I recently bought an Ozark wood and white metal 10ft bobber caboose kit to go with a recently purchaced Accucraft Porter. For some reason I cannot seem to make any of the body components fit together. Looking at the tiny pictures in the instructions I can see some detail differences in the laser cut wood parts, locating notches and form, from those in the pictures. There were also a couple of the roof support cross beams missing. Has Ozark re-engineered this kit at some point in the past ? It seems as though there has been a “pick and mix” on the laser cut parts, none were supplied in a fret. It was supplied as “new old stock” by a reputable dealer here in the UK. Any ideas ? the dealer has taken it back and given a full refund.

I’m not a newbie to wood kits and other types, I have among others built a Hartford caboose and a Rio Grande (UK) Gunnison plow. Not to mention various GRS resin/metal kits with their notoriously awful instructions. Any advise would be welcome. Max

Max, I am confused. If you returned it for a full refund, then what kind of advice are you looking for? Certainly not advice on how to build it, since you don’t have it anymore. In my feeble mind, the problem is solved.

David, He is now without again. The problem changed.

Should advice trickle in, Max has the option to try again…

If the castings are good, redesigning a simple car shouldn’t be impossible to use them.

John

John, he asked for advice AFTER returning the car. I admit that I am confused, and I just asked what advice he was looking for. My confusion continues.

While I have returned it I am still interested in aquiring one. Just need to know if this is a known problem with this product. Also want to give the dealer the heads up in case they need to ship back to Ozark and check other stock. If anybody has any knowledge on these suspected issues it would be of help

Ah, gotcha now.

I would have probably just broken out the chainsaw and hatchet and MADE it work, but that’s just me.

I haven’t heard of any negative comments regarding these kits. I wonder if you got something that got messed up somewhere along the way

In the UK these kits retail at around $140. At that sort of price I don’t expect to break out the chain saw. Ok, if like a Hartford or one of our own IP or Yatton laser cut kits it had pictures or instructions with enough detail I might just break out the razor saw, scalpels and raid the strip wood stock, however… Max.

Well they list here for $120, you should try building resin model kits where paying alot and getting horrible terrible fitting kits is just par for the course. You have to figure out all the connections and mountings on your own and spend most of the time grinding and drilling new connections to make it work.

I’ve also seen kits where you pay a ton of money, get a ridiculously inadequate instructions sheet or worse, no instructions whatsoever, I have a Space 1999 resin kit with just that, a bag of parts and only one picture showing how it’s supposed to look. So I guess I take these kinds of things more in stride than most.

Been building resin kits for 30 years, came from the model car world. Even made my living from it making my own range and as a pro builder. Can figure most things out for myself by now, with a little legible reference material. See my comment regarding GRS kits in the first post (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)Now back to the original plot…Max.

LOL yeah I’ve done a couple pretty awful resin car kits in my time, the last ones ended up in a junkyard diorama

The problem with a lot of resin kits is they can warp coming out of the mold and be a pain to straighten. It depends on the maker, but sometimes you run into a lot of clean-up on the parts before you can put them together. Sometimes it’s just too much trouble to bother with.

I’ve done a couple of Hartford kits, and they have always been vbery easy to figure out.

Andrew Moore said -The problem with a lot of resin kits is they can warp coming out of the mold and be a pain to straighten.

You can fix most warped quick cure resin moldings quite easily. Drop them in some very hot water, not boiling. You will notice that they will become pliable and then return to their correct form under those conditions. Helps if there is a flat surface corresponding to one on the part under it for support. Now steadily add cold water to the mix for the resin part to set back in its regained correct shape. Quick cure resins have a “memory”, they warp if they are pulled from a mold too early but still have a “memory” of the mold’s correct shape. The guy who owns UK’s most respected industrial/model resin moldings company taught me that. It works.

Can’t do much about a worn or damaged mold or badly engineered master that results in a lot of fettling of replications being required. You need a good/competent pattern maker who understands the limitations of the molding process and honest molders not trying to screw every last drop and more out of a mold’s life to avoid that. Max

Getting back to the question about the wood Ozark Miniatures Bobber Caboose kit, I built one of these cabooses about two years ago, and yes there are some minor fit issues, some of these issues are endemic to all of the 10ft kits I have built over the past five years.

1. The notches in the end sills for the longitudinal beams will need to be widened for the ends of the beams to fit. I used a thin blade to shave the inside edge and sanded until the beam fit.

2. The roof is made of two pieces that are the same size. When sandwiched together over the roof curvature, one will appear to be less in width due to the thickness of the wood and the roof curvature diameter difference between the now sandwiched pieces. This leaves a stair step edge. The kit could use a couple of extra roof supports. After the glue dried I used a knife again and sandpaper to get the edge of the roof line to be square.

3. Buffer Beam - I add an extra piece of wood to the bottom of the beam so that I can mount the couplers at the same height as other pieces of link and pin rolling stock that I have made by Accucraft and LGB rolling stock I modified for link & pin… Since you have to drill a hole that goes through the seam between the now two pieces of wood, I added a flat piece of wood in the center and then added some bolt detail to the corners to look like a coupler sill plate. (If that is the correct term). I’ll take some closeup pics and post later to show what I mean.

Scott

What do you do about Holidays? I bought an On3 passenger car kit that had so many voids that it sits today… When I complained I was told I should be happy with what I had…

That was my last resin kit ever.

John

I bought a few kits from them and yes I had some minor fitting issues. The twin Mt coach kits and a boxcar I bought.