Re: The birthday finally came around

[Rob Pulham]

The birthday finally came around

After a couple of months of good natured wind up by the wife, my birthday finally arrived and the promised loco was revealed this morning.

It's a Snowhill Models/Roxey Mouldings WD kit, the 2-10-0 version and it came complete with a set of Slaters wheels .

Having looked in the box as you do, the etches are quite heavy gauge and a mixture of nickel for the chassis/firebox and brass for the rest with all the castings apart from the back head being lost wax and having read the MRJ articles on the design of the kit I believe that Laurie Griffin did all the masters.

Next job is to contact ABC to order the motor/gear box ;D

 

[28ten]

The birthday finally came around

Wasnt there some 'debate' as to the accuracy of this kit vs the JLTRT? I cant remember what it was or which one was right 
A WD is in my wants list anyway, so I will enjoy this thread

 

[Dikitriki]

The birthday finally came around

The gospel according to St. Peter is that all JLTRT kits are perfect and lead to the promised land of Leamington, and every other manufacturers' kits, ipso facto, are not worth bothering with ;D

MustnotmentionthePresfloMustnotmentionthePresflo
MustnotmentionthePresfloMustnotmentionthePresflo

Richard

 

[John D]

The birthday finally came around

Having built the Snowhill 2-8-0 for a customer (photo on my website)  .............best of luck :scratch:

 

[Dog Star]

The birthday finally came around

The gospel according to St. Peter is that all JLTRT kits are perfect

MustnotmentionthePresfloMustnotmentionthePresflo
MustnotmentionthePresfloMustnotmentionthePresflo

You could try "D167... D167... D167..."and the flavour of prototype is gas, electric or propane"?

Graham

 

[djparkins]

The birthday finally came around

The gospel according to St. Peter is that all JLTRT kits are perfect and lead to the promised land of Leamington, and every other manufacturers' kits, ipso facto, are not worth bothering with Richard

Richard -

Ah - I see you finally understand that there is only the one true path to follow! 

I heard some time ago that all other manufacturers are redundant - silly old MOK, Martin Finney, DJH, MMP, ABS et al.  I say Bah! [like the sheep in the field between us and the sea].

Now if I could interest anyone in the gospel according to St. David from St. Davids!!!

Regards,

DJP

 

[Rob Pulham]

The birthday finally came around

Wasnt there some 'debate' as to the accuracy of this kit vs the JLTRT? I cant remember what it was or which one was right 
A WD is in my wants list anyway, so I will enjoy this thread

According to the write up in the MRJ when designing the kit they extended the wheel base by a couple of mm to ensure that the brakes could fit in. They also split the frames so that the main frames are narrower than the visible frames at the front.

The thing that decided me against the JLRT one was the cast whitemetal boiler etc  and that was despite Pete's assurances that it was the only accurate kit on the market. I don't really enjoy fettling whitemetal lumps I much prefer brass,  even if I have to roll the boiler myself.

The best of luck sounds a little ominous John, is there anything specific to watch for ?

 

[28ten]

The birthday finally came around

I thought JLTRT was a resin boiler?  Lengthening the wb seems a tad eccentric, Castles have a similar problem and it's fairly easy to either build in S7 or turn the wheels down a little.
I'll put it below the MOK 9f on the wants list then  8)

 

[Phill Dyson]

The birthday finally came around

The gospel according to St. Peter is that all JLTRT kits are perfect and lead to the promised land of Leamington, and every other manufacturers' kits, ipso facto, are not worth bothering with ;D

MustnotmentionthePresfloMustnotmentionthe
PresfloMustnotmentionthePresfloMustnotmentionthePresflo

Richard

Give that man a GOLD star  ;D  

 

[John D]

The birthday finally came around

The best of luck sounds a little ominous John, is there anything specific to watch for ?

  Personally I found it a frustrating slog from beginning to the end not helped by (in no specific order).....

  The total lack of any indication whatsoever of where all the castings went (most blindingly obvious others were a head scratch. Ah! methinks I'll get the the relevant copies of MRJ that'll have more info in.....wrong , just how wonderful they all were designing it and how the etches went together ie a repeat of what instructions that came with the kit.

  The said castings were beautifully done but what the heck were they cast in ? brass it was but you needed a jackhammer to drill anything in them if required, and they were the very devil to clean up properly.

    An  presumed lack of understanding of the etching process by the designer in places  eg the 'peculiar' arrangement of the frame extensions are supposed to attached onto the frames proper with 10BA bolts that fit 10BA  tapped holes in the frames.....no.....the holes probably were drawn the correct 10BA tapping size but by the time it's out of the etching bath the said holes are now 10BA clearance. In trying to be clever in this to get the correct width between the frames it results that the portion of the frames visible above the front bufferbeam  are overscale in width being in 28 thou metal , this part would have been better in thinner metal  Also one or two parts on the tender (eg beading and support brackets) were over etched to the point of disappearance,and why all that 'support' metal on the inside of the tender body .

    I could rant on but all said it did build up,eventually, into a very nice loco but I vowed never again to build another one. The point about the lack of castings positioning info has been mentioned by Snowhill in the past in one of the mags to the effect that the relevant notes would be sent out on request .....fine.....but this kit ain't cheap (least I don't think so) and if you pay that sort of money you expect better first time......of course other  'top end' manufacturers aren't exactly perfect either.

