hayfield

There is a growing disease of car owners/users failing to think of anyone other than themselves, certainly its most apparent in the under 30's and those with expensive cars, many don't park their cars anymore, they abandon them, the plague of white van man/delivery drivers and HGV drivers thinking they are Lewis Hamilton with their lane changing maneuvers. There are exceptions in all of these categories, the road I live in has about 22 houses, 2/3rds owner occupiers, the other third rented, sadly 2 out of the 6 or 7 rented properties have younger visitors who just park where they want, even in the middle of a turning circle of blocking a driveway, sadly with it being an un-adopted road little can be done. I am just relieved I don't live and work in North London anymore Does the requirement of having to pass a driving test not exist anymore?

This has been an age old issue dating back to at least the 60's, then the standard flanges of Romford wheels were made to a coarser standard than Markit wheels, the dodge most used was to buy wheels 1mm smaller, the other thing is that the original kit (which this is) was designed to for Triang mechanism, not a scale model, these days we rely on Manufacturers advice on what wheels to use. None of this is much help to the novice builder, those of us with a bit more kit building under our belts have learnt the hard way by our own experiences. Loco building is fun but sometimes it throws up challenges

Most of the early Wills and Wills Finecast kits were designed to fit on to RTR Chassis, as do the un-revised Southeastern Finecast kits. Box clearly stated what chassis is required. Later Wills produced cast whitemetal chassis for some of their kits, these were always extra and brought separately, this continues on today with Southeastern Finecast for the un-revised kits. Under Wills Finecast the early early etched chassis were good but very basic, some of which are still used with a few kits in both ranges The majority of etched chassis are very detailed In my opinion the quality of the etched chassis are very good to excellent, with some of the earlier designs whilst being quite basic are still better than average What I find strange is the pricing, in that the cost for the smaller less detailed tank locos is still the same as those like the K3 which are far more detailed, possible with tender chassis and some even with castings. Resulting with chassis kits like the K3 being excellent value as well as quality The final etch comes with the complete kit and I doubt if it is supplied with the chassis kit, the MR Flatiron (and others) also have these additional body detail etches. Most if not all of the Revised kits do come with extra detail, some just castings others with additional etches, I have in the past brought the extra parts to update a Wills/Wills Finecast kit for added detail In short you were as others have said brought a complete Will kit (providing no parts are missing) it would have been better had the seller stated it required a chassis, but depending on what you paid it still may have been good value, and Squires have always treated me very well when I have brought parts/chassis from them in the future I think this shows the value of both looking at photos supplied and reading the details prior to bidding and if either unsure or cannot see anything as the question first. As a seller as well as a buyer I don't mind replying to questions, as it may save future issues/confusions

Steve Thanks and good luck, dont be afraid to ask for help My farther in law suffers from dementia, so to a certain extent I can both sympathize and understand a little about the issues you are facing A few years ago I had a friend who was in awe of my ability to spot disguised kits, I said its easy, he replied but you know what you are looking for The first job is to find the instructions, which will help no end Its simply sorting out the pieces similar to doing several jigsaws at the same time. What you will find is you start to recognize what parts go where, both brass and white metal vary in colour is one method or rather a start Look for photos And all the spares that we accumulate do have value, especially wheels, motors and gear sets This past weekend I have just sold spares in 5 lots which to me had little use, reduced the cost of the lot by £60 Dont rush and keep going back over double checking, I knew little about the Wagon & Carriage Co locos, still don't know much, but a lot more than I did If selling take your time good clear photos and description really helps Good luck

The wheels were checked, for the 4 I am keeping all wheels and axles are present all be it in need of a good clean, I will need one pack of crankpins plus 2 extended ones foe use with connecting rods. As for the two I am selling, all wheels and axles bar one broken wheel were there, but no crankpins' My final list for missing parts has been made and will be sent soon I decided on a dry run for the Manning Wardle The chassis now needs stripping down, wheels and axles cleaned and missing plunger pickups replaced after painting the chassis. I cannot finish the coupling rods and pistons until parts become available. I think getting this chassis running will be easier than building the Collets chassis I have had this 14xx cab detail pack for ages, is its complete I thought I would build the backhead as it will assist me to identify some of the smaller parts, as I have a feeling I misidentified some of the very small parts of the Collet. I can use the backhead either with a CCW 14xx kit built loco I have or the 1361

