Wright writes.....

[AndyID]

Not unless the silicon is in the form of a silicone compound they aren't.

Thanks! I get that wrong, often.

[coachmann]

This is the closest I can find.

 

The Nim.

Thanks for this. The Hall chimney could be useful, but I am quietly forgetting the 51XX super-detailing after i realised the Airfix model has flangeless centre drivers. Goodness knows why I didn't spot this sooner.

[ianwales]

Thanks for this. The Hall chimney could be useful, but I am quietly forgetting the 51XX super-detailing after i realised the Airfix model has flangeless centre drivers. Goodness knows why I didn't spot this sooner.

Hi Larry

 

There was an article many years ago on detailing the Airfix 51xx where the centre wheels had been replaced by a spare set of flanged wheels, however, you do realise that the Airfix wheels are too small for a 41xx/51xx/61xx, the only number the model should have is one of the 81xx series!

 

Ian

[coachmann]

Hi Larry

 

There was an article many years ago on detailing the Airfix 51xx where the centre wheels had been replaced by a spare set of flanged wheels, however, you do realise that the Airfix wheels are too small for a 41xx/51xx/61xx, the only number the model should have is one of the 81xx series!

 

Ian

I hadn't got that far in the research. The cylinder were bugging me being around 38mm across but it is all academic now. 

Edited June 6, 2015 by coachmann

[AndyID]

Another fine K's product.

 

 

It had defeated a colleague at work, so he gave it to me. I took a shot at it, but it defeated me too.

 

That was forty years ago! One of these days I will work up the courage to take another shot at it.

 

(In fairness to K's, I do have a wagon that I bought about 50 years ago that I do like a lot.)

[stewartingram]

I was never a fan of K's loco kits, but the main reason was that they never covered the prototypes that I wanted - apart from the J70. Now everyone seems to say the range were not good runners, and in the latest Model Rail even Chris Leigh quotes the J70 as being a poor runner (back page). Strange thing is, one of my best running locos is a K's J70, built around 1965/6 and still going strong! It has been dropped a few times, commpletely shattered at least twice and just re-assembled, as per the original build. Have I just been lucky?

 

Stewart

[Tony Wright]

It must be fluke that it does so, but my K's J3 (really a J three and a half I reckon now that I measure the boiler which is in between J3 and J4 sizes) runs very nicely on K's wheels with K's gears and K's motor. I built it when I was fairly inexperienced in such matters too - probably explaining why I actually bought the kit in the first place and failed to notice the wrong size of the boiler for years afterward....

Graeme,

 

In my experience you are in a very small minority in being able to get K's locos to go successfully using just what was supplied. Though I managed with the frames, the motors and wheels entirely defeated me in my efforts to get them to go. 

 

 

Here's my 40+ year old K's ROD, running on Romfords with a more-recent DJH motor/gearbox. It did, until a few years ago, have a five-pole open-frame motor and 40:1 gears, but was too noisy. It now runs without sound. If my memory serves, the original wheelsets were fixed on their axles and were designed to drop into the 'keyhole'-type chassis. A Mk.1 motor was supplied. None of the wheels was true. Latterly, I acquired some K's wheels with 'D'-type centres for quartering. These were equally hopeless. Somewhere, beneath fresher plaster, there is a wall in a bedroom (my workshop at the time) in a house in Stafford with an 'imprint' of a K's ROD chassis in the original rendering - a perfect mimic, showing four wheels, rods and the outline of the frames and motor! I'm afraid my frustration got the better of me. Needless to say, the chassis ceased to work in any fashion after that; not that it worked before. Thus, a sadder, but wiser man, made new frames, installed Romfords and a decent motor - fortunately, the body was not attached to the chassis when I hurled it at the wall. In centuries to come, whenever Stafford's land-fill site is excavated, archaeologists might puzzle as to what they've discovered - a severely-distorted piece of model railway antiquity!

[teaky]

Didn't you have a K's Stirling Single on loan recently Tony?

[JeremyC]

Thanks Martin,

 

Having built umpteen (and more!) of the kits you mention, I always replaced the white metal chassis with a scratch-built alternative, mainly because the motor position was 'set' in the WM one and the other was the over-weight nature of the locos when completed. I know the latter seems a daft statement, given that weight usually equals greater hauling power but, to take the first Nu-Cast B1 I built as an example, the loco would just about pull itself (especially since the tender was all white-metal and it had a white metal sub-frame as well). The drive was on the rear axle, with the motor pointing backwards. <snip>

 

 

Reading this I have my own thoughts about where the fault may have been with its lack of ability to pull.

Many years ago [in the late 1970s!] I built a Wills Finecast A4 and an A1 [converted from the A2 kit]. They were both fitted with MW005 motors and Romford gears. When completed neither would pull much better than Tony's B1! After a lot of tinkering, trying  different motors etc I looked at a couple of my Hornby locos [well Triang Hornby in those days] and wondered why they pulled alright; after all they had the same or a similar motor [the X04]. The only difference seemed to be the gears. As an experiment I modified the Wills chassis on one loco to take Triang gears [Plastic wheel and brass worm]. The result was amazing; the top speed was rather over the top but the haulage limit [about 8 -10 coaches] was now adhesion not power. Following this success the other loco was quickly modified [using a  plastic wheel and worm in this case] with a similar result.

