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

Nick Dunhill

Western Thunderer
I didn't quite finish the loco this week for reasons I will expand on below. The first task was fitting up the splashers.

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This was quite tricky round the firebox and boiler and less so on the front drivers. Bits of the top inside edges have to be ground away to clear the boiler, and the real thing has angle iron sitting between the splashers and boiler clothing this was made from annealed 0.8 x 0.8 mm brass angle.

The next job was to add the pipes not yet fitted to the Westinghouse pump and fit up the handrail. It always seems to take me a long time to fit up boiler handrails. I always fill the pre etched holes as they are never in the right place, but of course the kit boiler was in the scrap bin and there were none on mine. I used the pointy measuring thingy on my vernier calipers set to the correct height for the handrail, upside down balanced on a sheet of plate glass and pushed the assembled loco past them . This scribes the height of the handrail, and in this case the handrail is in the boiler centre line so the knobs are embedded in the boiler clothing there too. I always let some tube that is the same ID as the knob shanks into the boiler to ensure the knobs can be held securely. It's always tricky making the rail pass round the front of the loco and over the smokebox door, remaining concentric with the door and smokebox. This run of handrail has a cute kink round the Westinghouse pump.

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I have stared at the cab side windows many times trying to convince myself that they are OK but they're not. They're not tall enough and the gap between the bottom of the roof and the top of the beading is too large, and it gives the loco the look of a Raven NER Pacific. I decided to sort it out and peeled the existing window beading off. I commissioned Mick Davies to etch me a new set of taller ones on the edge of his next set of etches.

This was all a bit unfortunate for two reasons. The cab was the only remaining part I used from the kit for the loco, and it was wrong. Virtually every part in the box supplied to build the locomotive was useless. Secondly there'll be a delay of a couple of weeks while I get the new window beading etches. I should have scrapped the whole thing and scratchbuilt. It would have been quicker.

I added some cast LGM lamp irons to the front of the footplate and one to the smokebox door. I have some lubricators on back order for the footplate area above the cylinders. So that's more or less it, cab window mods and lubricators to be added. Another day's work and it'll be done.

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Here it will sit on my window ledge until the parts turn up.

If you really feel your life would be incomplete without a NBR Reid Atlantic, and there's no doubt it's a handsome loco, I would urge you not to buy this kit under any circumstances. It is a very very poor product and ought not to be on the market. Even if you're pretty handy at modifying kits, spend the £225 on gin and fags and scratchbuild one instead.
 
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Eastsidepilot

Western Thunderer
If you really feel your life would be incomplete without a NBR Reid Atlantic, and there's no doubt it's a handsome loco, I would urge you not to buy this kit under any circumstances. It is a very very poor product and ought not to be on the market. Even if you're pretty handy at modifying kits, spend the £225 on gin and fags and scratchbuild one instead.
....and still the guy get's invited to trade shows :mad: and fleeces poor beginners thinking they are getting a cheap deal :(
 

Chris Veitch

Western Thunderer
....and still the guy get's invited to trade shows :mad: and fleeces poor beginners thinking they are getting a cheap deal :(
I'd not heard of the range before and was so entertained by Nick's account that I had a look at their website. I often use a vendor's website as a bit of gauge of how they operate, which is probably a mistake in some cases but apparently not in this one.

It's superficially OK but on examining some of the detail seems very odd, e.g. the inability to spell "Newcastle" as one word (in the NBR Atlantic description) or the only comment about LNER 10000 being that it was painted in two shades of grey (Was it? - I thought it was grey with steel boiler bands...).
 

Richard Gawler

Western Thunderer
I am building my second etched loco kit, and the kit I chose (Connoisseur Models) is popularly known go together without difficulty . . . at least in suitably skilled and experienced hands. This means, although I am struggling in places, I know that success is possible. Indeed, when things go wrong they are invariably my own fault.

It is incredibly important for a beginner to choose a kit which will go together as supplied, with perhaps minor fettling of the parts. Anything less is going to bring dispondency, a false feeling of inability, and abandonment. I know I have enough on my plate sorting out my own mistakes.
 

Nick Dunhill

Western Thunderer
Clearly you're going to need a different skill set building an etched brass kit than (say) an Airfix kit or Lego set. But I strongly agree that, as a minimum requirement, what's in that box should fit together properly.
 

Eastsidepilot

Western Thunderer
It would be interesting to know how many of those Atlantic 'kits'? have been sold, or I should say attempted to have been built, because if any one has managed to assemble a box of scrap metal it will look a total wreck !
And as we have seen from Nick's superb scratch build there is nothing in the box that could even be called an 'aid to a scratch build ' !