Mistakenly I thought finding the parts for the backhead and cab would be easy, not so. I have used a 5p piece to show the size of the bits, the 2D sketch does not do justice to the castings and quite frankly sometimes is quite misleading, however I seem to have now at least resolved the castings for the two Springside kits I am keeping, The level of detail is outstanding and many of the parts will rarely be seen or noticed, very impressive but also confusing The Collet needs a cab front and most of the step parts are missing, one Manning Wardle is about complete, the second is better than feared, but is missing between 10 and twenty parts (mostly small ) I now need to check the wheels, all seem there but I assume many crankpin parts will be needed, the wheels and axles need cleaning up, might need the odd screw. But I will use two of the locos I am selling to be the first point of sourcing. I am certainly in a much better position than the two previous Springside kits I brought off eBay. All the unwanted gauge 1 and 7mm parts I did not want have bids on them, which is more than covering what I have spent on instructions and self seal plastic bags, I brought a bag of mixed sizes so no reason not to be tidy with the bits All in all I will have a very much smaller order for parts than I expected

MarshLane If its a week old and used for a few hours its a faulty tip. I have never had a tip do this in the last 20 years, despite the amount of abuse (through ignorance) I gave my tips, its broken apart not worn away Assuming the tip is interchangeable send a photo to the seller and request a replacement tip. Any problems then just return the iron as defective and buy a new one from a reputable retailer. Its either faulty or not fit for the job, either way you are due either a replacement or refund

Tony Yesterday was not the best with cloud all day but with the odd sunny periods, produced nearly 2kwh though as more daylight getting through the cloud, with export income now 50% of imported power, its even better value now to export. Having said that using your own generated power is still worth double the value of exports

I am always on the look out for badly described and presented items, the photos were awful, but I always bid on what I see, below was the description and it certainly interested me despite all the alarm bells below, but the photos were intermating differently About 20 model boxes and other loose parts. Relatives house clearance. The boxes give some indication of contents. The complete or part complete kits have been sold separately. These are the remains. Please see photos for manifest of parts. Look mostly OO and 7mm. Few sheets of instructions. Sold as job lot as I am unable to correctly sort parts. Please do expect any one kit to be complete. May suit scratch builder or trader. Previously as I said I have brought 2 Springside locos, which were in one case badly built and both were missing items. I took a punt on both and ended up with two 7mm scale both well under half price once I replaced the missing and broken items. These were my main focus and one of each new would cost £800, I saw loads of Slaters wheels and at £28 for a pair of drivers and £22 for non drivers, I reckoned my money was safe. As it happens One Manning Wardle and the Collet were nigh on complete. The second Manning Wardle needs a motor and gears, plus a few parts (some could easily be fabricated at home) Plus I have 2 x 72xx's and a 1361 (all 7mm scale), All 3 need motor and gears, I dislike the Oakville chassis (they are too thin) and one 4mm kit needs only the instructions, 9 other kits in varying degrees of completeness. But most are buildable and will do others a favor. The surplus parts also have a value of their own. I guess those doing the house clearance had to deal with what they found. I guess no one had the ability to sort it all out I spent a few hours each day (I see it as leisure) and have broken the back of sorting them out, as for the Collet I went through the loose spare (I found another mixed bag I missed) and found a lot more parts. My order to Springside will be far less than I expected yesterday and a tenth of what I expected before the instructions arrived. With an 80% reduction on fees I will be listing a few items over the weekend

Kevinlms The quality of soldering in both 4mm & 7mm scales is excellent, the mixing of parts were to the extreme, something like 10 or 11 x 4mm kits and 8 x 7mm loco kits, 2 coaches and a tender What is strange is the lack of original castings in the 3 Wagon and The Carriage Works kits, the style of Springside castings is quite unique and many of the WCW castings seem to be Springside. The GWR were fond of standardization of parts, so I guess many are interchangeable. It may be Springside supplied the castings ?

