PLEASE READ BEFORE ORDERING
Our card kits have gained a high reputation, and many repeat orders, which is a testimonial to our satisfied customers, but we find that a few purchasers have not bothered to read the write up.
a) The kits are printed on card, and are not READY-TO-RUN plastic or metal models.
b) Because the subjects we cover often have very limited sales, pre-cut card is NOT possible without increasing the price to prohibitive levels. This means YOU have to cut out the parts, including any windows, doors etc. If you are looking for a “SHAKE THE BOX AND IT FALLS TOGETHER” KIT, then our kits are DEFINITELY NOT for you. If you are prepared to do quite a lot of work, then you will end up with a model that has far more detail than the majority of the throw it together kits.
c) We use quite thin 160gsm card for our kits, and there are several reasons for this. Partly this is to keep costs down, but there are more significant reasons. If you look at most kits, the windows are recessed far more than they should be due to the thickness of the material, and beading or other overlays are also much too prominent, so are either omitted by kit designers or are grossly over-scale. With the thin card we use, you can get it RIGHT, but it is more work for us to design and for you to build.
d) Anyone knows that you can’t bend card in two planes, so domed roof ends are “out” on a kit. – WRONG – with the thin card WE use, it will deform to permit domed panels. By using a multi-layering technique we can cover items that are quite impracticable in heavier card. We tried various thicknesses until we found what will work. Another benefit is that two or three layers of thin card, when glued together are MUCH STRONGER than one thicker piece of card and are less likely to sag or deform.
e) With thin card, we can add a lot more detail. For example our Ramsey water tank kit depicts a wooden tank that is very weathered with rotten wood. The colour artwork on all four faces is an exact match for the original, and with multi-layering you get 3D decayed wood in full colour. How many other kits do you know that offer that ????
TO SUMMARISE – IF YOU EXPECT A KIT YOU CAN THROW TOGETHER IN FIVE MINUTES, THEN YOU WILL NOT LIKE OUR KITS. If, on the other hand, you are prepared to take some time, you can build a delightful model, and have a look at the photos of the kits in our range. The display model is built up from one of our kits, but you need to take time and put in some effort.
Best wishes
Robert & Elena
THIS IS A CARD KIT THAT YOU HAVE TO ASSEMBLE -
PLEASE NOTE - The van in the photo is from another kit and shows how you can use our kits to build up complete MER train formations, as our range now covers over 25% of the MER fleet.
O Gauge 7mm Manx Electric Railway Tram No 19 Card Model Kit
An “Elro” 0 gauge 7mm scale Manx Electric Railway “Winter Saloon” No 19 CARD Model Kit by Elena & Robert Hendry. The kit is supplied as a static card model, but can be motorised, using commercial mechanisms. To complete the kit, you will need scissors/craft knife, a steel ruler, glue, scrap card, wire, glazing material, and felt tip pens or paint to touch in exposed edges of the card.
The Manx Electric Railway is a unique example of an American style Interurban electric railway in the British Isles, with power cars, passenger trailers, and open and closed freight stock. In its heyday, it operated an electric locomotive, bogie stone wagons to serve its own quarries, and even bogie parcels and cattle cars. It ran road motor services, and operated its own amusement parks to attract passengers to the line. It offers far more potential to the modeller than the usual railway or tramway, combining the variety of a railway with the sharp curves and compactness of a tramway. It is an IDEAL prototype, but is seldom modelled, in part due to the lack of trade support in the form of rolling stock. This card construction kit for MER winter saloon No 19, is a step in redressing that imbalance. The original car was built in 1899, and is depicted as running in the early 1950s when the Manx Electric Railway Co was close to collapse, and an economy version of the traditional varnished wood, red and white livery had been adopted. We wanted some MER stock for our model tramway, and with no readily available UK kit in 7mm, produced our own artwork, which we are happy to share with you in 7mm and in 4mm.
In this age of plastic and resin, the use of card in a kit may seem “old-fashioned”, but card is a very versatile and convenient modelling medium, and where small production runs are called for, is ideal, as it offers versatility at low cost. To do a kit like this in plastic or resin would put up the cost 10 or 20 fold. The kit consists of several sheets of pre-printed fully coloured A4 card, along with detailed instructions and a photo of a completed model for you to refer to during construction. It includes sides, ends, floors, roof and interior detailing, including controllers, the driving cab partitions, seats etc. It can be built up as a simple non glazed “box” by a younger or less experienced modeller, or the windows can be cut out, and a glazed model with interior detailing is possible. The level of detail is up to you. As different modellers have different ideas as to the thickness of glazing they prefer, glazing is not included, but the kit is built to allow for approx 0.5mm clear plastic glazing in OO and 1mm in O, but thinner or thicker material can be utilised if very simple modifications are made, and this is explained in the instructions. The card is quite thin, but this means that it bends smoothly but flooring, roofs and other structural areas should be reinforced with additional card that is readily available from stationers, or you can use a cornflake or similar packet if you are into recycling ! In assembling the sides, we make up a “sandwich” comprising the pre-printed side, a sheet of 1mm glazing and then the pre-printed interior. Apart from bending much more smoothly that a thick sheet of card, the thinner card we use means that unlike most die-cast or plastic models where the window frames are much too thick, the windows are not inset too far, enhancing realism greatly. The kit includes fold-up card bogies, but these can be replaced by commercially available mechanisms, so you can run your completed model on a tramway, as we do with ours.
Unlike expensive etched brass kits that many modellers find too daunting, and are not really suitable to the younger modeller, this card kit is readily affordable and is a good start to modelling. The original tram is essentially a “box” shape, although the end panels are subtly curved, making this a particularly good kit for the beginner. The roof is also a quite simple structure, but the level of detail you include is up to you.
Our kit for No 19 shows the car in 1950s livery, but No 19 has recently been restored to a close approximation to its early 1950s state, so the kit can be used to represent the car as running in the 1950s or in 2007 ! Apart from this kit we produce other MER kits, including No 22 in the short lived MER board green and MER freight stock.
Given the reference to CARD and KIT in the item description and in the write up, it may seem un-necessary to say that this is NOT a ready-to-run die-cast metal model, but one e-bayer bought one of our kits and then complained that the description was “misleading”, for although it included the words CARD nine times and KIT, he thought it was a complete R-T-R metal model !!! He complained about “misleading” advertising, and returned the kit. We refunded his payment in full, even though the mistake was entirely his, so he very kindly trashed us with bad feedback. Happily most e-bayers are really nice and we have quite a few customers who have bought each of our MER or Glasgow kits as it has been released, and the kind comments really do matter, but sadly one incident like that does stick in your memory.