On the first day of Christmas, G-bits posted up......
... a photo of a 1/29th Baldwin shark B-unit. Form some reason I completely forgot to add any tinsel, but we'll run with it now..
A bit of history :
As most people know, a couple of years back Mr Spock of this parish commissioned a set of master patterns for a B-B Baldwin shark A-unit. Those were used to make resin copies, and suddenly the G-scale world was full of little sharks including some here.
There was never a matching B-unit - which was a touch unfortunate for me, because the Pennsy only ever ran the things in matching sets. Hence the shell above sitting on shop trucks - 90% done, pretty much all that's left to do is to drop the main fans into place, trim the roof to length and another pass with filler/sand/primer. If nothing else, I think the picture shows the PRR should have painted some tuscan red..
What you're looking at is a Beta test version - The visible surfaces are dimensionally where I want them to be (this test shell is going to live on a B-unit in my collection), but having built the first one, you learn things and Mk2 will be improved, stronger and make slightly less use of the swear box. At that point Mr Spock and I between us already want enough of these things to make a production run viable so I'll be issuing it as short-run kit.
I've worked from decent drawings, but also set out to match the original kit - things like overall width and cross section are deliberately the same, and the intention is to use the same etched grilles and minor castings so that they look like a matched set when formed up AB, ABA, etc. If we can dig out and reuse the original tooling for the carryover parts (NOT necessarily a given) rather than make new negatives and molds, that would obviously help the price a bit too.
General method of assembly would be exactly the same as the A-unit - why reinvent the wheel - and planned contents of the kit are :
Pre-assembled styrene shell, finished filled and primed
Pre-assembled fuel tank, " "
Correct numbers of detail metal castings matching those used on the A-unit
Etched grilles etc as per the A-unit
Pre-cut glazing for the door windows
Pre-assembled chassis plate designed to bolt in and accept the fuel tank and Aristo trucks without any major work.
ie final assembly, trucks, paint and decals required to complete, perhaps even a little simpler than the A.
Target price is about the £300 mark including domestic shipping. US and antipodean export customers will probably pay about the same - they'll save £50 on the VAT, and then spend it again on the extra shipping cost. This isn't yet a fixed price and will be affected by both how much of the 'little parts' tooling can be reused and how many copies we wind up making. It's not going to be economic to buy in the small castings/etchings as and when, just all together, so the B-unit won't be joining the G-bits catalogue, it'll be permanently retired after the one batch of however many.
If you are interested in a kit, please give a me a shout, either by PM or email. I won't take that as a commitment, but I'd like to get an idea of numbers, particularly if we wind up needing to re-make some of the original tooling.
I'd roughly expect the Mk2 prototype version to be ready in late February, maybe March. By then we'll know the full story on tooling, plus likely numbers and will be able to fix a price and take firm orders. Delivery would be April/May/June depending on the number in the batch and your place in the queue.
Merry Christmas,
Jonathan
G-bits
... a photo of a 1/29th Baldwin shark B-unit. Form some reason I completely forgot to add any tinsel, but we'll run with it now..
A bit of history :
As most people know, a couple of years back Mr Spock of this parish commissioned a set of master patterns for a B-B Baldwin shark A-unit. Those were used to make resin copies, and suddenly the G-scale world was full of little sharks including some here.
There was never a matching B-unit - which was a touch unfortunate for me, because the Pennsy only ever ran the things in matching sets. Hence the shell above sitting on shop trucks - 90% done, pretty much all that's left to do is to drop the main fans into place, trim the roof to length and another pass with filler/sand/primer. If nothing else, I think the picture shows the PRR should have painted some tuscan red..
What you're looking at is a Beta test version - The visible surfaces are dimensionally where I want them to be (this test shell is going to live on a B-unit in my collection), but having built the first one, you learn things and Mk2 will be improved, stronger and make slightly less use of the swear box. At that point Mr Spock and I between us already want enough of these things to make a production run viable so I'll be issuing it as short-run kit.
I've worked from decent drawings, but also set out to match the original kit - things like overall width and cross section are deliberately the same, and the intention is to use the same etched grilles and minor castings so that they look like a matched set when formed up AB, ABA, etc. If we can dig out and reuse the original tooling for the carryover parts (NOT necessarily a given) rather than make new negatives and molds, that would obviously help the price a bit too.
General method of assembly would be exactly the same as the A-unit - why reinvent the wheel - and planned contents of the kit are :
Pre-assembled styrene shell, finished filled and primed
Pre-assembled fuel tank, " "
Correct numbers of detail metal castings matching those used on the A-unit
Etched grilles etc as per the A-unit
Pre-cut glazing for the door windows
Pre-assembled chassis plate designed to bolt in and accept the fuel tank and Aristo trucks without any major work.
ie final assembly, trucks, paint and decals required to complete, perhaps even a little simpler than the A.
Target price is about the £300 mark including domestic shipping. US and antipodean export customers will probably pay about the same - they'll save £50 on the VAT, and then spend it again on the extra shipping cost. This isn't yet a fixed price and will be affected by both how much of the 'little parts' tooling can be reused and how many copies we wind up making. It's not going to be economic to buy in the small castings/etchings as and when, just all together, so the B-unit won't be joining the G-bits catalogue, it'll be permanently retired after the one batch of however many.
If you are interested in a kit, please give a me a shout, either by PM or email. I won't take that as a commitment, but I'd like to get an idea of numbers, particularly if we wind up needing to re-make some of the original tooling.
I'd roughly expect the Mk2 prototype version to be ready in late February, maybe March. By then we'll know the full story on tooling, plus likely numbers and will be able to fix a price and take firm orders. Delivery would be April/May/June depending on the number in the batch and your place in the queue.
Merry Christmas,
Jonathan
G-bits
