John_Hughes Posted May 7, 2014 Share Posted May 7, 2014 I've had a query about rebuilding a whitemetal kit in OO Gauge of the Great Bear; the caller thinks it may be a Nucast model, but if so it isn't on my list of their products. Can anyone enlighten me, please, as to who the maker might have been? Thanks! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Prism Posted May 7, 2014 Share Posted May 7, 2014 M&L (Models & Leisure) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Max Posted May 7, 2014 Share Posted May 7, 2014 The kit was latterly available through Alan Gibson prior to the business being sold to the current owners. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold gwrrob Posted May 7, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 7, 2014 The kit was latterly available through Alan Gibson prior to the business being sold to the current owners. An unmade kit recently fetched over £300 on ebay. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Hughes Posted May 7, 2014 Author Share Posted May 7, 2014 Many thanks to those who replied! Not a model I'd ever heard of before, I must say. Any comments on the quality of the offering, chassis provided etc? By all accounts the job already 'professionally' done on it was fairly dodgy.... (Three hundred quid! Crikey!) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold gwrrob Posted May 7, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 7, 2014 Many thanks to those who replied! Not a model I'd ever heard of before, I must say. Any comments on the quality of the offering, chassis provided etc? By all accounts the job already 'professionally' done on it was fairly dodgy.... (Three hundred quid! Crikey!) I just googled the kit John and the last one went for a more reasonable £216 so they are out there if patient. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted May 7, 2014 Share Posted May 7, 2014 I'm not sure M&L sold all that many kits (neither did Alan Gibson - I can't find it in his old catalogues), so no wonder the eBay prices have been going stratospheric. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium The White Rabbit Posted May 7, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 7, 2014 Many thanks to those who replied! Not a model I'd ever heard of before, I must say. Any comments on the quality of the offering, chassis provided etc? By all accounts the job already 'professionally' done on it was fairly dodgy.... (Three hundred quid! Crikey!) I've one on E-Bay at the moment, built by someone else. One thing that struck me when weighing it was how heavy it was, much more so than most kit-built locos, around 800g. I don't think any ballast was added. As I didn't build it myself, it's difficult to know, but looking at the finished article, I'd guess the kit's about the same standard as other whitemetal ones. John, if you've any questions, PM me this week and I might be able to answer them and/or provide photos. Cheers, Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lofty1966 Posted May 8, 2014 Share Posted May 8, 2014 The M+L Leisure kits I built about 15-20 years ago were all excellent. "Bodyline" as well as full kits were all crisply molded and went together nicely. Wish I still had them but was cheated out of them.....but that's another story...... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Hughes Posted May 8, 2014 Author Share Posted May 8, 2014 I've one on E-Bay at the moment, built by someone else. One thing that struck me when weighing it was how heavy it was, much more so than most kit-built locos, around 800g. I don't think any ballast was added. As I didn't build it myself, it's difficult to know, but looking at the finished article, I'd guess the kit's about the same standard as other whitemetal ones. John, if you've any questions, PM me this week and I might be able to answer them and/or provide photos. Cheers, Simon Simon, many thanks! You have a PM! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Posted May 8, 2014 Share Posted May 8, 2014 The M+L Leisure kits I built about 15-20 years ago were all excellent. "Bodyline" as well as full kits were all crisply molded and went together nicely. Their reputation was good but my single experience of them was disappointing. I built the Grange 'body line' kit and the footplate casting was shocking, very bad flash and mould lines over rivet detail and along the valences, to such an extent that I built a replacement from nickel silver. Perhaps I was unlucky, maybe the mould was becoming life expired, either way, there were some less good ones out there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jol Wilkinson Posted May 8, 2014 Share Posted May 8, 2014 I built the M&L LNWR 5' 6" 2-4-2T and the 0-6-0 Coal Engine .For w/m kits they were quite good but needed a lot of work for 18.83 gauge which is why LRM I troduced their etched kits for those models. I've still got a AG LNWR Dreadnought kit (loco only, to go with a LRM tender) which has very nice castings but the chassis looks like a bit of a challenge for P4). I probably will sell it on as they were scrapped before the year I have set for my layout. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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