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Introduction You are receiving this newsletter because you have a reservation for one of the forthcoming Manning Wardle 2-6-2 kits I plan to release. The reason for doing a newsletter is that it has taken far longer to get these models released than I had planned and because it’s going to take a little while longer yet. This newsletter will, hopefully, explain some of the delays, the work we are doing and, again hopefully, convince you that they will be worth waiting for. Its turned into a bit of an epic newsletter, you may want to put the kettle on before you start! |
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Newsletter Distribution
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As a business that trades mostly on the internet with some input from magazine adverts and show appearances I make a strong recommendation that subscribers to our various reservations schemes sign up for our electronic newsletters and make the point that this is how we will communicate progress on various projects rather than answering an endless parade of individual e-mails. Due to the delay in getting the L&B engine out, and even getting a newsletter done, I have relaxed this a little recently. We now have some new newsletter software and as this is now online I am reverting to only giving progress updates via the medium of newsletters. The new mail software was forced on is by a change in circumstances with our web service provider. A positive of this change is that we can now run multiple lists so we can have project specific lists. In setting it up I have added all the L&B subscribers for whom I have a e-mail address to both the main list and the L&B list. Just this once I will also be mailing a paper copy of this newsletter to those L&B subscribers I don’t have an e-mail address for. |
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If you didn't see the April Newsletter then it can be found here http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/Newsletter/News_Apr08/April08.htm |
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Non Manning Wardle delays
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You should all have had a copy of our April general newsletter as I subscribed you to it. In that I explained the two month trip to New Zealand with the day job and two quite serious bouts of illness the last one of which landed me in hospital. |
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What I didn’t mention in that are the things I thought would be obvious but judging by comments made at the shows we did over the last couple of weekends they obviously aren’t so I’ll mention them quickly here. |
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1. Retail Sales: We are a retail business that operates when not at the day job. As such our first priority has to be marketing ourselves, filling orders and ordering stock in. This activity is our bread and butter and allows the business to exist.
2. Custom
Work: We have quite a long order book for custom models, sound
installs, kit builds many of which are coupled to our other reservations
and projects. 3. Bagnall Kit: It has been said to me that I should be getting on with doing the L&B engines rather than bringing the Bagnall 0-4-2 kit to market. What I would say to those people is that if it came to a choice I would cancel the L&B kit in preference to producing the Bagnall. I will explain that a bit further. The Bagnall is a joint production between Bruce Green in South Africa and me with all the hard work done by Bruce in South Africa. I am doing the marketing and final packing of the kits and sourcing some of the materials so it’s not a tremendous distraction from the L&B engines. I would pursue this relationship in preference if I had to choose as it has already produced one engine, the next one is nearly done and the one for this time next year is on the drawing board. Several items of rolling stock are coming in between the loco’s. EDM now has access to a competitive custom builder in SA. EDM now has a cheaper than UK source of etching if we choose to use it. As a result of the Bagnall EDM can now offer very competitive prices on motors and we have our own range of gear boxes coming along nicely. These last two will obviously benefit the L&B project but there is also the prospect of bringing Bruce’s South African models to the market. |
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The L&B Engines |
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Enough general waffle, let’s talk about the Manning Wardle kits. At least now we get to some pictures. |
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The Mk1 kit |
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As the history of the kit page on the website explains our kit will be the third generation of this kit. The original version was a joint production between Alan Gibson and Roy Link and was limited to a specific number of kits all of which sold out. This kit featured, in effect, a cosmetic etched chassis which provided the detail with a profile milled inner chassis that provided the strength. I have some of these etches and they are nicely detailed but are basically half etched over most of their area and would definitely need the inner chassis for strength. This version is only really mention here for the completeness of the history as there are few, if any, etched components common to the later Mk2 kit.
This is the main frame etch from a Link kit. Note the sideframes are half etched |
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The Mk2 kit |
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The original kit proved more popular than expected and the original purchasers of the limited run kit were contacted for their approval to produce more. As it happened, the Link/Gibson partnership was dissolved around this time. The Mk2 became an entirely Alan Gibson production and expanded to include a separate kit for Lew. The version of the kit(s) featured a new etched chassis and valve gear components and it is fair to say that it was a challenge to build. Professional builders used to avoid it. At the time it was developed it was state of the art but it now appears very dated. Key issues with the kit chassis are
This sounds like a pretty damning report but I should point out that this was par for the course when these kits were produced. Hand drawn artwork for the etching and typewriter written and duplicated instructions were the norm. I happen to know that the artwork for Lew was drawn spread out on the floor of a holiday cottage in the Lake District! View of some completed models
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These two photo's were kindly sent to me by Tony Spencer and are of models built from the MK2 kits with some major mods to the chassis |
| As this is getting a bit lengthy I'd better split this up in to more than one page |
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