4mm An EM Workbench: ESSO by Rumney - the road to completion

[AJC]

Oh, the worst one?

 

[matto21]

Yes, curious which kit it is!

 

[AJC]

Sorry, I meant the worst one! I was just curious which kit it is because it looks good!

Sorry, long day. Probably this one, taking price, complexity of work and design into account:



This is the Wizard/51L iron ore hopper - importantly - the fitted version. The chassis design isn't great, but not any sort of showstopper (shrunken and inexplicable whitemetal headstocks, overthick brass), the brakegear was totally unusable and most of the castings poorly and crudely mastered, rendered in soft alloy. The resin hopper was fine but not provided with any location, etc. NOTE - the unfitted version is probably more or less fine because push rod brakes are much easier: the fundamental wagon is OK (not great, but ok).

What you see above is the result of bloody-mindedness and the spares box. It took a couple of years to finish because it made me so grumpy, even though I'm pleased with the result. The Rumney tank will be mostly done in a fortnight which tells its own story.

Adam

PS: as a general point - and you might have a different view, @matto21 - there are very few truly awful kits out there and most of the worst were early etched ones, no longer available. Pretty much all the plastic kits available are dimensionally accurate and have the key detail represented pretty well. Even some of those which cause a lot of people problems (e.g., Cambrian's more complicated prototypes) are often triumphs really for all that people complain about them. You have to take into account, 1. the technology involved in creating the moulds (very basic); 2. the degree of difficulty of the real thing (you've just done a Mermaid so you know! It's not especially difficult to build that chassis square, if you prioritise that over using the bits as supplied); 3. Price.

 

[AJC]

Anyway, back to the humble tank wagon. Nearly all soldering operations are completed (barring the ladders), and once the various tank fittings are on it will be ready for paint.





This really is an excellent, and surprisingly straightforward, kit, though the iPhone makes it look ever so slightly bananaform...

Adam