Nick Dunhill's workbench - Scratchbuilding a Reid NBR Atlantic from an ACE Kit.

Nick Dunhill

Nick Dunhill

Western Thunderer
This is the 3rd ACE Kit I have 'made.'

The first was a Hush-Hush and I only bought the loco parts as I had a Martin Finney tender kit to go with it. As I remember I didn't get much of a discount for not buying the tender parts, but that's another story. The chassis parts were so woeful that I persuaded Dave andrews to sell me the chassis parts for his A3 and I modified that to fit. I built the cab and the windows were at knee height in the cab side, so that was replaced. The body didn't fit very well so I added card where I thought it needed more metal, flattened it out and made a new one. As I remember the only parts of the kit I used were the beading for the cab side windows, the beading round the air intakes on the front of the loco and some of the valve gear parts to make the inside motion (Hush-Hush was a 4 cylinder compound engine.)

The second was a kit for a M&GNR 4-4-2 tank engine. The M&GNR Soc had the kit specially commissioned from him and I got one to make. I got the kit and started measuring stuff up. I decided that it would be cheaper for the clients if I commissioned some custom etches for the loco. The custom etches didn't come cheap but as I was making two the developement costs were split. I sold the kit on Ebay. William Aiscough sold me two sets of the castings for the locos which came at a reasonable price but were really not better than fishing weights, so were replaced.

This is the 3rd and I am finishing it as a tribute to Graham Varley who made a valiant effort with the parts of the kit he built. He told me that he had agreed a price with the client to build the kit, had begun it and realised it was going to take much more work than the agreed price. He quietly put it on the back burner until it was forgotten. So far I have used the upper footplate, footplate under the cab, cab sides and roof and both buffer and drag beams. I used only the chassis frames, although they had to be so heavily modified that it would have been quicker to cut new ones. The rest of the chassis is scratchbuilt. There's a pic above of what Graham built of the tender, although this had to be modified. In fairness to the kit the tender parts do make the more popular later versions of the tender. The tender has a few shortcomings and is missing lots of detail that really should be there. I have yet to build the boiler etc and cab interior and I won't comment on those parts until I have evaluated them. The problem now is that the rest of the loco has been modified to conform to the GA and I have moved so far away from the design of the kit that it is inevitable that most remaining kit parts wil garnish my scrap bucket.

I agree with Simon that the kits produced by ACE in-house are pretty flakey and would floor the majority of beginners, maybe some of his bought-in kits are better? If you are experienced/ skillful enough you can build something from the kits, but their quality-for-money is very very low. My advice to learners would be to go for a simple kit to start. I've built some of the Connoisseur and Agenoria (original Stamper or later Beaton) kits that are very good and suitable for a beginner. My advice to more experienced modellers is to get a GA and a couple of sheets of brass and have a go at scratchbuilding rather than wasting £200-odd on an ACE Kit, you'll end up scrathbuilding lots if you attempt the kit anyway.

Websites like this, GOG Forum or RMWeb, or the many FB groups are always a good place to ask about quality of kits before you purchase.
 
Richard Gawler

Richard Gawler

Western Thunderer
Most exhibitions include some poor soul tasked with giving a demonstration of kit building - typically someone who can do soldering blindfolded. Asking their help or advice often brings a couple of lists, of good kits and not so good kits. Most people will say more face to face than online, and my own experiences and advancing years tell me they are trying to help me, not setting a challenge.
 
34091 Weymouth

34091 Weymouth

Western Thunderer
It's looking good that Nick.

With regard to Ace kits, I've built a few of them. I wrote an article in gog gazette about the ivatt n1. It was a basic kit that needed a bit of conversion on the chassis to get the body to sit level. The bulk of the castings were quiet good for white metal although the smaller bits were replaced with LG brass castings.
It was a cheap kit, cheaper than a 4mm n1 & it captured the loco reasonably well. After all the kits Will has created you'd have thought he might have learnt along the way, long gone are the times for a white metal crosshead & mechanical parts like that. Your right that you do end up scratch building a lot of parts.

On the flip side, if you can construct one of his kits you can build anything.

Si
 
Nick Dunhill

Nick Dunhill

Western Thunderer
Has a week passed already?

This week I nearly completed the tender. I'm waiting for some castings to come from LGM for lamp irons, water filler and handbrake staunchion. when they arrive it'll be finished quickly. I had to modify the tender platform floor and make a new fall plate as the one in the kit was a) too small, and b) designed to be attached to the loco cab floor and not the tender as it should have been. I also had to make water valves and fire iron stands as there were no parts in the kit for those either. I made a coupling bar for the tender and loco as the one supplied on the chassis etch was laughably short.

