" threads on here have suggested that Hornby's commercial problem is a need to do better by the scale modeller , who is allegedly much better served by Bachmann . While I don't necessarily accept that the criticism being levelled at Hornby is correct, I strongly disagree that "toys" are the main thrust of their RTR. The recent L1 and B1 are not aimed at the toy market, nor is the imminent B17 , nor are the Gresley suburbans, the forthcoming Thompson suburbans, the Maunsell coaches, the Hawksworth coaches etcetc Nor is the Bachmann O4 aimed at the toy market. (As the owner of one , I have to say I wouldn't say it runs "sublimely well". Runs well, yes - but it won't run as slow as modern centre-motor RTR diesels. This may be because I haven't taken out any capacitors - I use DCC - or it may be my particular example, but my best diesels run noticeably better at very slow speeds , and there are folk who get their diesels running even slower and smoother than I do ) However I notice Torr Giffard's signature is "P4 finescale engineering" . I've noticed several posters in this thread using "scale" more or less as a synonym for "P4" or "P4/EM" , and if by "toy market" is meant "OO" , I have to protest . I would also object to the implication that seems to run under the surface in a few places in this thread that kits are for modellers working in P4 and EM not for those in OO , and therefore kit manufacturers should ignore the requirements of OO modellers and focus solely on the needs of those in finescale guages (As it were -"Don't provide trade support for OO - it only encourages them" ) As a matter of historical fact British HO was effectively dead by the mid to late 30s , because people simply couldn't get dead scale models to work properly . Rovex started making model railways in 1951 , Bachmann entered the British market in 1990, so don't blame them . And the successive failures of British Trix, Playcraft, Flieschmann, Rivarossi, and Lima with "British HO" - much of it in fact subject to scare distortions - suggests that blaming the RTR manufacturers for using the wrong scale is misplaced Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Cram Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 It is not misplaced. Frank Hornby couldn't get motors to fit HO so incresed the body to 4mm scale. He didn't alter the chassis and hence the start of the problems around scale/guage. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Any chance we can keep this thread away from the tired old compensation/springing/rigid/P4/EM/OO debates that usually end up with a thread being locked? One point I'd like to make with regards this is having etched frames which allow you to easily adapt the chassis for compensation or springing in the form of half etched hornguides (ideally with the top corners eteched through) and half etched holes in the right place for a simple compensation beam. If you choose to use any of these, you have had a helping hand - if you want a rigid then I would also expect the axle holes to be accurately etched so as only to require minimal opening out to fit the bearings. This is really a quality issue and something which better manufacturers lready do Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
N15class Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 I have been thinking (I know a very dangerous thing todo). What happens to the RTR market in a few years when the Chinese labour costs escalates. Are the likesof bachby still going to sell £500 RTR toys? The cheap labour markets worldwide are dwindling so the cost is going to be ever rising. So to my reckoning the kit market is probably in a far better possition than a lot think. It could well be the only way to model. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenser Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 It is not misplaced. Frank Hornby couldn't get motors to fit HO so incresed the body to 4mm scale. He didn't alter the chassis and hence the start of the problems around scale/guage. Copies of pre war modelling magazines show plenty of OO - but almost no HO . OO dates from the mid 1920s - HO was all but extinct in Britain by the time Hornby Dublo was introduced in 1938 (as a detail point Frank Hornby died in 1936) . And contemporary sources are clear that it was clearances and minimum radii which were the killer with prewar HO, not the motors Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71 Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 However I notice Torr Giffard's signature is "P4 finescale engineering" . I've noticed several posters in this thread using "scale" more or less as a synonym for "P4" or "P4/EM" , and if by "toy market" is meant "OO" , I have to protest . I would also object to the implication that seems to run under the surface in a few places in this thread that kits are for modellers working in P4 and EM not for those in OO , and therefore kit manufacturers should ignore the requirements of OO modellers and focus solely on the needs of those in finescale guages (As it were -"Don't provide trade support for OO - it only encourages them" ) I don't think that anyone would argue against the stereotyped traditional market for 'OO' being one of young boys playing trains with their dads. The trains had some resemblence to scale models with the track and wheel standards/dimensional accuracy/finish/detail of the 'train sets' being broadly similar. The journey towards scale models is certainly advanced with the dimensional accuracy/finish and detailing of the model now outstripping the track and wheel standards. Will a declining child centred market for Hornby etc cause them to move ever more towards the scale modeller? If so. what is the future for 'OO' track and wheel standards? Cheers Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium t-b-g Posted November 18, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 18, 2012 One point I'd like to make with regards this is having etched frames which allow you to easily adapt the chassis for compensation or springing in the form of half etched hornguides (ideally with the top corners eteched through) and half etched holes in the right place for a simple compensation beam. If you choose to use any of these, you have had a helping hand - if you want a rigid then I would also expect the axle holes to be accurately etched so as only to require minimal opening out to fit the bearings. This is really a quality issue and something which better manufacturers lready do I agree entirely. All a kit needs is to be accurately made, with the axle holes etched right size for suitable bearings, and with centres which match the coupling rod centres! Half etched lines for cut outs for sprung hornblocks or suchlike and you are all set! For the record I am a huge fan of rigid frames for many reasons, which I have put on here before and don't want to bore others with now. But I would never impose my preferences on others. