Dapol OO scale 16T Mineral wagons. Any good?

[SteamingWales]

Hi all

 

I'm currently looking at the 5 pack of 16T mineral wagons which Dapol have just released and wondering how they stand up against more modern stuff?

 

I've got multiple packs of Accurascale 16 tonners on order to run as a train but wonder if the Dapol ones are good enough to stand alongside them on a layout but can be hacked at to form part of an ash train/have open side doors for shovelling ash into?

 

Cheers :)

[Railpassion]

Dapol. Will the coupling heights match, the couplings droop, the arms drop off whilst running,  and will the wagons uncouple on their own as soon as you look away? 😉 

Edited September 11 by Railpassion
Punctuation

[Mark Saunders]

1 hour ago, SteamingWales said:

I've got multiple packs of Accurascale 16 tonners on order to run as a train but wonder if the Dapol ones are good enough to stand alongside them on a layout but can be hacked at to form part of an ash train/have open side doors for shovelling ash into?

 

The Dapol RTR ones are really the former Dublo body on aRTR Airfix chassis, this is 4mm too long over headstocks and wheelbase, if you want something easy to use with the side doors down the Airfix kit now Kitmaster one comes with separate doors.

[JSpencer]

If they are still the Dublo bodies (as I have seen nothing to say that they are not), the biggest visual difference is the wall thickness of the body sides and ends. Something like 1.5 or 2mm. Mine looked like a saw thumb next to Bachmann so I guess against Accurascale, they will look thick too.

[The Johnster]

As well as the crudity and inaccuracy of the Dublo bodyshell, the chassis is wrong; it is a generic 10' wheelbase type, whereas the correct chassis for a 16ton mineral (or a 7-planker) is 9'.  The Dapol droopy couplings can be replaced, but these Dapol wagons are basically a 1960s RTR bodyshell on a 1980s incorrect generic chassis with moulded handbrake levers and little detail underneath; IMHO they will be shown up brutally and obviously by the Accurascales.  Bachmann do correct to scale (as far as can be done in 00) RTR 16ton minerals of several diagrams, though these are more expensive than the Dapols.  Hornby 16ton minerals are also on generic 10' wheelbase chassis, and may be compared to the Dapols; others to avoid for the same reason are 2ndhand 16tonners from Mainline and Lima.

 

The Dapol/Kitmaster plastic kit 16tonners are pretty good, despite dating from the 60s, and have the advantage that they can be built with the doors open to be posed in yards and such.

[SteamingWales]

Thanks all for the feedback. Looks like it's the Dapol Kitmaster wagons as they seem perfect for what I want

[Clem_Dye]

The big plus point for the Dapol wagons though is the value for money aspect. Five Bachmann mineral wagons, assuming that you can find them, will cost a limb. As much as I’d rather have a rake of Bachmann wagons, the Dapol wagons are fine from a distance. My only gripe is the moulding residue that sometimes appears as a small lump along one top edge. Perhaps the tooling is now showing its age.

 

Dapol wagons may not be perfect, but they do offer value for money compared to a lot of the competition. That said, their 14T fuel tankers are a real uplift in quality, with a far heavier price tag to boot.

[The Johnster]

Dapol Kitmaster plastic construction kit minerals are pretty close to scale, and the appearance is not bad once you've cut the overscale side door hinges off.  Use the plastic coal insert as a former to build the body/floor assembly square and true, take care to align the sideframes so that the axleboxes are dead opposite each other and the axles are dead parallel, and put as much ballast underneath as you can get away with, and they will run well and freely.  The buffers can be a bit delicate and I reccomend replacement with cast whitemetal retrofit types, which will increase the ballast weight as well.  The only serious let-down in appearance is the overscale thickness of the body ends and sides.

 

I reccommend Bachmann NEM couplings in Parkside PA34 dovetail mounting blocks; these can be packed or trimmed to achieve the correct coupling height.  The Peco Parkside 16ton kits are pretty good as well, much cheaper than Baccy RTR and with a much greater variety of diagrams represented than the Dapol/KItmaster kits, including slope sided, rivetted, welded, pressed steel ends, and the 'French' cupboard door types (these were supplied to the French SNCF after the war to replace war-damaged stock by the British Ministry of Supply, and returned to be taken into BR stock in the early 50s).

Edited September 13 by The Johnster

[Flying Pig]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The only serious let-down in appearance is the overscale thickness of the body ends and sides.

 

 

Also, the brakes are wrong, but that is easily fixed.

 

 

[turbos]

I agree with all the above comments, for a 16 ton mineral with open door your choice is the Dapol/kit master or the Cambrian kit. As you’re a newbie to kit building the Cambrian kits really need a bit of kit building experience to do them justice. The Dapol/kit master instructions do not give you any information on painting or decals positioning, the picture on the package has the diagonal stripe in the wrong place! So find some good pictures, such as on Paul Bartletts zenfolio site (hmrspaul on RMWeb). The Dapol/kit master kit includes decals for one wagon in as built condition, Cambridge Custom Transfers, Railtec, Fox and Modelmaster all produce decals for 16 ton minerals.

A final word of caution, wagon kit building may appear to be an innocent and pleasant past time but it can be highly addictive and before you know it you’ll have a collection of built wagons and an even bigger collection of unbuilt wagons! You have been warned! LOL.

 

Brian.

[The Stationmaster]

Not 'Dapol/Kitmaster' - the 16ton Mineral Wagon kits were originally made by Airfix;  I hav ea suitable mountain of the Airfix originals stashed away for a rainy month.  The only wagon that Kitmaster made was their powered Vanfit.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

On 10/09/2024 at 21:51, SteamingWales said:

wondering how they stand up against more modern stuff?

Since Bachmann 'upset the applecart' by introducing correctly scaled 16T steel and 12/13T wooden minerals, all the previous products mesqurading as such 'stand out' as plain wrong in comparison if operated together.

 

On 10/09/2024 at 21:51, SteamingWales said:

...hacked at to form part of an ash train/have open side doors for shovelling ash into?

If used in isolation from the scale models the error won't be so obvious, but you may eventually get that nagging feeling that they don't really cut it...

[Mark Saunders]

18 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Not 'Dapol/Kitmaster' - the 16ton Mineral Wagon kits were originally made by Airfix;  

The power of rebranding using a former name and the confusion it can cause!

[stewartingram]

8 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Not 'Dapol/Kitmaster' - the 16ton Mineral Wagon kits were originally made by Airfix;  I hav ea suitable mountain of the Airfix originals stashed away for a rainy month.  The only wagon that Kitmaster made was their powered Vanfit.

Haven't Dapol re-invented the Kitmaster name to cover their kits now? So the Airfix kit, (never Kitmaster), became Dapol, and is now Kitmaster?

[The Johnster]

On 13/09/2024 at 12:37, Mark Saunders said:

The power of rebranding using a former name and the confusion it can cause!

 

See Hornby Dublo-Triang Hornby-(Wrenn-Dapol)-Hornby.  Hornby is the only name that the blokes up the pub have ever heard of.