Can anyone recommend a kit for a 16xx tank?

[MarcD]

Having read that it's impossible to convert the Rapido RTR 16xx can anyone recommend a kit for one?
If there is nothing out there I do have a full set of GAs so I will scratch build one or two.

[Jeremy Good]

Marc,

There is one available under the Nu-Cast Partners banner which is a white metal body and a nickel silver etched chassis. Available from Branchlines.

Jeremy

[MarcD]

Sounds good I will give them a look

[Pannier Tank]

Having read that it's impossible to convert the Rapido RTR 16xx can anyone recommend a kit for one?
If there is nothing out there I do have a full set of GAs so I will scratch build one or two.

It might not be easy but it has been done. Have you seen this topic https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=7398&p=85906&hilit=16xx#p82605 ?

[Noel]

There is one available under the Nu-Cast Partners banner which is a white metal body and a nickel silver etched chassis. Available from Branchlines.

The whitemetal body kit originated in a Sutherland kit a good few years ago now, so I don't know about its current quality, but the original was good. The chassis is later and designed by Justin Newitt of Rumney Models.

[whitleypump]

The new chassis etches also include some body details to replace some of the whitemetal components, for example sections of the rear of the cab and window grills.

The Sutherland/Cotswold era version of the kit does turn up on eBay occasionally. They have some nice little touches like the back of the smokebox is included as a component with the ends of the flues modelled.

[Re6/6]

Having read that it's impossible to convert the Rapido RTR 16xx can anyone recommend a kit for one?
If there is nothing out there I do have a full set of GAs so I will scratch build one or two.

It might not be easy but it has been done. Have you seen this topic https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=7398&p=85906&hilit=16xx#p82605 ?

It was a challenge and would've been much easier had I done things in the right order...."Playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order" as was famously once said!

The end result was that It performs very well.

[Noel]

The Sutherland/Cotswold era version of the kit does turn up on eBay occasionally.

Bear in mind that the original chassis is one piece brass...

[Hardwicke]

Did Peter K make one?

[Noel]

Did Peter K make one?

I think the only GWR loco he did was the 1361 saddle tank, the chassis of which can also be used for a 1366 [as Iain Rice did].

[Enigma]

I had a Sutherland kit/body for some years in a 'raw' state. The solid brass chassis was ditched (I still have it somewhere!) and I built a fully compensated one with Sharman wheels that never really worked. When the Branchlines/SEFinecast one was announced a few years ago I bought the chassis and it worked out very well. I had to buy some AG wheels as I couldn't get the old Sharman wheels to grip the axle once they had been removed from the old chassis. The 'new' loco turned out very well and I am pleased with it. Powered by a Mashima/High Level combination, it is pleasantly heavy without any added weight and will pull anything I'm likely to put behind it!

16xx Branchlines chassis.1.A.jpg

16xx Built.1.A.jpg

BTW, an old friend of mine, BITD, machined his solid chassis to be fully compensated - but it still wasn't a good runner!

[jim s-w]

Having read that it's impossible to convert the Rapido RTR 16xx can anyone recommend a kit for one?
If there is nothing out there I do have a full set of GAs so I will scratch build one or two.

Can I ask, if your options are rapido or scratchbuild why are you so confident converting the rapido one will be impossible?

[Hardwicke]

Did Peter K make one?

I think the only GWR loco he did was the 1361 saddle tank, the chassis of which can also be used for a 1366 [as Iain Rice did].

I knew there was a connection !

[Horsetan]

Having read that it's impossible to convert the Rapido RTR 16xx can anyone recommend a kit for one?
If there is nothing out there I do have a full set of GAs so I will scratch build one or two.

Can I ask, if your options are rapido or scratchbuild why are you so confident converting the rapido one will be impossible?

You might want to ask Captain Kernow what he discovered when he had a go.

It's a 16xx model, Jim, but not as we know it...

[Captain Kernow]

Having read that it's impossible to convert the Rapido RTR 16xx can anyone recommend a kit for one?
If there is nothing out there I do have a full set of GAs so I will scratch build one or two.

Can I ask, if your options are rapido or scratchbuild why are you so confident converting the rapido one will be impossible?

You might want to ask Captain Kernow what he discovered when he had a go.

It's a 16xx model, Jim, but not as we know it...

I know my friend John has converted a Rapido one to P4, but this was simply (!!) a case of removal of the OO wheels and substituting some P4 ones (he used Ultrascale LNER 4' 0" ones, as the correct GWR ones aren't made by Ultrascale (Gibsons would be an alternative).

However, the above conversion relies on the Rapido mechanism working OK, something that I have not found to be the case in every Rapido model that I've bought so far (and they've all gone back or been sold on).

My preference, when converting RTR to P4, is to use a chassis, gearbox and motor of my choice. This is relatively straightforward with the likes of Bachmann, of course.

With the Rapido 16XX some of the individual body components actually form part of the 'chassis' as well. In other words, there is no simply way of separating body from chassis, they are (almost) the same thing!

In order to arrive at a situation where you have a separate Rapido 16XX body, under which you can then put an etched chassis of your choice, you have to virtually dismantle the body down to it's individual components, saw up the single casting that is the lower smokebox, lower boiler and lower firebox into three parts, reuse the smokebox part and probably fabricate your own lower boiler part and two firebox sides.

I found it far, far easier to simply build the whitemetal kit! (I also had an older Cotswold kit, which I paired up with the Nu Cast Partners chassis).

The Cotswold kit was recently reintroduced by Nu Cast Partners as a complete kit, featuring the new Justin Newitt chassis, but since the recent retirement of Dave Ellis (of SE Finecast), Brian at Branchlines has currently no way of replacing the whitemetal component of the kits. He told me recently that one or two kits had sold out, the 16XX being one of them.

The chassis is still available, as far as I know and it is easy enough to pair that with an original Cotswold body, if you can find one on Ebay or the like.

[Horsetan]

...The Cotswold kit was recently reintroduced by Nu Cast Partners as a complete kit, featuring the new Justin Newitt chassis, but since the recent retirement of Dave Ellis (of SE Finecast), Brian at Branchlines has currently no way of replacing the whitemetal component of the kits. ....

Time for an all etched body?

[Captain Kernow]

...The Cotswold kit was recently reintroduced by Nu Cast Partners as a complete kit, featuring the new Justin Newitt chassis, but since the recent retirement of Dave Ellis (of SE Finecast), Brian at Branchlines has currently no way of replacing the whitemetal component of the kits. ....

Time for an all etched body?

You might have thought so, Ivan, but to my knowledge no one has produced an etched pannier kit in years, because the basic dimensions of most RTR ones are so good.