    You did ask 

 

[Jordan]

The birthday finally came around

  Personally I found it a frustrating slog from beginning to the end not helped by (in no specific order).....

It's not just me, then... what a relief!! :scratch:

All the best with this build, Rob. I have a higher respect for Kettle builders than ever before...

 

[Pugsley]

The birthday finally came around

MustnotmentionthePresfloMustnotmentionthePresflo
MustnotmentionthePresfloMustnotmentionthePresflo

Go on, I'll bite 

What's wrong with the Presflo?

 

[28ten]

The birthday finally came around

The underframe - whitemetal

 

[Dikitriki]

The birthday finally came around

Go on, I'll bite 

What's wrong with the Presflo?

Cynric's right, but to expand a bit.

The 4 W irons are white metal - too thick, and have to be glued in separately, so alignment is tricky.
The separate axleboxes don't fit, so need careful filing, so alignment has moved from tricky to What????
Do you glue them in, in which case it will probably rock, or try to give some movement, in which case you need to file the tops so they are stopped square.
And the solebars are resin - fine and beautifully detailed, but with a bloody great big hole in for the hopper, unlikely to be flat. You're gluing the W irons to this which is not a flat base to start with.

Get the drift???

Oh, the brake levers are whitemetal - complete joke.
There is no Morton clutch (duh)
The brakes don't fit very well
The handwheel castings are whitemetal and crudely cast
The hopper pipework is badly cast in whitemetal. More flash than in my kitchen cupboard. In fact the castings make Jim Harris's look fantastic.

On the plus side for the chassis...... Nope, can't find one.

In the interests of objectivity, the hopper is brilliant - a fantastic timesaver, and the box stores the finished wagon.

Richard

 

[iploffy]

The birthday finally came around

Does it live up to the level of detail expected from JLTRT though. I wont withdraw the post as all of the answers are given above a bit of an own goal Mr Waterman.

Ian

 

[Rob Pulham]

The birthday finally came around

  Personally I found it a frustrating slog from beginning to the end not helped by (in no specific order).....

  The total lack of any indication whatsoever of where all the castings went (most blindingly obvious others were a head scratch. Ah! methinks I'll get the the relevant copies of MRJ that'll have more info in.....wrong , just how wonderful they all were designing it and how the etches went together ie a repeat of what instructions that came with the kit.

  The said castings were beautifully done but what the heck were they cast in ? brass it was but you needed a jackhammer to drill anything in them if required, and they were the very devil to clean up properly.

    An  presumed lack of understanding of the etching process by the designer in places  eg the 'peculiar' arrangement of the frame extensions are supposed to attached onto the frames proper with 10BA bolts that fit 10BA  tapped holes in the frames.....no.....the holes probably were drawn the correct 10BA tapping size but by the time it's out of the etching bath the said holes are now 10BA clearance. In trying to be clever in this to get the correct width between the frames it results that the portion of the frames visible above the front bufferbeam  are overscale in width being in 28 thou metal , this part would have been better in thinner metal  Also one or two parts on the tender (eg beading and support brackets) were over etched to the point of disappearance,and why all that 'support' metal on the inside of the tender body .

    I could rant on but all said it did build up,eventually, into a very nice loco but I vowed never again to build another one. The point about the lack of castings positioning info has been mentioned by Snowhill in the past in one of the mags to the effect that the relevant notes would be sent out on request .....fine.....but this kit ain't cheap (least I don't think so) and if you pay that sort of money you expect better first time......of course other  'top end' manufacturers aren't exactly perfect either.

    You did ask 

Thanks John, as you say I did ask, and I appreciate the notes above, fore warned as they say.

To Answer Cynric's question re the resin boiler Pete sent me part of the instructions showing the cast parts and I read from them that the boiler was white metal not resin. Unless I have got it completely wrong I can only surmise it is one of the earlier kits and they are working around to a resin boiler at some point?

 

[28ten]

The birthday finally came around

A couple of edits as Dikitriki's post was causing havoc with the formatting (long words!)

I have just had a look at the instructions on the site I read it as being resin  :-\ but I could be wrong!
ah well I think another Finney 47xx might be a better bet for me
Looking at Johns picture, the kit might be a pain but it does look the part.

and the box stores the finished wagon.

Richard

 

[djparkins]

The birthday finally came around

What is it with some of these suppliers of 7mm products - so near and yet so far - I referred them to Tamiya and Accurate Armour et al. if they want to see how it is done

TTFN

CME :wave:

Hmmm - those aren't the comments I hear about AA from many of our Firing Line 1/35th Vehicle kits  Alot don't like the lack of white metal for the smaller fittings and guns + all the large feeds to be sanded off on the resin.

I think white metal gets a bad press because so many suppliers don't know how to cast properly [and more importantly, how to make production moulds.  Also, so few of the original masters that many manufacturers use these days are in metal - they can't make 'em anymore!.  Many are bits 'cribbed' [pirated actually] from other kits and altered with bits of wire & milliput.

DJP

 

[Rob Pulham]

The birthday finally came around

Looking at Johns picture, the kit might be a pain but it does look the part.

When, I get to it I will do a detailed build thread, warts and all.

As you say it does build into a nice looking engine.

 

[iploffy]

The birthday finally came around

I do like watching  masters at work

Ian