As always the advice to any one just starting out in loco building, or any other type of rolling stock, is to ask on forums such as this and known builders at exhibitions of what's best to start with.

Personally, Nick's customer should ask for his money back from Ace ! box or no box.
Maybe Nick you should change the title of this thread to 'An Ace Scratch Build of a Reid Atlantic' :D
 

Lancastrian

Western Thunderer
Colin,

I've had a H16 kit from Ace which was started years ago. I replaced virtually all the castings with items from LG. I'm now finishing off CAD work for new frames and spacers to be etched.

Ian
 

simond

Western Thunderer
As always the advice to any one just starting out in loco building, or any other type of rolling stock, is to ask on forums such as this and known builders at exhibitions of what's best to start with.

trouble is, the buyer of cheap kits is typically a beginner, and hasn’t yet found their way into on-line forums. Anyone who has read this far is either a masochist, or not going to waste their money.

Magazines tend not to run articles where the supplier is strongly criticised, because of fear of loss of revenue or legal action, and I guess the Guild has the same concerns, so suppliers of rubbish can get away with it for ever.

Maybe a trades descriptions civil claim against the supplier might adjust their attitude, but it would be a hell of a punt, with a good chance of losing. I fear all anyone can do is say “sorry, if only you’d asked”.
 

Eastsidepilot

Western Thunderer
Magazines tend not to run articles where the supplier is strongly criticised, because of fear of loss of revenue or legal action, and I guess the Guild has the same concerns, so suppliers of rubbish can get away with it for ever.
I've stopped subscribing to the Guild but associations such as the Guild could do more, I believe, ok if they don't want to get caught up in direct criticism they could be more choosey in who is invited to trade shows etc., so is it still a case of the 'old boys club' ?!
 

Daddyman

Western Thunderer
Magazines tend not to run articles where the supplier is strongly criticised, because of fear of loss of revenue or legal action, and I guess the Guild has the same concerns, so suppliers of rubbish can get away with it for ever.
I was told (by someone who may have got the wrong end of the stick) that Ace had complained about a negative review in the Guild magazine, and had insisted all future reviews came through him, under threat of legal action. If it's true, then one would assume he's not a member of WT...

Personally, I think everyone is being very unkind to the bloke: his offer to give modellers upwards of two hundred quid to take boxes of junk off his hands exhibits a level of generosity rarely seen these days. Or have I misread his terms of sale?
 

Richard Gawler

Western Thunderer
A club member is building an SE&CR R1 from an Ace kit and I had a look at the model yesterday. It seemed to me, the chassis was of a good standard and the compensation on the first two axles (rocking beams) was neat and worked well. Most of the body looked good too though the boiler looked like it was one size too small, too narrow. Then again all I really know about the prototype is the Hornby Dublo model . . .

The narrative in the instructions was unintelligible and I doubt the writer could explain what they had been trying to say, though the exploded diagram was pretty good. Word has it, you can expect to see up to three different series of part numbers - in the diagram, in the text, and on the etches - so really you have got to pretend you made the parts yourself and you are building your own model. Some tabs don't line up with slots, and the quantity of tabs and slots don't match; but you can file off the tabs so the parts can go where they ought to be.

Some parts of the design ought to be good but are not really thought through - you get some packing pieces to make some suitably chunky buffer beams, a nice touch, but after assembling the body to the chassis the holes for the couplings and buffer shanks are blocked off. You get etched name plates to go on the bunker side, but this plate is part of the chassis fret which has been drawn up as one side plus a mirror image. So, one plate you can use, and a mirror image. Honest!

What am trying to say, this kit is clearly not entirely awful; but it is a set of parts where you will accept and use the good bits but be prepared to do some rework and buy or make extra parts. I might buy one secondhand but unbuilt, where I could assess what I had before fixing anything together. If discretion overcame ambition, I could then pass it on as "unbuilt, some parts removed from the frets".
 

GrahamMc

Western Thunderer
A club member is building an SE&CR R1 from an Ace kit and I had a look at the model yesterday. ....
What am trying to say, this kit is clearly not entirely awful; but it is a set of parts where you will accept and use the good bits but be prepared to do some rework and buy or make extra parts.
Thank you for that Richard, I know I made a joke early on but I felt it was starting to go a bit too far. It's good to have another point of view.
 
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Allen M

Western Thunderer
Hi all
It's my understanding that all the Ace kits are collected from old ranges when the originator packs up. Some may have also passed through intermediate owners. The quality of the kit then depends to a large extent on the original designer and particularly with castings if worn out molds have been replaced with new ones from good patterns.

As to some sort of legal challenge I think it would be close on impossible because of the wide range of skills and interpretation.
Not like a RTR loco that does not work, clear.

Regards
Allen
 
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