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The cab doors in the kit were the wrong shape and size and blah, blah, blah.....

I focused my attention on the cab and fished the supplied backhead casting from the box. I must have fallen down a worm-hole and emerged in 1975 as the white metal casting was too small and had some blobs cast on it that were supposed to be backhead fittings. On my return from 1975 I made a backhead of the correct size and shape, and some cab lockers and platforms to go with it.

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The backhead was made by cutting out the correct shape from brass sheet, soldering a strip round the perimeter and soldering some stout copper wire round the inside of the join. In this way I could radius the corners with a file. I made the angle iron strip round the backhead from 2 pieces. An old bit of boiler band and some brass sheet cut to slightly bigger than the front of the backhead.

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I made some side sheets for the rear of the cab and some runners for the sliding cab side window. The job that pissed me off most this week was the etching in the kit for the sliding window frame. Now the designer had drawn appertures on the cab side etches for windows. He'd also drawn beading etches to surround the window openings, so you might expect the sliding window frames to have a similar, if slightly smaller dimensions wouldn't you? Well no, no they were not. It took me an hour to cut out a pair of sliding window frames of the correct size.

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FFS!

I am also waiting for castings from LGM for backhead fittings etc and to preserve my sanity I decided to move on to the boiler assy. Now I'd already seen that Graham had had a go at building the firebox. He'd obviously realised that using the kit parts was a futile waste of time and had pulled it apart and flattened the wrapper, presumably to draw around it and cut another. This alerted me to the idea that the firebox, boiler and smoke box parts would be useless, and I wasn't disappointed. The firebox wrapper was to be commended for it's outstanding crapness. The dreaded fold lines again.......and the amazing inability to measure stuff accurately.

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Subbuteo anyone?

The rest of the week would be spent measuring and cutting out formers and wrappers for new boiler parts. To be fair to the kit the circular boiler former was useable....by chance. If you used it inside the preformed tube (0.45 mm wall thickness) supplied for the boiler it would fit but the boiler would be too big in diameter. If you made your own boiler skin from 0.3 mm thick NS.....bingo. I joyfully used the boiler former as it raised my spirits thinking that not all the £225 my client had spent on the kit had been wasted.

It is much easier to make wrappers from 0.3 mm thick NS. They're much easier to manipulate by rolling bars or hand. 0.45 mm material is just too thick in my view. I can hear you say that 0.3 mm NS will make boilers that aren't stiff enough, but I say you should never use your boiler as a meat tenderiser.

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If you think you can stomach more pictures of the 'Nightmare on ACE Street' they're here;

nick dunhill

Explore nick dunhill’s 4,937 photos on Flickr!
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com
 
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mickoo

mickoo

Western Thunderer
0.3 mm NS is just fine, perhaps even still a bit thick, 0.25 (10 thou) NS is perfect for boilers, smokebox and firebox wrappers, in brass I opt for 0.35 mm. Once rolled and joined they're plenty strong enough, as you say, they're not weapons to be used in mortal combat so why fight over thick material for a toy train.
 
Nick Dunhill

Nick Dunhill

Western Thunderer
So I took some steps to finish the boiler assy. yesterday. I made a boiler (using the ACE former) and used 0.3 mm NS sheet for the wrapper. I also made the bits that are often forgotten between the front of boiler and rear of smokebox. The smokebox rear is a forged or cast (?) piece with the wrapper riveted to it. It sticks out slightly at the rear of the smokebox and has a radiused edge. This was cut from 0.8 mm thickness brass sheet, as was the polished cover between rear of smokebox and boiler. I think it covers the fasteners that hold both together?

Here it is mocked up on the loco. The firebox has been relieved to fit the cab front and rear drivers. I'm happy with that.

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Next week I guess I'll be grumbling about the splasher etch bits in the kit.
 
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spikey faz

spikey faz

Western Thunderer
I was looking at the Ace Kits Merchant Navy kit. I quite fancy one in wartime black with flush smoke deflectors. I think it looks quite sinister. I wonder if the kit is as 'challenging' as the Reid Atlantic?

Mike
 
Mike Garwood

Mike Garwood

Western Thunderer
Fair play Nick...incredible work. It appears to me that these kits are the 7mm equivalent of Falcon brass 4mm kits. Loving the write up. More power to you for ploughing on.

Mike
 
paulc

paulc

Western Thunderer
Nick Dunhill said:
I'm not sure the finished loco will go in it though Ian.
Click to expand...
I've built a couple of Chowbent L & Y saddle tanks and when i was building the second wondered why i didn't fit the whistle to the first one . When the second one was taken out of its box for show and tell the whistle was flat on the cab roof . Long story short the box is 3mm too low , an easy fix but dohhhh .
 
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