 

It is a known engineering fact that worm gears are inefficient, but it seems that there was something very wrong with the Romford gears I fitted originally to those locomotives. While I later did use Romford gears on other kits [and was neververy happy with them] I nowadays use High Level gearboxes which seem very good.

 

Jeremy

Edited June 7, 2015 by JeremyC

[Tony Wright]

Didn't you have a K's Stirling Single on loan recently Tony?

It isn't a K's Stirling Single, it's scratch-built, but it's got a K's tender-drive mechanism. It didn't work, but with some TLC it now does. At the moment it's at LOCOMOTION on loan. 

[teaky]

It isn't a K's Stirling Single, it's scratch-built, but it's got a K's tender-drive mechanism. It didn't work, but with some TLC it now does. At the moment it's at LOCOMOTION on loan. 

Ah,sorry.  Faulty memory strikes again.  I was paying attention to everything else on LB, honest!

Edited June 7, 2015 by teaky

[Mrkirtley800]

I was bought a K's Johnson Single back in about 1973.  It went together OK however the driving wheels were white metal castings and when mounted on the axles ran like nothing on earth.  I sent them back to K's for replacement, but the new ones were no better.  So got a pair of Triang 'Lord of the Isles' driving wheels and managed to turn them down to more scale proportions, then araldited on the axles in a clamp and back to back gauge (I model in EM).  they ran true and have stayed that way.  The tender drive in my loco was and still is superb, so I am very happy with the loco.  It will pull anything I put behind it, but I just wish the driving wheels looked as if the Midland had had something to do with them.

I also was bought a K's Kirtley 0-6-0 in the late 1960's.  That ran very well using the supplied motor (was a mark 2 - small motor - can't remember) and the wheels were OK as well.  Since then in the 1990's have replaced the motor, mainframes and wheels for better ones.

I used the small - mark 2 - motor almost exclusively in the 1960's and 70's for my small Midland engines, most being scratch built.  I found if the small K's motor was good, it was very good.  But if it was bad ------ well better chuck it!!.

Derek 

[Rail-Online]

I used the small - mark 2 - motor almost exclusively in the 1960's and 70's for my small Midland engines, most being scratch built.  I found if the small K's motor was good, it was very good.  But if it was bad ------ well better chuck

I built about 20 K's kits with these Mk2 motors. The first thing I did was to run if for 1 hour in each direction. About 75% failed and went up in smoke and therefore were sent back for replacements which generally were Ok. If it survived I found I had a nice little motor and capable of running responsively and slow........

 

Tony

[AndyID]

 

It is a known engineering fact that worm gears are inefficient, but it seems that there was something very wrong with the Romford gears......

 

Hi Jeremy,

 

It's true that worm gears can be less efficient than other types of gears, but they can be just as efficient in some cases, particularly at lower gear ratios. Romford gears are sized so that you can change the gears without changing the distance between the motor shaft and the axle, and the worm gear (the one on the axle) is sized to work even with quite small wheel diameters. I believe these factors account for their low efficiency.

 

The old Tri-ang two-start worm gear arrangement was actually quite efficient! The problem was it had a low ratio, but they work well when combined with a second stage reduction gear to multiply the ratio.

 

Cheers!

Andy

[glo41f]

My claim to fame in my model club was that I actually got a K's ROD to work using the supplied materials. I also got the J70 to run using the K's motor bogie. They were my only sucesses from that stable. Wills were better overall I felt and had the advantage of using a ready to run underframe. That was sensible at the time as the result was pretty well guarenteed to run. (We did not seem too worried about wheelbases and the like in those days!) Sutherland Casters kits were rare birds in the east as they did not produce any eastern types. Millholme came with their own inbuilt frustrations. Nu Cast, well thanks to Gerry, I had the inside track on these. I was overjoyed when the Cornard Models B17 was annoced and then someone did a nice one in the MRC. I duly acquired one and it was awful. It should have been sent back. The castings were bent and very thin and I wonder if any "average" modeller ever made one go.

 

White metal bends and does not handle too well. Footplates were very easy to distort. I soon went onto Jamieson kits which were a better format once one had acquired the soldering skills. One of our club members at that time was Mr Sayer of Sayer Chaplin kits who was greatly encouraging in the solder assembly process though he never sold his kits to club members at mates rates.

 

In those days, if you owned six locos that looked and worked well you were at the top of the modelling tree. Models may have been lacking in detail but each was different and treasured. Such a contrast to today when everyone has boxes full of models each to a standard only dreamed about in the 1960/70s period.  But I wonder if the satisfaction in achieving a working  model which looked like the prototype is the same today?

 

Martin Long

[60027Merlin]

Very interesting reading regarding loco kits from decades ago.

