I have just read Roger Lycett-Smith's article in 009 News. It sounds as if he had a lot of problems building it. Has anyone else tried it and what difficulties were found?
Tony Clarke
I have one of these kits in my "to do" drawer & would also appreciate any advice & tips.
Another member of the 'flat pack de Winton club' who has yet to tackle his kit - it's somewhere in the pile of etched, casting, etc. slowly maturing - but within the West Mids group a couple of people have built them.
From what I can recall from chatting to them about their builds whilst it's not impossible the kit certainly will need careful building, including reading the instructions a few times and doing 'dry run' with each assembly stage, but the main area of potential problems seems to be the motion, where the clearances are somewhat tight.
Looking at the 009 News article I wonder if an issue with clearances resulted in the need to make cutouts in the outside frames, but In theory it shouldn't need them as those I've seen built seemed to run fine with'solid' frames. The ones built by West Mids members may have been built without the valve gear & motion to the cylinders as a way round the clearance issue as I don't recall seeing it - not that it is all that visible in any case under normal viewing conditions!
I have a feeing that one of them, Tim Williams, may have posted something about his build on Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling (NGRM) Online, but it will have been not long after the kit was first released (so may take a bit of finding) and you will need to sign up to that forum to access it. Will King is the other, who iirc has built one for himself and at least one (maybe more) for other people, but I'm not sure he has posted details anywhere. I know they are both on NGRM but I'm not sure if they are also on here.
Thank you for your help. I built a Saltford Model De Winton a few years ago with more than a little help. The responses to this question suggest that the RT Models kit is similarly difficult. I will give it a miss.
Tony Clarke