Less than impressive Warwell kit.

[emjaybee]

Having recently had some fun building four NGS vans, I thought I'd move on to the Warwell kits I'd bought.

The vans were pretty good kits, they fit together quite well, any flash was easily distinguishable from the moulding, and all in all went together with minor fettling.

The Warwell is a different story unfortunately. They don't have a 'positive' location for the side-to-floor joint, and with the excess flash, I've had a hard time locating the sides on the floor. This, coupled with a slightly concave floor moulding, and slightly concave side moulding has meant it's been an absolute sod to get the sides to locate in a satisfactory way. Having established that I couldn't glue the side in one hit, I tried locating one end and then progressively glueing my way down the side. Half way down it was obvious that the original alignment was out and I unglued it and started again. I've tried to pull the curve out of the top deck as I've gone along. Two sides on and the deck is flat. Unfortunately, each side is slightly bowed, so from above it looks curved. The side-to-floor joint is not neat, so I suspect it'll look pretty grim once painted.

The bogies are the next issue. Following the instructions means you have to shim the bogies down by about 2mm. Even then they don't sit well. The NEM pocket on the bogie wants to rub on the buffer beam, so I'm torn between shimming the bogie further, which may mean the deck looks high, or thinning the buffer beam, which may mean it looks odd.

I've another of these kits, and I was thinking of getting more. I may dump this one and see if the other is any better.

Has anyone else got any experience of these kits, and/or any suggestions that I may have overlooked? Also, how old is this kit?

Yours,

Naffed off of Hook Norton.

[chrism]

I've another of these kits,

Didn't you have two more - or was that the weather?

[Steven B]

The Warwell is the old Parkwood Models kit; I bought the first of mine about 10 years ago and I'm currently part way though retro fitting them with the newer (correct) bogies.

From memory they weren't the easiest to put together; I think I started gluing in the middle. The slope of the deck should fit nicely against the wagon sides. I vaguely remember there being a sweet spot where the chamfer on the wagon floor sits nicely against the chamfer of the sides. Finding it was the difficult bit!

Steven B

[emjaybee]

The Warwell is the old Parkwood Models kit; I bought the first of mine about 10 years ago and I'm currently part way though retro fitting them with the newer (correct) bogies.

From memory they weren't the easiest to put together; I think I started gluing in the middle. The slope of the deck should fit nicely against the wagon sides. I vaguely remember there being a sweet spot where the chamfer on the wagon floor sits nicely against the chamfer of the sides. Finding it was the difficult bit!

Steven B

Thanks for the info. The fact that it's an old Parkwood kit explains a lot. As I was building it, it kind of felt like none of the bits were designed for each other. The bogies don't fit at all well, but if they're NGS bogies retrofitted to a Parkwood kit with NEM couplers on the bogies it's no surprise that it feels like a dogs breakfast.

I think I'm going to hold off progress on the first kit and start again with the second, perhaps also starting the glueing from the middle.

You say you're fitting the correct bogies, which ones would they be, and what did they originally come with?

Thanks for the reply, I was starting to think I was barking up the wrong tree.

[PaulCheffus]

You say you're fitting the correct bogies, which ones would they be, and what did they originally come with?

Hi

They didn't originally come with bogies you had to source your own. From memory they were American bogies that were suggested.

Cheers

Paul

[Steven B]

As Paul says, the kits under Parkwood ownership did not come with any bogies. I think I used modified Y25s. I've since bought a job lot of Gloucester-GPS22 from the Society to upgrade my Warwells and scratch built warflats.

Steven B.

[belstone]

They didn't originally come with bogies you had to source your own. From memory they were American bogies that were suggested.

Cheers

Paul

I started mine about fifteen years ago, and finally finished it earlier this year.  It sits on a pair of American MicroTrains bogies.  It's not so much a kit as a scratchbuilding aid, but worth the effort I think.



Richard

[crewearpley40]

looking realistic richard. chris

[emjaybee]

It's not so much a kit as a scratchbuilding aid,...



Richard

Hmm, you're not wrong!

A pretty good job you've made of it. How did you go about attaching the sides to the bed?

[sg]

I too found this kit difficult and it has put me off wagon kits, just need a rtr version ready for the Hunslett shutter!

[xm607]

The original Warwell Warflat kits were designed to use the old Farish freight bogie, but you could use the Bachmann USA freight car trucks from the old time range, with the locating pin or truck would have to be altered to suit. I tried once and it went Ok, the NGS bogies require the mounting to be altered for them to look right, and yes we did not supply bogies buffers or Peco chassis in the kits, due to Peco refusing to supply any chassis in trade quantity with cash UP FRONT!!, and no reason given. This policy migrated on to the other kits in the Parkwood range when they came on line, as sometimes you could acquire the chassis or bogies second hand at a fraction of the RRP.

[emjaybee]

I too found this kit difficult and it has put me off wagon kits, just need a rtr version ready for the Hunslett shutter!

Don't give up on the NGS kits. I've recently made some wagon kits and they've come out quite nicely, proving that you don't need to be a modelmaking genius to get a good result. This particular kits problem seems to result from it being a 'hand-me-down' kit which has been sent out as a complete kit by the NGS requiring a degree of fettling to produce a good result.

I think at times the powers that be in the NGS forget that we are not all top flight modellers, to that end, a description of the history of the kit and the possible challenges you will face would have been useful so you can go into it with your eyes open. If I'd known the history I would have tackled the build in a different way.

I'm going to put the current kit to one side and build my other one from a different start point.

Knowledge is power!   

[crewearpley40]

I'm going to put the current kit to one side and build my other one from a different start point.


mike : sounds good advice. my late Gran said : " if its becoming tedious leave alone and start again another time when fresher and you can think again ".

[ScottishModeller]

I'm going to put the current kit to one side and build my other one from a different start point.


mike : sounds good advice. my late Gran said : " if its becoming tedious leave alone and start again another time when fresher and you can think again ".

Hi all,

Well - certainly brings out the modellers!

When it was introduced the Parkwood kit was more or less 'state of the art' when it came to small run injection moulded models.

Now - it's a barely acceptable model that needs a lot of work to build and make look good.

To me - that just means it's become a challenge to do - and I'm all up for a challenge.

Photos will be appearing shortly showing the ones I have built - still sorting loads for them.

Bogies are still an issue as the pivot point and pin that the kit has are a different size to the NGS bogie pivot hole.

I originally did mine with the Microtrains bogies but have since upgraded them to take NGS bogies. - Y25 and/or GP225 depending on period you model.

Thanks
Phil H

[crewearpley40]

Thanks phil. I always lay the parts out read instructions. Look forward to the photos