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenser Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 I don't think that anyone would argue against the stereotyped traditional market for 'OO' being one of young boys playing trains with their dads. The trains had some resemblence to scale models with the track and wheel standards/dimensional accuracy/finish/detail of the 'train sets' being broadly similar. The journey towards scale models is certainly advanced with the dimensional accuracy/finish and detailing of the model now outstripping the track and wheel standards. Will a declining child centred market for Hornby etc cause them to move ever more towards the scale modeller? If so. what is the future for 'OO' track and wheel standards? Cheers Dave Hornby wheel standards are nominally RP25/110 . Bachmann are also RP25/110 . That has been the position for over a decade. To be honest the variations due to manufacturing and QC tolerances are now more important than any varience in nominal wheel standard. Since RP25/110 is the invariable US HO standard, and traditional Romford wheels are pretty close to it, I don't see any significant shift in OO wheel standards in future- though there is potential for tighter manufacturing tolerances and a more scrupulously precise interpretation of the data sheet. We're talking about variances of 0.1mm or less between wheelsets now (sometimes on the same model) Track is another matter. In practice OO track means Peco - Hornby have bought in track from Roco. Peco have not changed Streamline , which is still compromised to accept "legacy" Hornby wheelsets from the 1980s and 1990s And yes I would argue against the image of OO as young boys playing trains with their dads The vast majority of 4mm modellers for the last 6 decades plus have worked in OO , and I don't accept that as a valid image of them Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 The future of 00 is secure! Hornby and Bachmann (for example) produce scale models. Only the back to back is incorrect, but I'll bet a lot of EM and P4 gaugers are mightly glad they can buy RTR and convert it especially if they can't build! Therefore anyone using proprietary these days is a scale modeller.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71 Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 ....try not to misquote me. The traditional, not current, image of 'OO' is of young boys playing trains with their dads. I was a child of the 70s and that was true of what I grew up with. Yes, I'm very grateful for having 'OO' models to regauge to P4, I simply observed that the track and wheel standards have not kept pace with the other details of the model. If in doubt place a P4 wheeled model on a section of P4 track adjacent to a 'OO' wheeled model on associated track. Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Lamb Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Yes, I'm very grateful for having 'OO' models to regauge to P4, I simply observed that the track and wheel standards have not kept pace with the other details of the model. If in doubt place a P4 wheeled model on a section of P4 track adjacent to a 'OO' wheeled model on associated track. Dave On the contrary 00 standards have improved dramatically in recent years. Almost all RTR wheels are now made to common standards and a much nearer to true scale dimensions than of old. Tolerances are also far tighter and those people who build their own track can and do take advantage of this improvement. The limiting factor is that the mass market items have to be fit for purpose. You can, except for one dimension, do the same exercise with H0 and P87. I will gloss over the fact that P87 is slightly more accurate than P4 as only people like me will notice. Bernard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71 Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Hi Mickey, ....in either 'OO' or P4 you can have good, bad or indifferent scenics. Regards Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71 Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 On the contrary 00 standards have improved dramatically in recent years. Almost all RTR wheels are now made to common standards and a much nearer to true scale dimensions than of old. Tolerances are also far tighter and those people who build their own track can and do take advantage of this improvement. The limiting factor is that the mass market items have to be fit for purpose. You can, except for one dimension, do the same exercise with H0 and P87. I will gloss over the fact that P87 is slightly more accurate than P4 as only people like me will notice. Bernard Hi Bernard, I have no experience of P87 but will happily check out your suggestion. As for 'OO', it has been the demands of the modeller (coupled with the reduction in the chidren's market) which has propelled the standards of 'OO' this far. Will it be the ease of setting up and running 'OO' that prevents any further improvement in track and wheel standards? Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
N15class Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 We seem to be getting very wide of the OP question, which was about kit building and its life expectancy. Not the old saga of gauge wars. As I posted earlier I would also be worried about the survival of the RTR market as cheap manufacturing comes to an end. So to me it is going to be the other way around. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelester Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 If an OO gauge kit loco, just like a RTR loco, will not go round a "sharp" curve it is not fit for purpose and has been badly designed, The first priority for any 4mm kit designer must be for the loco to be usable on the average modellers own layout, And that means it must go round set track curves: 3rd radius minimum, If that means setting the cylinders out a bit so be it. After all that's what the RTR producers do? John, I have now had a look at the DJH web page for the J35. I notice that this simple-ish inside cylinder 0-6-0 is rated to go around a minimum of 30" in OO. Would you therefore describe this kit as unifit for purpose? Because I wouldn't; it just needs plenty of loving work to make it reasonable. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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