Seven Models Britannia build.

There is a way to get Slaters wheelsets discounted, motor gearsets from MSC are offered with good discount quoting your GOG number if it is current, but yes it can stack up by costing in sprung pick ups, hornblocks, paint and transfers.

 

You can become a member of the Association of Larger Scale Railway Modellers ... the link is here:-

https://www.alsrm-events.co.uk/about-us

UK membership is currently £12 per year. Now folks lets do some maths and take your average 4-6-2 Pacific loco with a tender and add up what the wheels would cost, three sets of main driving wheels at £22 each x 3 = £66, six sets of bogie / tender wheels at £16 each x 6 = £96, total cost per loco kit would be £162 to the customer. Now deduct 10% from the price of the wheels £16.20 and even adding in the £12 ALSRM membership fee you would break even by saving £4.20 and that's only the first set of wheels purchased, buy more for another 4-6-2 and you then save a further £16.20 and the cost of wheels becomes £145.80... so not a massive saving perhaps ? But yes factor in the rolling stock kits and sprung pick ups, buffers, hornblocks, motors and gears and even sheets of Plasticard and the saving starts to significantly add up. Hope this helps all the O Gauge folk here save a bob or two... not sure if this will apply to our Overseas chaps but the saving certainly helps to maintain the cash flow as all good Yorkshiremen and Scotsmen know. In fact the Overseas chaps could possibly negotiate for the UK lads to buy and then send on with postage added in... there may well be a saving to be had there also

 

Thanks Rob... I've been meaning to push this one on a bit because our GOG Club at More Monkton has a meeting this Saturday and members are bringing in their current builds... so I wanted to take the Brit along whilst it still in a component stage of the build. I'll take a few pictures of LNER locos which may well be brought along.

 

Yes quite true... which is probably why all the Potters years ago used to drive around Hanley in second hand Lada 1300's and rusted out old FSO's from Eastern Europe because they were cheap imports... so maybe Potters are more tight fisted than Yorkshiremen and Scotsmen put together. Now I've even offered to get Lis City of Stoke on Trent for Christmas as long as she paid for the wheels and motor... but sadly instead she's declined choosing a smart screen telly so we can increase our viewing habits. Personally I'd have preferred to have been soldering up a Duchess on Christmas Day whilst the mother in law chomped her way through a plate full of turkey roll and dominated the telly with extended editions of Coronation Street... oh dear.... looks like my 9F will have to wait too.

 

Just purchased motor and gearbox for the Britannia build, went for a JH motor with 25:1 ration double reduction gearbox unit from MSC Models in Surrey. Being a GOG member I saved £23.50 from the cost of purchase... it should be here in a few days so I'll post up a picture when it comes.

 

Finished dressing the boiler as far as I can go at the moment until the "missing" smokebox door arrives from Scorpio, hopefully that will be sometime this week hitching a ride with the Riddles 2-6-2 tank kit. I've sweated the steam dome in place with 145 solder and the boiler bands were tinned and !ironed on with a hot iron tip starting at the top in the middle and working outwards. I use 4mm black vinyl car striping bling decor as a guide mark to getting the bands on straight. The chimney was fitted using Araldite epoxy.

 

I've also tack solder the firebox in place on the frames as the next module to build is the cab... Toto close your ears now... this unit is an absolute pig to get correct, it took me several attempts to get the front spectacle plates correct and subsequently there is a lot of cleaning up to do,more in fact than I would have liked perhaps but I guess its about understanding how this design works. I mastered it now and know what to do for next time, so again everything fitted loosely to check locations and it appears to be lining up as it should and certainly will once the boiler is fitted permanently in the frames.

And here is the cab being fabricated ... just only loose at the mo and certainly far from complete. Once I got the body assembly finished I shall refocus on the motion build and running gear, fit pick ups and motor after painting the chassis.

 

Haha the main issue here is SWMBO who's chirping in with wanting a new telly or a holiday... I keep saying who needs a telly there isn't time to waste watching it when there are all these kits to put together. She just wasn't impressed when I showed here the Class 25 bogie sub assemblies that needed cracking on with.

 

TV licence ... wots that

 

At least you bought a licence ... once

 

This arrived today a nice double reduction 26 to 1 ration gearbox and motor courtesy of MSC