Oh no not more Jim Harris (aka Anchorage/Oakville BR standard 4mt 2-6-4t

Call me mad but i have yet another Jim Harris designed kit. This an interesting one as it seems to be a ltd edition of 100 (i have no.1) and i havent seen many of the about. As i basically have all the parts for this other than a motor and im waiting for bits for my other builds to arrive i thought id make a start on it. Its certainly no MOK kit and some of the castings are rough around the edges (photography making them look worse than they do in real life) but its gone together suprisingly quickly and with hardly any swearing. heres a few pictures of my attempt to build it.

 

They are a mixed bag but in general are not as bad as some make out. theres a couple of clangers but most are buildable, they just arnt easy. Ive got experience of a few of them. this kit so far has been pretty good considering its a 30 year old design ive only found 1 problem which was a mistake in the length of the bunker floor. it was easy enough to sort using a strip of brass. I found the rebuilt west country ive shared on another post quite challenging mainly due to there being no formers for the firebox. you literally get a wrapper and nothing to bend it round so its totally up to your own skill to get it correct. I have a clan which is the same too. theres a few cases of bits not fitting properly on it. The merchant navy that you have, while i havent built that one i believe it has a reputation as one of his better kits. certainly when i saw an unbuilt one it looked to have lots of improvements on the west country and most of the things i struggled with seemed to have been designed out of it

 

I've got a few ace kits too. I'd rate Jim's kits slightly above ace in terms of quality for the simple fact that they tend to not have bits missing and you get instructions for the actual kit you bought. I have half a dozen ace kits and all bar one have issues related to missing g parts or instructions even when bought new. I have an liner 03 which has the instructions for an 02 which while outwardly similar has several major differences. The kit has several bits missing including virtually the whole tender. There's a few major errors in the design too. I also have a k3 which came.supllied with a group.standard tender but instructions for a gn one. In some cases I've managed to get missing parts from William at ace but in others I havent

 

The ace kits i have experience of building and also own unbuilt examples are as follows

K3 bought new and looks like an in house design. Despite having the wrong instructions for the tender actually looks realy good but i havent started it. has a clever jig to assemble the footplate which if it works will be a godsend. there are zero cab details not even williams famous etched backheads
J6. bought from a lady seller on ebay who seems very close to william at ace. ive not fully worked out the connection but i believe she sells on behalf of ace through ebay. An old mcgowan models tooling and while not perfect i know is buildable as my dad has built one. had quiet a few bits missing which i was able to get sent to me by the ebay seller.
J69 bought new. is an upgraded ravenscale kit. this is one of those where you get lots of options and better instructions would have made it far easier to build. I have bits left over which i havent been able to identify. once i figured it out it went together pretty well. i have to finish off adding the details and fittings. this kit took nearly a year to be delived. first he had no etches and then no boxes. to be fair it was bought during the covid pandemic
K2. bought new several years ago from home of o gauge (remember them). this was still marked as mcgowan models and was really poor. the boiler was the wrong diameter and the cylinders where in the wrong place. had awfull cast crossheads. had no castings for the tender which i was able to get from william at a later date. this kit may have been upgraded since but im not sure.
C13 bought new. looks generally good but havent started it yet. only obvious problem is the cab roof which the construction of defies physics. C13's have an unsuall almost domed cab roof which just wouldnt work in the way its been designed inb flat etched brass, so will have to rethink that one.
03 2-8-0 this looks to be basically the 3 cylinder 02 kit with a few bits altered/added to make the 2 cylinder 03. i bought this from williams ebay selling friend similar to the j6. also similar to that it had lots of parts missing. namely the tender sides and front, 1 set of valve gear, smokebox saddle. i managed to get a set of valvegear and smokebox saddle sent to me but am still missing a tender body and instructions. the instructions are for the 02 which while outwardly similar have several major differences which may cause confusion. the kit itself looks a bit half hearted. it has a jig to build the footplate similar to the k3 but it will not work as the tabs for the valences are not attached to it so its useless. the footplate is also too long, with half etched bend lines in the wrong place. the slots and tabs for the valences and footplate also dont line up and will need cutting off.

in summary they are all buildable but with varying levels of extra effort required. while the two kits bought recently on ebay werent bought direct from ace they where sent from his local post office and the writing on the labels was in his hand writing so suspect hes using a relative or friends ebay account. which needs to be taken into account if you buy any "bargain" kits off ebay

 

My window sill is beginning to resemble Barry scrapyard. Fitting the boiler was interesting. there are tabs to slot the firebox into the cab front. The instructions helpfully point out that they are in the wrong place and need removeing. smokebox is currently just perched on hence it being at an odd angle. next job is to get that alligned and solder on. I must finish that west country soon.....

 

i Realise ive not posted for a while. A little more progress Ive installed some old fourtrack hornblocks to give some suspension and have decided to try the markits crankpins and return cranks for the first time. No problems to report and they are far more robust than the original slaters screws. Just a clean up needed although ive now managed to catch covid (1st time knowingly) so not going near any sort of cleaning chemicals or soldering till my throat improves.

 

Always fun when the valve rod won't fit in the valve guide..... 1st world problems

 

A few minutes with the dremel and some pliers. That was suprisingly easy

 

Not much room for clearance between the Crosshead and front crank pin. I've had to resort to joggling the slidbars outwards and taking the laminated boss off the front coupling rod. This still only allows a paper thin clearance bit it should run.

 

Little progress has been made. I don't seem to have much modelling time of late. Valve gear is coming along very slowly.