I stated prior to VAT, we gave a third of rrp. VAT changed the percentages where in the end we gave up selling s/h items Granted the easy route is to sell it all off to a dealer Another route is to sell the decent higher value items individually, sell the rest as a single or double job lot(s). This would reduce the effort but maximize returns with less effort .

Anyone with a bit of savey does not pay eBay 10% but 2%, but even at 10% its far cheaper than traditional auction houses at 40% and you get retail not trade prices

The listing stated that all the complete kits had been sold previously To a certain extent you are correct with your assumption, but why were the parts out of their boxes in the first place ? I am not complaining as part of the fun is identifying what goes where I have made good a Jamieson Black 5 kit, I think the Wills Flatiron is about complete (I have taken the incomplete) SEF chassis and a Craftsman A5 looks complete except for instructions At the other end of the scale there is an incomplete set of early 7mm etchings for a Fowler class two 2-6-2T, someone will like a challenge !! and there is two basket cases of LNER Tender engines (which will be sold together as spares, likewise a K's Aberdare, and I will add an old Dean Goods I have with an outside frame one. The idea is to clear out all the bits I don't want In 4mm I am keeping a Nucast GWR Duke, two of the Springside kits and 2 of the The Wagon and Carriage Works locos, plus a lot of 7mm spring buffers and coupling hooks.

I thought I would show the differences between the number of detail parts in a 7mm kit You don't just get a backhead casting with the odd extra part, but a bag full

The instruction book for the Manning Wardle stretches to 11 pages. The Collet Goods runs to 32 pages. I started checking the parts last night, there are 3 pages of instructions The 1st of 2 pages for the loco After 2+ hours I got to part 91 and either not found or missing about 30 items I decided to stop where it got to the backhead and cab detail parts. Once I have done this I will recheck some of the smaller details and sort out another bag of parts which is mostly 4mm parts Later today I will sort out the Tender parts first, which hopefully leave the smaller parts for the backhead and cab details easier to find I even realized this morning I had mistakenly put the smokebox wrapper into the 1361 box. I am missing the cab front so I will have to send an order to Springside and I assume it will take a few months for the missing items to be cast, so I may start the backhead detailing first and then depending on its completeness the tender. However I am enjoying the jigsaw or rather Jigsaws of parts for the 6 locos.

Simon As for retail second hand trading, prior to VAT the rules of buying second hand was buy at 1/3 rrp and sell at 2/3 rrp. the introduction of VAT changed the buying price to a lower amount, however if trading up to a newer/more expensive item discounts could be arranged As for eBay fees, firstly a traditional auction site charges 20% (ave) to both buyers and sellers and most times gets trade (lower) rates Most of us wait for listing discount weekends where its 2% plus a small listing fee However whether you pay full or discounted fees, if the listing is well done you tend to receive retail prices A lot of folk moan about postage charged, look at what traditional auction sites charge !! For run of the mill lower priced items sell in batches, I found groups of 3 or 4 were the optimum number But if you don't want the hassle of selling, then get quotes from dealers

Today I received the two Springside Loco instructions for the Collet Goods and the Manning Wardle 0-4-0ST. When contacting suppliers for instructions I always ask if I can buy them, simply these traders are working for a living and its simply good manners to pay the going rate for their time, especially when you have not brought an item from them I can highly recommend Springside, whilst usually you have to wait for the next production run, the parts become cheaper the larger the order. I have done this twice before and have been treated very fairly by the proprietor Well I started with the Manning Wardle's, and went through the parts list. The loco I am keeping at the moment is missing about 10 items. The second is missing under 40 body parts (Springside kits do have loads of small parts) many of these may either be found in a spares box or easily fabricated. Most of the hardware (nuts and bolts) are missing as is the motor and gears. The loco I am keeping is missing far less items than I feared, and over the moon with what I have. Given these kits now cost £300, the most expensive part missing from the second one is the motor and gears The missing bits can be greatly reduced by fabricating some parts and or not fitting some of the smaller detail parts. Both this morning and this afternoon I have been spotting further parts for all 3 locos which are either in the unused parts box or put with the wrong loco, so I am in a much better position than I expected, next up will be going through the Collets parts list. I expect some items to be missing, plus there may be additional parts not needed Also yesterday I started to write up listings for the unwanted 4mm locos, saving them for the next reduced fees weekend, as I am happy I have reduced the amount of missing parts for each loco as I can, but most are being sold cheap depending on how many parts are missing.

