Here is a newsletter I didn’t want or expect to have to write as you should have had your Bagnall kits by now. As it still isn’t quite ready I have reluctantly decided to do another newsletter to update you on progress. Even doing this takes time and is a balance between “do I do a newsletter” or “do I spend the time making the parts and packing the kit. As it is I am assembling wheelsets and there is a pause needed with each so I am doing this in the gaps so I apologise if it comes out looking like it was written in 10 minute segment - that would be because it has.

Shot in the Foot! I have rather shot myself in the foot with this kit. Let me limp around and try to explain this. When I got involved with this kit it was on the premise that I was buying the kit parts in bulk from South Africa, complete with instructions, so that all I had to do was box them individually, print the instructions add the extras if customers ordered them. That’s not close to what happened. What came from South Africa were three sheets of etches per loco and about the half the resin castings needed for the first batch. The instructions turned to be a joke and there were a lot of extras you needed to add. If any of you remember the old Jidenco kits for scratch builders, this was very similar.

On reflection I should have put the kit out in this form and be done with it but that wasn’t where I want to place EDM Models as a kit manufacturer so I started on trying to do something about it and it’s turned into a bit of a saga. Here I’ll detail some of the extras you are getting and explain why it’s taking time to produce.

The instructions, such as they were, that came from South Africa consisted of a couple of pages of text and photo’s of the pilot model. The text came with gems like “form the boiler”. Would you be happy with that as an explanation of how to make the round boiler from flat sheet? The pictures of the pilot model aren’t too helpful as it has differences to the production model and it’s shown with different wheels, gears and motor to those being supplied. What I started doing was building one of the engines and writing it up as I went. The instructions I am doing are the very opposite of the originals in that they are blow by blow and fully illustrated with photo’s of the model I have been building.

As I have gone along with this process I have found aspects of the kit I have been less than happy with and have developed a solution and then moved on with the construction until coming to the next item needing attention. Some of the fixes designed have resulted in a mk2 fix being developed. The instructions and my model are approaching completion as the developments become available. I’ll detail some of the items below

Chassis

Bearings/Hornblock / Springing

Having hit a problem with our L&B kit where all the commercial horn block systems were too wide to allow the outside frames to accommodate the bearings and wheels to fit between them if gauged to 16.5mm gauge. This set us on the road to developing our own slim line version and taking some time to get it right. In the last newsletter I included a picture of the bearing in the mk1 hornblock. As I am calling it the mk1 you have probably guessed there has been a mk2.

The basic idea was sound but fiddly. The problem in the mk1 was that the spring was fixed to the bearing which is how the 4mm scale chaps do it for inside frame engines. The problem we quickly spotted that with a outside frames it was a real fiddle to then thread the spring wire into the spring mounts on the frame. In the Mk2

A new etch has been done for the horn part of the system. The bearing slides in this just the same but now the spring wire slides into etched holes and is retained in place. This allows the spring wires to be fitted and then the wheelsets dropped in and the bearings come up against the springs. If you need to adjust the springs you take the wheel set out, move the spring and put the wheels back in.

Gearbox

This has involved doing our own etch, sourcing most of the gears from Germany and commissioning three hundred custom made final drive gears from Poland. We’ve had to order a lot more than we need for these engines but the gearbox will be used in our other models and available separately.

Flycranks

The original idea was that the cranks were made up from layers of etch. This is very fiddly and difficult to get consistent for all four of them. In addition the hole for the crankpin is too large for the 1mm screw we use as a crankpin. As a result we’ve mastered one and had it cast in brass.

Assembled Wheelsets

This has turned into a trip up the garden path! About the time I was working on the horn and bearing design the online bulls@$t group pertinent to our models were getting their knickers in a twist about press on wheels and quartering.  I am afraid I got quite cross and despairing of modellers that would happily spend two hundred quid on a kit but won’t spend money on the tools that make them easy to build.

