bushrat

Yep, that's just about what I am trying to say in my rambling and over verbose way - it's got to be RIGHT or it's not going to work! Sorry, I tend to write too much when I am in pain, (couple of busted ribs), and go into far too much detail, but yes, that's it in a nutshell. We have to remember that with these kits we are in many respects working backwards in an illogical assembly sequence, and anything that is likely to affect the basic operation later has to be right, otherwise ......... oops, calamity! I was surprised at the parts supply and sequence which followed logic, and did almost the complete body - footplate - cab was supplied the way it was. Made it fairly easy, but I suppose a lot just got the first issues for the basics and then pulled out and used other bits or scratchbuilt. That's what I originally intended to do, but frankly, the quality of the first issues impressed me, and I am not easily impressed, so I am going with it for a bit longer. I must confess though, that this wheel business concerns me, and it needs to be established whether it is a manufacturing problem or an instructional one, hopefully someone from Hachette will clarify this for somebody at some point.... By the way, that is a really NICE chassis, what is it, an A3? Bushrat

So you reckon it's more of an instructional problem that a manufacturing problem? I am trying hard to visualise what you mean, if the leading and trailing wheels and axles are different to the centre drivers and axles, wont that throw everything out of whack? Especially when the time comes to add the conrods and valve gear? It's really going to be a pity if this so far nice model is let down by something like this, as it has been up to now, such a big improvement on Scotsman as far as quality goes! Bushrat

Yes Mike, I agree with what you and Ross say, a set of Slaters wheels may well be the answer. And yes, the general quality of the kit has been ok so far (only up to #17 here), and the biggest job I have had to do was "adjust" the length of the nose section as it was a bit longer on one side - that's why the gap in the side skirts I suspect..... anyhow it seems to have fixed mine up at the expense of about a millimetre in length! The problem is that there is a big difference, in my view at least, between a bit of fettling and parts that are just badly made - like the water gauges, as you mentioned. They weren't any better on Scotsman, and you would think that small detail parts like this could have been better made of a plastic, since they are "internal" and not going to be exposed to any handling. Also its a hell of a lot easier and safer to drill a .05mm hole in a plastic part without wrecking it or taking out a finger than in a soft white metal casting! But when you have a major OPERATING component like wheels that would seem to be a problem, it leaves a rather nasty taste in ones mouth I'm afraid, and in my humble opinion, they have a moral obligation to their customers, (us) to make it right. Whether it is the parts or insufficient clear instructions. When I get my wheels and axles, and if I find they are wrong, which they almost certainly will be from what has been said here, I will be whinging my whatsits off at them, buying a set of slaters and sending them a bill for the cost. And as far as the model being designed to run on a metre length of track, yes, we went through that as well, and as a result some parts were re-supplied in later issues (Rocker arms - were originally white metal and got replaced with sturdier ones, made from a nickel silver type metal). So don't be backward in contacting them and having a good venting of the spleen, if enough of us do it, something should be done! At the end of the day, it may be a partwork, but we are in fact paying more than an off the shelf kit from DJH for it, so it needs to be at least 90% as good as what else is on offer I reckon! In Australia, we have a law that says that goods have to be of merchantable quality and fit for purpose, I don't know about the U.K. but I would suspect that its the same there. In short, we have undertaken this project in good faith, and they have to hold up their end of the bargain if there is a problem. In real terms, if they refunded the cost of the issues with faulty parts, that would nearly pay, I would think for the replacement wheels. And they may think more seriously about quality control for the next project as well...... Also, a word of cautionary advice about the wheels - Again harking back to the Scotsman experience, I found to my sorrow, that the crank pins that go through the wheels had a tendency to turn, even if countersunk in and secured with epoxy, and that meant that the top rocker assembly wouldn't stay in the right position. Now this doesn't affect the running, but its, well, just not RIGHT... Too late to do anything with mine by the time I discovered it, but what I will do with this one is simply this: Before fitting the crank pin and top hat assemblies, I will take a bit of brass wire offcut, and solder it into the screw head. I will then put this in place and QUICKLY apply heat to this as I push it into the back of the wheel, thus melting it in - gotta be careful but I think it will work ok. This will give the crank pin some "bite" once the top-hat etc. are on and SHOULD stop it from turning. Super glue was suggested as a fix on the F/S forum but we all know what happens to super glue with time and oil - it held for all of 5 minutes! I don't know if the original F/S forum is still up, but for those of you who didn't build Scotsman, I would strongly suggest that if it is, it would be well worth taking an hour or so and reading through it, there were some really brilliant solutions found to many of the problems.... Bushrat

