GRS Kit for LMS Fowler 4F....anyone built it?

[John Candy]

Well, it doesn't do to stroll around the exhibition hall at the AGM with the cheque book in hand!

In a moment of madness, I bought the LMS 4F kit (to be truthful, I had been thinking about it for a while but the sight of the made-up example on the GRS stand was too much to resist).

I have long been a "fan" of Midland locomotives, they are mostly elegant and uncluttered in appearance and I already have a Johnson 2F, so the 4F makes an ideal stable mate.

This is the second "easy-build" GRS kit I have attempted (the first was the N5 which turned out to be anything but easy...see recent Newsletter article) and am hoping to have it operational within a couple of months.

Has anyone built this kit and are there any snags to watch out for?

I have already noticed (and rectified) one design fault (well it wouldn't be much fun if there was nothing to criticise...would it?) and that was incorrect beading arrangement on the tender sides.

I will write an account of the construction for the benefit of future constructors and this will help fill the pages of the Newsletter in due course.

Meanwhile, if you are contemplating purchase of this (or any other GRS kit) act NOW........prices are soon to increase by around 35%.
The 4F cost me 862GBP....the price is soon to rise to 1162GBP.

Regards,
John.

[blagdon]

John,

It's a GRS Kit; what do you expect, an integrated, well though-out product with good instructions and useful exploded diagrams...........

Best of luck!

Ian the Gauge '3' Pirate

[John Candy]

Forum seems to have gone quiet for a couple of days, so here is a progress report!

Started work Wednesday PM and by Saturday morning have a free-running loco chassis and tender chassis.

There were snags but nothing compared to the problems I had with the N5.
The instructions are up to the usual GRS standard.....need I say more?!!

A scale drawing and plenty of photos are required and the (optimistic) "recommended" list of tools in the instructions can usefully be supplemented with a lathe and pillar drill.

I shall be writing a full article so just a brief mention of "snags" and "mods" will be made here.

The instructions give the first step in loco chassis assembly as attaching the front and centre brake hangers to the frames. The fixing is by cheesehead bolts and nuts (the frames are pre-drilled for 10BA clearance) with the heads inside the frames. Ignore this :When you come to fit the compensation beams, the bolt heads of the centre hangers foul the beams. I removed the bolts and replaced with a length of 60thou brass rod threaded 10BA at each end, passed through the frames and fixed with nuts on the outside of the mainframes. With the bolt heads now removed, the rod does not foul the compensation beams.
The axleboxes required reaming to accept the axles....is it so difficult to produce axleboxes which fit the axles? I had the same problem with the N5.
Axle keeps are brass castings which include (dummy) underhung springs. The mounting holes did not match the holes in the mainframes....more filing to elongate the holes in the keeps.
The motor mounting bracket fouled the worm gear and required considerable filing.
The frame spacer located behind the centre drivers is supplied with cheesehead screws : Countersunk would have been better since it was necessary to file the heads almost flush with the frames to prevent contact with the spokes of the drivers.

Next the wheels and rods : The instructions "contents list" includes axle spacers to restrict lateral wheel movement but there were none in the kit.....turned a batch in the lathe for loco and tender.....it was more convenient than phoning GRS and waiting for them to arrive.

A pleasant surprise....the chassis ran freely at the first attempt with no tight spots or binding on the coupling rods!

Moving to the tender chassis. First problem, the holes for the frame spacers had not been pre-drilled in the steel frames (should have been but were missed on my set). Not a problem with a pillar drill but could be for anyone relying upon the selection of hand tools listed in the instructions!

The two outer axles are rigid in the frames but the centre axle has an "odd" fixing arrangement.
The brass horn blocks/bearings are intended to slide vertically in the elongated holes in the inner frames.
Firstly, the frames required considerable filing just to accept the bearings and allow any movement. The bearings are then fitted from the inside of the frames and a brass tube (through which the axle passes) holds them in the slots in the frames.

The GRS design is based on the centre axle simply "slopping" around in the frames, gravity (hopefully) keeping the wheels in contact with rails.
Not happy with this arrangement, I decided to add springing to prevent the flanges riding up on the rails and derailing at the slightest provocation.
This involved making an additional frame spacer to accept two vertical sprung pillars which bear down on the tube through which the axle passes.

The cast (cosmetic) axleguards have been fitted to the outer steel frames and sprayed black and (when the paint has dried) will be attached to the main chassis unit.

Verdict thus far : A few irritations but no major problems, which could have been avoided with better quality control.

[MikeWilliams]

John,

Speaking with traders at a show today, it seems that a 30% price rise is not unexpected as material costs have risen by at least that much and in some case - e.g. lead - more.

Mike

[John Candy]

I haven't said anything about the progress with this kit for a while......I had hoped to have it completed by now.