The result has been a resolve to provide assembled and quartered wheelsets for the 16.5mm gauge customers. As this is the first kit we have offered this for its taken some time to set up and we have built some tools of our own to make the assembly easier. Outside frame engines do offer an extra challenge with their wheels in that not only do you have to get them to gauge they need to be central on an axle the protrudes through the wheel. We’ve made our own press tool that pushes the wheels on from either end and leaves them at the right gauge. For the leading axle just the wheels have to be pressed on in this operation but the drive axle has to have two bearings and a gear threaded on between the wheels.

Once the wheels are on a washer and the crank are threaded on using a quartering tool to set the cranks at the right angle. That sounds simple but the cranks have to have the axle hole reamed out, the crankpin hole countersunk and tapped before a crankpin is screwed in with some thread lock applied. The cranks have a locking compound applied and they stay in the jig for a few minutes until the compound stars to cure.

I’ll do this for the rest of this batch but its something we’ll be reconsidering for future engines as its very time consuming and not really sustainable within the price for the kit.

Input from you required here

At the moment I am just doing assembled wheels for 16.5mm gauge and had planned to provide others with the parts loose for self assembly. I might be persuaded to do them to 14mm gauge as an alternative but I need to hear from you which option you would like, The options are: -

·   Assembled wheels – 16.5mm gauge

·   Assembled wheels – 14mm gauge

·   Self Assembly wheels

Please e-mail me with your choice. If I don’t hear from you may well be disappointed to receive the self assembly option.

In all the time I have been modelling I have never had to fold up a boiler from flat and I found “form the boiler” a singularly unhelpful statement.

I got Bruce to write me a blow by blow account of how he does it. I managed to do it but wasn’t at all happy with the result. The telling remark at the end of the blow by blow instructions was “only the first one is difficult!” This seems to miss the point that anyone buying the kit only gets one go at it.

Outrageous I know but the Welsh Highland Railway have changed Gelert.

It used to have spring balance safety valves mounted on the studs you can see on the boiler below the whistle and that is what's in the kit.

Apparently the boiler inspector has condemned them and the engine now has pop valves set down into the dome cover.

As you know the ready to run engines are being built by Bruce in South Africa. Bruce tells me the first one is nearing completion with the others very close behind. He is happy to do more if anyone is interested in having a model built for them. The base model price is £500 with options on the basic spec available.

 If you have looked at the Bagnall pages on the website recently you will see it says that the first run is sold out and to check back later for news of future runs. When we first announced this kit the intention was for it to be continuously available and not produced in limited runs. In light of all the things detailed above in this newsletter we are going to pause before doing more. I guess in an extreme case we could decide it’s not economical to do any further kits. More likely is that I’ll let the dust settle on getting the first thirty, look at the specification and costs before deciding the form of future releases of the kit.

This kit has dominated my life for the last few months and the efforts to get it released have been time consuming and disrupting as I have missed out on lots of other things – I even turned down an evening out in the pub at someone else’s expense – to the point where it has become a burden rather than a pleasure. The number one priority is now to get the first batch of this kit out of the door.

With the Bagnall out of the way kit manufacturing efforts will concentrate on getting the L&B engines done. Nothing significant has happened specifically with this kit whilst we have been doing the Bagnall but all the effort with bearings, hornblocks, gearboxes and assembly jigs will speed progress with that project. I’ll probably not do any kit development work for a couple of weeks once the Bagnall is out for the sake of my sanity [questionable at the best of times] and then we’ll crack on with it.

The efforts needed with the Bagnall and the L&B engines have left me scarred. Any future kits we do will be much more advanced with the unknowns worked out before you, the customer, get invited to get involved. What you might see from us is an occasional piece of info about a future idea to investigate interest in us producing it. With this in mind there are two things to mention

Paul Martin

EDM models

19 Briar Avenue, Acomb

York YO26 5BX       UK

paul@ngtrains.com

www.ngtrains.com