Very annoying, but I guess the buyer/time waster would have cancelled their order after winning the bid. Having been in sales for most of my life, you cannot count on a sale until cash changes hands. Many things get in the way between someone's stating an intention to buy and buying, sometimes there may well be a genuine reason. For my part I keep my railway funds ringfenced, whilst on a very few occasions I will break this rule, for me its a matter of pride in keeping within my own budget. The other thing is, I believe in swings and roundabouts, some call it Karma. For every item you sell at a good price, you will not get as much on another sale. I view buying the same, sometimes I might slightly over pay, next time I get a real bargain. Good luck with further sales

I have noticed that in the past 3 weeks the value of the energy I have either used or exported, has doubled from the previous weeks. On average I use about £15 worth of electricity a week, over these past 3 weeks the average benefit has been just over £3 a week, rather than between £1 & £1.50. For the half full brigade I guess it could be said "not a great return", but then in the winter months our expectations are low. As far as February is concerned by the end of the month production will be 5 times that of December. In short even on days when we have sunny spells our financial gain is 75% of the average weekly benefit we were to to expect when we brought our system. Roll on the Spring as today looks to be a washout

Gilbert I buy quite a lot from Ray, as a buyer he is one of the best traders

I would imagine its down to the individuals who own them, I would try the local engineering societies I have a Mk 3 Scalefour timber punching and press machine. I brought it second hand and the punch head was bent, in trying to straighten it the punch pin snapped off. Several years later I found a machinist via a friend who very kindly turned me up another Or find a local machine shop and order some (you would have to give them the specifications).

I think you have had very wise council in the previous posts, with lots of very good advice If you have time selling on eBay can be fun as well as rewarding, when I sold my old RTR items some years ago I could not believe how much it raised With wagons and coaches unless they are collectors items, as advised list them in groups to reduce the postage cost Take time with your first listing, if you make it as a template you can use it time and time again, just changing the photos and details. This makes further listings much easier Take clear photos, as these will sell your items, what you earn will depend on how clear your photos and descriptions are, plus sell a few as wrapping up lots of items at one becomes a chore Look at how other present their items and copy the best ones Most of all enjoy the process

Well done looks like you have found an early one with pre-quartered wheels, Mk1 motor and keyhole chassis. I never had issues with quartering the wheels just meshing the gears

Ant chance of some photos please

This is one of the photos when buying the lot I did not pay much attention to. An etched coach and wagon, perhaps I should had paid more more attention to the instruction sheet, or the wheels, though close to then are some track gauges (the larger black one looks like my Brook-Smith P4 roller gauge ( I was proved wrong Along with quite a few etched bits and pieces was this 7mm scale Langley L&B bogie coach Unseen was this composite coach along with a L&B bogie open wagon. These kits are incomplete, and at a quick glance the kits are about 75% complete Now as a volunteer at the L&B coach works and interested in 0-16.5 these are real freebies, I will see if there are parts I can buy, but I expect most will have to be scratch built. I was at the workshop today and the lads expect to see them built, especially as we have started coach 9 Two things to take into consideration, if selling items ensure you take cleat photos of what you are selling, secondly keep all the parts of your kits together, it will not only help those disposing of your items, but also help those buying them. Most of all ensure those left behind benefit as much as possible. By the way what I thought was a P4 track gauge, was a 7mm version along with another Brook Smith gauge, I have never seen these in 7mm scale (or are they Scale 7?) but then there is a lot in this hobby I have not seen !!