Kennions would be another one for Locos

Although Stuarts mostly sell complete sets of castings, many with materials and fixings included if you look under spare parts you can buy the separate drawings and individual castings.

Edited By JasonB on 18/11/2021 17:04:52

Had problems with some of Reeves castings with shrinkage cracks in cast iron and inclusions in gunmetal castings, but any castings can have problems especially model castings as they are so small in comparison to usual engineering size castings. Dave W

Polly supply a number of stationary engines.

The castings I have received from Kennions are very good but I also agree with Dave i.e., apart from wheels (maybe), I would try to use fabrication techniques of machine from solid in the future.

Phil H

I've just machined some Kennions wheel castings (Rob Roy) for a friend and they were very good, nice and crisp and very sensible machining allowance. I built a R&B gas engine from Polly castings a few years ago and was also very pleased with them.

Like Dave Smith above I am building Don Youngs Aspinall and have to agree the castings are very poor, too little machining allowance in some places and lots of filing and cleaning up on the wheel spokes, the wheels could not be finished to size, too little machining allowance. The cast iron used seems to be recycled drain covers.

I've just had to silver solder blocks on the motion plate as that was undersize, as were the tender axleboxes. Don't say I should have returned them that opens up a whole new can of worms! A shame as I like the designs of Don Young and the castings are only available from one source.

Next loco will be incorporating more fabrications and hacking from solid.

Dave