Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Railwest Models Z Van Kit

The latest offering to come out of Railwest Models is the 1956 style Z class brake van. Although the Z has been released in kit form previously, this is latest in the line of one piece body kits.
A new set of rubber moulds and castings were produced from the original patterns constructed  by Graham Watson. This process also utilised the use of a vacuum chamber to minimise the risk of having air bubble imperfections in both the mould rubber and in the urethane castings. From these casting which were basically what the initial kit consisted of, were assembled and finished off by Lynton Englund to form the completed new body pattern. A new set of rubber moulds were produced from the new pattern and urethane castings produced from these, again using the vacuum chamber proccess. The end result being a very clean impressive casting.
The kit consists of body, underframe, brake hangers (Long), vacuum pipes, grab irons, running boards, brake cylinders, running boards, brass wire of various sizes, glazing and smokestack cap. The purchaser will need to purchase seperately the bogies, handrail knobs and marker lights.
A total of 106 of this particular model of Z van were produced between the years 1956 and 1966. Further information can be found at Andy Mays wagon site at;
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/asmay2002/z461_wagon.htm

RC

2 comments:

  1. How could I buy one of these kits?

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  2. They are available from Railwest Models but are currently out of production.

    ReplyDelete