Strewth! What a $&%$ mess! They may LOOK to be quartered Ross, but I really have to wonder what is going to happen when the coupling rods and valve gear are fitted up. Are they going to work or simply bind up or worse, bend, snap or stress what are fairly fragile valve gear parts and thus ruin them. They would only have to be a couple of hairs out to cause a problem. Will Hachette make good on any damage? I would try to email them, but from past experience (regarding the sloppy fit of the axles on some of the Scotsman wheels) I suspect that the reply will be something like "how would you be having a problem, you haven't got those parts yet" which I suppose is a fair enough comment to expect...... So I suppose that it is up to you chaps that have the parts at this stage to stir things up a bit at Hachette, and find out what is going on. The questions I would be asking of them are these: 1: Are these wheels in fact correctly made to specifications, given that the centres are all in different locations? 2: Are the axles supposed to be like this, with different end angles? 3: If these parts are correct, could you supply an individual wheel and axle identification sheet, and correct instructions as a matter of urgency with the next issue? 4: If these parts are NOT correct, what is going to be done to rectify the problem, and WHEN? - Nobody is going to want to be waiting too long for replacements, or receive them one at a time over several issues and get totally out of whack with the assembly sequence. 5: The final question I would ask is this - these wheels seem to have a thinner spoke than the Scotsman wheels did, I may be wrong about this, the old eyes aren't the best anymore, but compare the pics of the Scotsman wheels I posted with the Mallard pics that you chaps have been putting up and you may see what I mean. Now my concern is this; Mallard is heavier than Scotsman, a LOT heavier, will these wheels support the weight of an all metal model that is sitting on a display shelf or layout for an extended period, or will the weight start to deform the spokes and allow the wheels to collapse as it were, especially in hot weather as the plastic softens. I may be tending to worry needlessly, but IF there is a problem with these wheels, we all need to know before we go much further with assembly ..... I just wish there was something else I could do from this end, but without the parts to examine it is impossible, anyway, that's my two bobs worth, hopefully we will get some answers... Bushrat

I can begin to see the problem from these photos! Surely it would have only been a matter of making the wheels OR the axle to a correct quartering design, but it looks to my untrained eye that they might have done BOTH, ie. wheels and axles both unique. The axles are completely different to Scotsman, which had both machined ends at the same angle/position. Now, if they have done BOTH, and you then have a left and right wheel, PLUS a left and right end to each axle, then lads we have a BIG PROBLEM! I come back to my original thought as before, that these parts may have been packed incorrectly and out of sequence so you all got a dogs breakfast mix of left and right wheels. Is the offset angle the same on each axle end or do they differ? Also the wheels and centre hubs seem to have a very rough finish, again nothing like Scotsman, to me that kind of finish would be grounds to return them for replacement, even the plastic on the spokes looks rough to me, certainly not worthy to put on a model given the amount of money and work going into the rest of the project.... I reckon I will be putting my spare Scotty wheels and axles on mine and to hell with the quartering! A damn nuisance when they do stuff like this! Photos below are Scotsman wheels and axles - all I am able to compare with, but note the axle ends are all at the same angle - and this was ALL axles for the entire model - and ALL the driving wheels had the same centre hub location. Dunno what this tells us apart from the fact that something is a bit off ....... Bushrat

Hi Gents, Weighing in at 5am from Australia, I have to say that this is a most alarming situation. From what I read here, the main issue is not so much that the quartering is wrong, but that the wheel sets don't quarter at the same angles, is this correct? Has anyone compared the axles to make sure they are all the same? Are the actual wheels all the same? I can see from the photos that the wheels shown have the centre hub in a different position from each other, so the conclusion could only be that either: A: There should have been two different sets of three wheels, one set for the left and one set for the right, and there has been a packing error, and no instructions for this. or B: The wheels are suffering from faulty manufacture, during which the hub has been placed in the wrong position during the moulding process. or C: The above may also apply to the axles There were problems with Scotsman when I built it, including things like footplate length, and they were NEVER addressed to my knowledge, and we had to fudge around it, but this is more than a niggling issue, as Rosspop says, fine for a static model, because if all the wheels are like this the conrods and running gear likely wont fit, and if they do they probably wont allow the wheels to turn, they will simply bind up and lock! I will have a look later at Scotsman, and also compare the spare set of drivers and axles I picked up on Ebay and see if there was anything like this with those, but I don't think there was any issue with them - we will see..... Bit difficult for me to start emailing Hachette for answers, as we are only up to part 17 here in Oz, and I don't have the parts at hand to fiddle, but maybe a few emails to them from you chaps over there may get some answers. Wont it be interesting if they have mixed up the wheels and some have got 4 lefts and 2 rights? Wonder what they will do about THAT one!........ If anyone can scan and post the quartering instructions, I would be interested in having a read of them. Bushrat

Just finished putting the handrails on one side of the boiler - what a shocker of a job! It would have been much better if the shanks of the handrail stanchions/posts were long enough to protrude through the boiler casting to allow a bit of araldite or solder to be placed on the ends to make it a secure job. In the end I gave up trying to get dobs of solder down the holes in the very hard to work with "mazak" and super glued them, and just hope they don't let go at some time. I wonder if they are going to do the conrods etc in stainless like Scotsman was - hope not, it was very hard to solder........But at least they have done something sensible in having the motion bracket as part of the chassis etching, that was a real nightmare to put together.......