The first phase (the loco and tender chassis assembly) went remarkably smoothly as reported earlier.
The tender body needed mods. as previously noted and there have since been some alterations to the frames and (dummy) axleboxes.

Those who have read my account of the GRS N5 kit in the Society's Newsletter may recall the major problems experienced with that chassis, whereas there were only a couple of problems with the superstructure/body mouldings.

The 4F is the reverse : The chassis caused few problems but there are major faults with the body.

The loco body consists of two major mouldings, the boiler/smokebox and the firebox/cab.

It looked to be a simple task to complete until I looked more closely at the mouldings and compared with drawings and photos.
The smokebox is a disaster area : Something did not look right about the finished kits I had seen but could not put my finger on what it was that was wrong.
Then it dawned on me that the smokebox wrapper was the wrong shape! On the prototype, the saddle has vertical sides which blend with the smokebox at the point where they meet. The model had been cast with the saddle flared outwards from the the point where it emerges from between the frames and the whole appearance of the front end loses its distinctive stance.
Add to this the fact that the smokebox door is too flat-fronted and there was a need for major surgery.

The smokebox door was cut away and a new one cast from whitemetal. The smokebox saddle was sawn, carved, scraped, filed, filled and sanded until the proper profile was achieved. The rivet detail was then replaced.

Having completed that task I thought the major surgery had been completed...WRONG!!

I came to the firebox/cab moulding and discovered that the firebox was out of alignment in relation to the cab. One side of the firebox was not vertical and and not parallel to the cab side. The base of the firebox on one side is 2.5mm closer to the cabside than on the other and the crown of the firebox is not horizontal (the firebox sides/crown are out of square both sides). It is not a fault with the moulding it is a fault with the master pattern used to make the moulds.
I then realised why I had sworn (while buiding the N5) never again to build a GRS resin-bodied loco : A kit with a price tag of this magnitude should at least demand a degree of care in production.

I am now working out how to separate the cab from the firebox without destroying one or both.
This is a very disappointing kit.....and that's the censored version of my verdict!

[AllWight]

Hi John

I feel for you with all that money that an individual spends on a kit one would hope that time, thought and care would go into the design and prep work. I have been there and am in a similar situation at the moment with a Pannier Tank that I am building, but alas "No one else has complained".

Mark

[hornbeam]

Firstly sorry to hear of all the problems, buts be most frustrating when you have paid so much for the kit.


I thought about throwing my two pennies worth in and decided I will.

I've built many GRS kits for G45 in the past and have had some right issues. These have ranged from poor castings through to very poor instructions ( and things simply not fitting together). The BR railcar I'm working on to be fair has much better instructions than I've seen from them in the past, even with the errors.

So I'd like to compare them to Brandbright. The reason is that for my Birthday in December my partner bought me the Brandbright RCH kit and for my Christmas present a GRS machaw kit.  (lucky fellow I hear you say) Now I know they are two different beasts but the Brandbright kit was far better in many respects.

Instructions- GRS was a few pages and a few hand drawn sketches, frankly not great and I struggled in parts. Brandbright- clear step by step instructions inc a history of said wagon at the end.

Castings- GRS tended to have a lot more flash and the buffer housings were undrilled lumps! ( along with white metal buffer heads- a pet hate) and the side frame castings were badly pitted and one had a hole in it where the material was so thin.  Brandbright- all very clean castings of a good quality.

General fit- Quite a lot of work had to be done to get the machaw to kit together unlike the Brandbright kit that I'm sure if there was a gust of wind would have fell together! Also I felt the Brandbright kit was a lot more detailed and worth the money.


Don't get me wrong if it wasn't for GRS the amount of kits on the market would be much more limited but is that a reason for substandard work?

Do GRS know of these issues? On the old G scale mad forum someone had started a thread complaining about their service and after quite a while GRS joined and replied. Part of that reply was along the lines of ' we don't have time to read these forums as we are too busy running the business'. Interesting reply as surely forums like this are a great way to get feedback for free.

Reason I hesitated about posting is that I don't want to come across as 'bashing' everything they do. 

[John Candy]

Thanks for the interesting replies : Glad to know I am not alone in my problems with these kits.

Thirty minutes work with a razor saw and knife saw the cab separated from the firebox without much damage (the loss of a few rivet heads which can be easily replaced later).

The photo of the front end of the firebox shows by how much the unit is out of square (when box is twisted and the blue lines meet, all will be square).
It will be easily rectified, with a reinforcing plate Araldited on the inside at the front end and a section of 100thou Plastikard cut to correct profile to fit inside the back end of the firebox and then fixed to the cab front.

Just when I thought my woes were over.... I marked the centre line in order to drill the holes for the Ross Pop valves, only to find that the circular mounting has been moulded off-centre....so that will have to be removed and replaced.
In the photo of the cab also note that the rainstrips have been removed : The LMS-built engines had the strip in a different (higher) position compared with the Midland-built locos (the GRS cab is of the Midland pattern).

