Hi Tac. No - not confused about Accucraft/Aster Hobby and Bowande. I am aware that they are totally separate companies. I currently own (amongst other models) an Accucraft 'Lawley' an Accucraft C-25 2-AC7411 2-8-0 'Baby Mudhen' (both purchased before the joining of Accucraft/Aster), and a Aster Mogul (Nevada Short Line), again purchased before the amalgamation.
I am attaching a copy of the Summary of the repairs necessary, for the H8 - As I have stated previously, Accucraft/Aster Hobbies did finally agree to all the repairs (at their cost) and also agreed a Discount, but the long delay to delivery and the repairs have left me feeling less than confident to purchase from them in the future.
Detailed Account of Repairs
Ordered in June 2018, it was not received by the Dealer until September 2019.
Faults discovered included, but were not limited to: the drivers (on both engines) were, on some of the axles, not touching the rails, the wheels were binding on the internal plumbing lines resulting in no articulation of the suspension, the trailing truck was broken and assembled ‘back to front’ - the cab roof did not fit. Further checking discovered that the heads and threads of many of the fixing screws were stripped.
Locomotive - Repairs.
- The Cab was straightened and reworked, along with the lower brackets and the plumbing that was broken, distorted and bent.
- A new Cab Roof was ordered and fitted properly and now closes easily without the twisting which was evident on the original roof. This required reworking the drip rails and fitting them correctly to the Cab opening.
- The cylinder covers were repaired where required, and sections of loose piping were secured on all four of the cylinders.
- The cosmetic steam exhaust lines were fouling the drivers. This was remedied by grinding the back face of the casting to give clearance, as they were not removable for fitment with the boiler installed. All repaired areas were then painted.
- The Smoke box front was removed and replaced with a newly supplied front. This new item required all holes to be drilled and tapped as no such holes were made in this new unit for mounting to the boiler or for the inside shielding.
- The pumps were not properly or fully secured in position and only two bolts were holding them resulting in them being loose. This was repaired by drilling and tapping the holes fully into the pump casting and then securing with new hardware.
- Important Note. The lower end of the smoke box wrapper was cracked. There was no possible repair for this as it is a poor solder joint which will require the complete boiler removal, as well as a complete repaint of the whole wrapper. Whilst not entirely satisfactory in this damaged condition, as this part has no structural effect (as the boiler wrapper is bolted to the front casting), it appears to be relatively stable in its current condition.
- The inner plumbing to the chassis was all binding and therefore not allowing full articulation of the chassis. This was corrected by moving and re-bending all the return bends, so that they would allow full movement in the area and therefore not interfere with the adjacent piping. This was a lengthy and complicated trial and error process, as there are a total of four lines on the front truck and these were very much restricting any front movement, resulting in the lifting of the wheels off the track when negotiating any curve.
- The Burners were reinstalled which required the total removal of the cab unit including some associated plumbing to allow access. See photograph 6 for details). At this point it was noted that the sight glass was cracked. Once the burners were in position it was obvious that the top and bottom fittings for the sight glass were totally misaligned - hence the cracked glass. It was necessary to physically bend the angle of these fittings as they were soldered in a crooked position. This bending brought the fittings into better alignment and with this opening up of the clearance, the glass was a much better fit.
- The trailing truck frame had to be completely replaced. This required the disassembling of both the original truck and the newly supplied truck frame, as the new truck frame had been assembled incorrectly “backwards” by the factory. None of the holes in the frame had been tapped so these all had to be done. All the detailed parts from the original truck were transferred to the new frame (these parts had previously been soldered but all of them had been broken possibly during assembly or shipping. These were all reattached which required filing to fit, cleaning up and then painting.
- The complete chassis and motion was oiled prior to air testing. On testing, the rear engine would not operate or run. Checking the meter valve to confirm that it was open and also closing, the engine did not operate or run. It was established that the rear engine was not engaging in full gear. The front engine was out of timing setting and when the front engine was in full gear, the rear engine was stuck in mid gear. The complete Baker valve gear was reset and tested on air in both directions. These ran well considering that they had not been “run in” previously.
- Important Note. During the factory construction period, the customer was sent a video of “his” (claimed to be this actual model unit) running on the factory test track. Considering the condition of the actual model that was shipped, and is the subject of this report it is highly unlikely, if not impossible that the video did in fact show this particular model but rather that the model in the video is a completely different version.
- Finally, various areas throughout the model including the chassis had ‘nicks’ and ‘chips to the paintwork as a result of these being loose during the shipping. These areas were all ‘touched up’ as necessary.
Tender - Repairs.
- The Floor Frame required complete replacement as the coupler was distorted (bent) during shipping - this was caused by a foam block being tied down onto the coupler without any support or relief.
- The tender body was completely disassembled including the fasteners for the hand pump and the gas tank. The replacement frame supplied was not straight with the coupler tab bent upwards. The frame casting was repaired and straightened.
- Despite these repairs the coupler did not fit correctly at all into the housing and this required a major amount of work including filing, fitting, drilling and tapping of the coupler housing finally, a re-spray of the frame and coupler housing.
- Even after all these repairs, the coupler will still not pivot correctly but this appears to be as a result of a design ‘flaw’ as the housing is too narrow and does not allow the coupler to pivot properly.
Here is a link to the Accucraft/Aster EStore showing two Butane fired versions, two Electric versions, and three 'deals' including passenger cars.
www.accucraftestore.com/g1chn-qj
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