Hi Jeff, That may well be the case..... I started on Flying Scotsman, with the intention of getting some bits and scratch building the rest, but sort of got sucked in to the whole series, and there were a LOT of niggling little problems with Scotsman. Mine is not yet finished (about 70% I suppose) due to life in general getting in the way as it is wont to do...... But yes, the wheels/axles were a problem for some people with Scotsman, undersize axle ends mean the wheels tend to wobble a bit, the allen screws have a tendancy to strip the heads (bad luck if you need to remove them). With Scotsman, I didn't feel that the wheels themselves were too bad, just the axle ends and allen screws, but either way its an expensive problem with limited options to fix other than to replace with something like Slaters wheel sets - expensive and not common here in Australia! Dunno about the soft plastic on the wheels, but given the Mazak boiler and the fact that Mallard will be a fair bit heavier than Scotsman, it may be an issue. This time I am not getting trapped again, I am up to issue 8 here, and once I have the complete chassis, loco body and chimney I am going to cancel it. I will scratch build the rest using reproduction parts of Scotsman such as the tender etc. Mine is probably only going to be a static model anyway, so it will be nothing more than a conversation piece at best, although hopefully a reasonable looking one! If you have a read through the Flying Scotsman pages on these forums, the problems are covered pretty well....... Also Mallard will need a fairly strong motor due to its weight, unlike the Scotsman, which I powered with an old triang motor (I kid you not) and it runs quite well! Maybe you can post a link to this facebook page? I would really like to take a gander at this..... Bushrat

Drop cab in boiling water for a few minutes - superglue will let go .....

Thanks for the parts list Mike, that's a big help to me, much appreciated Bushrat

Can anyone please tell me what issues contain the following parts? Chimney - Cab Roof and detail - Backhead. Trying to plan things out and only up to issue 5 here in Aussie! Thanks for any advice you can give me regarding issue numbers/parts. Cheers, Bushrat.

Strange stuff indeed, is this lacquer or whatever is on the cab, here is what I have done so far; 1: Soaked in automotive acrylic thinners for 2 hours and brushed - effect was a slight milky "discharge" from the brass surface, and a slight lumpy effect, similar to what you would get dissolving a silicone based product. 2: Light polished in a couple of test areas with 1200 grit wet and dry paper - removed the coating ok, but will be a bit of a problem on the small detail parts, due to probable damage that would occur. 3: test applied solder to a couple of places and no, solder will NOT take where this coating is, but the surface polished with the wet and dry is fine. Conclusion: Really cant work out what this stuff is, it almost behaves like a plastic film rather than a painted finish, and it is extremely tough to remove, although an overnight soak in the thinners MAY help, I just didn't have time to watch it. My concern with this is simply that once assembled, if this coating is not completely removed, while it may be great for improving the adhesion of super glue, I have reservations about applying a paint finish to it, as paint may not bond properly to the surface. Next step is to muck about with other non-caustic stuff that wont attack the brass, so off to the hardware tomorrow to see what I can find, and will advise.

Greetings all, been away for a while. This has just been released in Australia, got 4 cabs today, and have been reading the thread so far with interest. Having looked at part #1, it seems to me the cab is a double sided etch, totally different from Flying Scotsman, and the "lacquer" may well have been applied by heat transfer or screen printing with the relevant cut-outs for etching. (??) What I am going to do is to soak one of the cab etches in automotive thinners - that should remove anything known to man, be it lacquer or whatever, without damaging the brass. I will post some photos of the result. Part 2 is due later this week, and assuming that we get metal ones here, I will treat it the same way and see what happens. I still haven't finished Scotsman, - had a year off moving house and having a cancer op - but hopefully soon will have a decent work area set up in the new place, until then it's going to be the odd experiment in technique - something that I learned the hard way with Scotsman..... I am going to do what a few others here are attempting - use the body kit as a base for scratch building a near enough Mallard, as I already have an almost complete chassis that I scratched for the Scotsman, and from what I see, the addition of a few mounting points should work well, after all, the side skirts will cover most differences..... Has anyone got a list of issues and what parts they contain as yet? Would be really helpful if somebody could post one. Cheers, Bushrat.