 

Back in the 60s when suitable ready to run for the Edinburgh area was non-existent a few of us in the local model railway club decided to try out some of the kits available. It was a case of the blind leading the blind and in all innocence some Jamieson and Ks kits were obtained as well as a few from Wills and in my case the Bec Director as well. Whilst the Jamieson kits were fine it was not realised until opening the box from Eames of Reading that it was one step away from scratch building. However, after opening the box(s), from Ks and making a start it soon became apparent that I/we were on to a loser! Many a discussion on Club evenings ensued as to how to tackle the various problems. The MTK kits in the early 70s were even lower in the league placings than Ks. The only Ks kits I managed to beat were the Black 5, ROD and Caley Tank. The first two were sold many years ago but the Caley Tank still appears on the layout from time to time with other ex-LMS stuff including the Jamieson Lambie 0-6-0.

 

The Jamieson kits were much better and I attach a photo of their Jubilee which is a bit of mix and match, circa 1970, with a Ks Black 5 cab as it had rivet detail and a Wills Fowler tender. In these days the kit manufacturers were only too happy to supply all sorts of spare parts for a reasonable price. It is lined with Kingsprint lining which I still have but is unworkable as the lining is stuck permanently to the sheet! I had to renumber it earlier this year when, after prompting by my wife I undertook a “de-cluttering” I came across the storage box which also included the Jamieson Royal Scot and Wills A3. From memory the driving wheel balance weights were fitted when Crownline arrived on the scene some years later with their extensive range of loco fittings.

 

Happy days!     

 

Eric

 

Edited June 7, 2015 by 60027Merlin

[Arthur]

Graeme,

 

In my experience you are in a very small minority in being able to get K's locos to go successfully using just what was supplied. Though I managed with the frames, the motors and wheels entirely defeated me in my efforts to get them to go. 

 

 

I'm in agreement on that one, I routinely fitted Romfords and a better motor gearbox to Ks kits. I later used to buy just their body line kits and a valve gear etch, and either buy or make up some suitable frames.

[AndyID]

I'm in agreement on that one, I routinely fitted Romfords and a better motor gearbox to Ks kits. I later used to buy just their body line kits and a valve gear etch, and either buy or make up some suitable frames.

 

If I ever build that Caley tank, I will have to use new wheels. The tires on on the K's drivers have detached from the cast centers!

[raymw]

 

 

The old Tri-ang two-start worm gear arrangement was actually quite efficient! The problem was it had a low ratio, but they work well when combined with a second stage reduction gear to multiply the ratio.

When I was a lad, the manager of the local maodel shop, a friend of my dad, and a brilliant model engineer, replaced the twin start worm with a drilled length of 1/4 whit bolt. Halved the speed, doubled the power, more or less.

[Mrkirtley800]

Fascinating reading about building kits so long ago.   The 'bodyline' kits, just the body to fit on a Triang or Hornby chassis (don't like using that word for a steam loco).  There were three, and I got the Midland one and made a right old mess of it.  After a bit of running it was thrown into a box and forgotten for something like 25 years.  I found it, rebuilt it with  scratch built mainframes, fitted with a big can motor and gearbox and it is still running today, and here it is in the yard at Canal Road in the 'experimental' plain black livery.  Layout set in 1908.

Derek

[ArthurK]

I bought the Ks J72 for the princely sum of £5/19/6, quite a sum in those days. It ran well as built but I have to confess that it needed about 3mm sawn off the boiler to make it align with the front sandboxes. After the motor disintegrated (don't  all glued Ks motors do that?). I scratch built a new chassis and fitted the DH11 motor driving a Japanese (Tenshedo?) enclosed gearbox. Still runs well today.

 

I also built the Ks outside framed Kirtley 0-6-0.The  trouble there was that the frame cut-outs didn't line up with the axles or with each other!

 

ArthurK

[St Enodoc]

I'm in agreement on that one, I routinely fitted Romfords and a better motor gearbox to Ks kits. I later used to buy just their body line kits and a valve gear etch, and either buy or make up some suitable frames.

About 20 years ago I fitted a K's Grange body to a Bachmann Manor chassis. Apart from having to widen the firebox to fit over the motor, it wasn't too bad. Fortunately Hornby brought their RTR model out before I needed to build another.

[AndyID]

When I was a lad, the manager of the local maodel shop, a friend of my dad, and a brilliant model engineer, replaced the twin start worm with a drilled length of 1/4 whit bolt. Halved the speed, doubled the power, more or less.

 

It's interesting he was able to get away with that. Without changing the angle between the motor shaft and the axle, the worm could not mesh properly with the worm gear!

 

I have an Tri-ang Caley 123. IIRC, I can make the motor turn by turning the wheels.

[coachmann]

About 20 years ago I fitted a K's Grange body to a Bachmann Manor chassis. Apart from having to widen the firebox to fit over the motor, it wasn't too bad. Fortunately Hornby brought their RTR model out before I needed to build another.

20 years on and I believe folk are fitting Grange chassis into errant Manors! 

[AndyID]

I should probably start a new thread for this, but does anyone happen to know who might supply a Fowler tender kit? I have a Hornby Midland Compound that I'd like to convert to motor in the tender similar to the Black Five conversion I did above. The Hornby tender looks all wrong.