From now on, it's built-ups and RTR for me (RANT)

[wholeman]

I love putting structure kits together.  I am still working on a Walthers City Station.  I do get angry, but I am like the Hulk.  You don't want to see me get angry.  I don't turn green though

[Flashwave]

I'm with the OP on this. I enjoy the kits that work. Accurail come to mind. But I, having a manic temper caged, am not going to waste the time to let me wrk myself up on something that I'm going to watch dissamble itself. *Cough Lionel water/sanding**Cough Branchline* The Walthers genral store I'm doing is quite enjoyable, as is the Globe kit in process.

[twhite]

JE: 

I've got two of the Walthers tanks on my layout, but they were the built-ups.  I'm kind of surprised that the kit would be that difficult, as most of the other Walthers kits I've assembled went together with no problem.   But if it helps any, the thread used for the pulleys and counterweights doesn't really work any better on the built-ups. 

The one water tank kit I have is an Atlas, that I built about 8 years ago, and instead of thread, the kit came with scale chain that was a bear to install, but looks about six times better than the thread.  However, the kit itself went together very well. 

My eyesight isn't that good anymore, but the more I look at the Walthers tanks, the more I think I'll go out and get some scale chain and see if I can't improve the looks, somehow. 

Sorry it was such a bear to build. 

Tom  

[blownout cylinder]

Y'see. This is why I'm constantly saying that we need to think that OTHER VALUES than the almighty dollar might help here. What of skill development? Lifelong learning? If all we are doing is looking into the billfold for our reason why we do kits and such---and all we do is rush to RTR then everyone who wants to buy kits won't have ANY

We'll have RTR----and its Radical Other---scratchbuilder

 So much for the so called OPEN market--as it shrinks into nothingness

I can see that would be frustrating BTW---I was eyeing one of those cranes that had the 2/3 winches that needed put together/wired up---I think I'll get them and slowly work them up

By the way Don7---he did say this was a rant---so you need not rant about a rant----just a little pre-emptive strike here

 

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

Marklin, Lionel and MTH all make fine, high quality toy trains that work perfectly with all their associated products and accessories and they all come ready to run requiring that all you do is "snap" the track pieces together and play.

I'm sure one of these product lines will make your hobby experiance much happier, and your pockets much emptier.

I'm sorry you had such a bad experiance with these low quality, have to be assembled, scale model kits.

Building things is just not for everyone. As a Carpenter friend of mine says "if it was easy, everyone would do it".

 Sheldon 

[jwhitten]

 Yeah, but then where would you go to get all your righteous indignation??? 

[jecorbett]

I just completed construction of Walthers Wood Water Tank kit which I bought shortly before they came out with the built-up version. It looked like a fairly simple kit to build so I figured it would be no problem. WRONG!!! Had I known the aggravation I would go through putting this thing together, I would have pitched it in the trash and bought the built-up version. While most of the kit is pretty straight forward, there were two major exceptions. The first came with construction of the timber framing  for the tower. This consisted of four major pieces connected with diagonal bracing. Trying to get all the little nubs in the diagonal bracing to simultaneously line up with all the little holes in the timber framing was more than a little aggravating. These diagonal braces are fairly thin plastic which tended to bend and warp when it must be kept perfectly straight to get the parts to mate correctly. The air was filled with lots of the words you can't say on television. This aggravation was minor compared to that of trying to thread the cabling through the tiny holes on the water spout, pulleys and counterweights. Some of these holes were smaller than the typical eye of a needle. I do not have a jeweler's eyes or hands and this proved to be nearly impossible. Somehow I finally imagined to get the thread through all those tiny holes. Once this was done, I had to tie it off on the counterweights with very little thread to work with. In addition, I had to be very careful not to pull the thread out of the spout and pulley on the other end of the line while I tied these very small knots. This too proved to be almost insurmountable. What I ended up with is a structure that looks no better than one I could have bought off the shelf at my LHS and plopped down in place on the layout. The only advantage I see to buying the kit is that it makes custom painting the tank a little easier, but I have no doubt I could have hand painted the built-up kit with far less aggravation than I experienced putting together the tiny little plastic pieces.

Out of curiosity, I checked the Walters website to see if the kit was still available and how much I saved by buying the kit instead. The kit is still available and the list price is all of $3 less than the built up. To save that $3, I estimate I spent 12-15 hours of my time, whereas if I chose to hand paint the built-up, I could probably have done it in an hour or two. If they want to pay some cheap Chinese laborer to put these kits together for me, I'll gladly pay a few extra bucks for the convenience. Now here's the final insult. Walthers currently has the built-up version on sale for $5 less than the kit. I actually had to pay more for the aggravation of building it myself.

I've learned my lesson. From now on if the same or similar structures are available in both kit and built-up, I'm going with the built-up every time. I would much rather spend a little more of my money to save a lot more of my time.