This is a truly appalling kit for accuracy which is a pity, since if one ignored the dimensional problems, it would go together quite easily.

Perhaps the Society should make a gift of one of its scale rules to GRS since their measuring devices seem to be somewhat defective?!!

[MikeWilliams]

John,
I'm curious why you cast a new smokebox door in metal.  To do that you must have made a pattern, and so far as I know you are only intending to make the one 4F (!), so what was the advantage in casting it?

Just interested.

Mike

[John Candy]

Mike,

I need to add quite a bit of weight to the loco (the batteries and everything else are in the tender) and the smokebox door is useful hunk of metal and is about as far forward as as it is possible to add weight.

Regards,
John.

[joewatt]

I'm disappointed at the criticism of GRS, their products are excellent and introduced me to a wonderful hobby. I don't dispute some aspects of the construction can be a little daunting to the inexperienced and the instructions need reading several times. However, I am very impressed with the designs and how they have been developed into something that can be made with little more skill than that required for a big 'Airfix' kit. My Austerity is photographed on the GRS site forum. It is a woderful engine and I really don't care that it sounds nothing like a real engine, nor probably looks like one. For sure I will never show any of my rolling stock to the Gauge 3 Society - you can be terrifying with your attention to detail.

Must go, got to read the instuctions for my GRS Manor again - nearly soldered the front footplateplate overlays on before soldering the front spacer beam bolts in position - this part of the instructions isn't too clear.

[AllWight]

Hi i appreciate your comments and you are right that GRS have done a lot for G3. However attention not only to detail but to basic rudimentary build design and running quality should be paramount. Hornby had to raise their game drastically in recent years and now look at the superb quality models they produce. The biggest problem GRS face is no direct equal to challenge them to make them strive to improve. Having worked on the GRS Prairie and B Set i would say these models are poor value for money as they are built to a price. Dismantling one for the purpose of painting was an experience and an eye opener. I have seen buffer beams fall of due to chinese soldering or spot soldering, not a good advert for GRS if it comes onto your layout like a clown car into the circus ring.

Mark

[John Candy]

Joe,

I am glad that your experience with GRS kits has been a good one.

I have been scratch-building and kit building locos and rolling stock for more than 50 years and have assembled some pretty dreadful excuses for kits in that time.
In the smaller scales, K's, GEM and even some of the early DJH kits had parts consigned to the dustbin and replaced by scratch-built components.

Maybe I have been unfortunate in that the particular GRS kits I have selected have been poor examples but I think even you would agree (leaving aside the "rivet-counting" aspects) that major components (e.g. the out of square firebox) carelessly produced and incorrectly positioned are unacceptable.

Unfortunately, the two resin-bodied loco kits I have built from GRS kits (the LNER / ex-GCR N5 and the LMS 4F) have had serious faults, the N5 in the quality of some of the components and the 4F in the accuracy of the design.

I suspect the more recent models (the Manor and the Hunslet Austerity J94 as examples) may be an improvement on the older kits....I certainly hope so.

I have built the GRS Midland Johnson 2F (a brass kit) and that produced a superb model : The advantage with a brass kit is that you do not have to carve up pre-cast parts to correct any errors, as with a resin kit. If parts are incorrectly assembled, then it's your own fault!

I have, awaiting construction, the live steam GWR 2021 Pannier (an early GRS design) and the GWR Dean Goods (their latest kit) which are both brass kits and it will be interesting to see how they compare in respect of accuracy and ease of assembly.

Regards,
John.

P.S. The Gauge 3 Society is a very friendly group....we would love to see your models and would never be critical.....bear in mind that what I post here is the basis of review articles which I write for the Society's Newsletter and our Members want the truth, however bad.

[MikeWilliams]

Joe,

I have never commented on GRS quality, partly because I've never built one of their kits, and partly because I am a manufacturer and could be seen as a competitor.  However, the Gauge 3 Society does recognise the huge benefit GRS has brought to Gauge 3, including people like yourself.  In fact, at our AGM last February we awarded Michael Adamson our "Member of the Year" trophy because of his work making Gauge 3 known to a wider audience.

I am sure that you would be made welcome at any G3S GTG.  The dates are on the web site and I really encourage you to come along.  If you don't like it then fine, but at least you'll know.  Oh, and you will usually see some GRS products running there!

Mike

[AllWight]

Hi Joe

If you want to see some GRS models in action then I am exhibiting my Blackgang layout this weekend at a show in Four Marks near Alton. The show is to raise money for the local scout group and I will be there with my fleet of engines plus a few from Roger Salisbury as well. If you do wish to come along feel free, to email markn1981@hotmail.co.uk and the kettle is always on.

Mark