[vsmith]

Its certainly alot taller than that LGB Uintah in the pic, I'd like either one but I suspect even this "tiny" locomotive would be gargantuan on my even tinier layout, so no cigar from me till I get a closer look.
I'm once again rather put off by the valve gear discovery and once yet again loose screws/parts issue, seams like every offering we get is half assembled, maybe they would do better offering it as a KIT and we put it together, then we can be sure its put together correctly. After all seams like each offering has to be immedialty dissassembled to fix all the loose issues or lubricate this and that. By offering it in KIT form they cut out all the jokers on the assembly line who can't seam to get it right no matter how much rice they threaten to take away at lunchtime for bad construction problems. Whats the difference if we have to tear it apart then reassemble it before we can even run it anyways. it just ends up a KIT on the dining room table, why not cut out the middleman and save us the whole issue of tearing it apart?

(sarcasm intended

)

 

[vsmith]

Posted By TonyWalsham on 01/13/2009 6:51 AM


Perhaps having movement of the eccentrics correct doesn't matter at all. At all.


Just like correct gear ratios don't matter.

At least it seems the Mallet has a decently low gear ratio.



..or you could just go the Piko route and cast the valve gear all as one peice, no movement, no problem ...

 

[vsmith]

..and check every screw with the loc-tite bottle handy.

I sometimes wonder if the problem isnt bad design, because these products clearly are thought out very well, but the result of a couple just completely clueless workers on the assembly line, add in clueless QA inspectors who wouldnt know the heap of a difference between an eccentric rod and a Johnson lever! Someone familiar with trains would immediatly recognize a wrongly placed eccentric lever, but a barely literate assembly line worker making $5 a day who 3 months prior was pulling onions out of a field in central Mongolia, would have absolutely zero idea what they were assembling or why things should go a certain way, same for the QA people: if it looks like its assembled right, runs back and forth on the test rollers OK, then it must be OK, right? Box it and ship it. We dont find out that our onion picker screwed the pooch until it reaches your doostep.

 

[vsmith]

Posted By CCSII on 01/15/2009 12:48 PM
Posted By vsmith on 01/15/2009 8:49 AM
..and check every screw with the loc-tite bottle handy.

I sometimes wonder if the problem isnt bad design, because these products clearly are thought out very well, but the result of a couple just completely clueless workers on the assembly line, add in clueless QA inspectors who wouldnt know the heap of a difference between an eccentric rod and a Johnson lever! Someone familiar with trains would immediatly recognize a wrongly placed eccentric lever, but a barely literate assembly line worker making $5 a day who 3 months prior was pulling onions out of a field in central Mongolia, would have absolutely zero idea what they were assembling or why things should go a certain way, same for the QA people: if it looks like its assembled right, runs back and forth on the test rollers OK, then it must be OK, right? Box it and ship it. We dont find out that our onion picker screwed the pooch until it reaches your doostep.



That's your second derogatory comment toward the Chinese. I personally find it offensive. China has a 93% literacy rate (as opposed to say Pakistan with a 54% rate.) You might as well call the workers "******." I doubt seriously whether your average Real Estate Agent, Dental Hygienist, Legal Secretary could tell you "why things go a certain way" and correctly align a valve gear assembly.


This would be a better world if we could all eliminate stereotypical images of the peoples of other cultures.


End of mini-rant.


Mr. Smith if I have offended you with this post I apologize.






No not offended, and No I'm not trying to denegrate the Chinese. Just pointing out a simople fact of life in these "New Economies" . The sad thruth is that most of the actuall in-the-trenches-assembly line workers in China are not from the best educated classes in their society, they are often quite literally just fallen off the turnip truck in the Big City looking for any work they can get. Its not like anyone intentionally comes to Quandoung Provence intent on assembling Bachmann locomotives now is it? They just want a job, any job and to them theres no difference between assebling a stereo or assembling a toy locomotive, same thing to them, just give me a steady paycheck.

Now depending on who they ended up working for, some get some very good training and are well prepared for the work they do, some start with simple tasks and are moved up the assembly line to more diffiicult tasks after they prove they are capable of doing so, but others are often just put on the line and expected to learn by doing. This is particular to companies who have very high outputs and cannot or will not devote the time needed to properly train amployees, they just accept a certain amount of faulty product as being the price of business. I dont how much training Kader assembly line workers get I suspect its more than most, but that doesnt preclude a newer less trained employee assembling something incorrectly, like I said, they simply just DONT realize they've assembled something incorrectly, you've got 4 guys each adding a certain part or assembling a certain group of parts, Bob puts the wheels into the frame, Mel adds the motor assembly, Joe assebles the left side valve gear, and hands it to Bill who assebles the right side valve gear but doesnt realize he's looking at the assembly diagram incorrectly and installs his one eccentric arm backwards but if it looks correct, and the QA people dont realize its incorrect because it still works on their testing bed and it gets shipped, no one is going to notice the mistake until some cigar-chomping guy looks at his sample and says " What the heck?"

Thats what I was trying to convey. No slam against the people but I do have reservations about there manufacturing processes.

 

[vsmith]

Chinese communism is like a double stuffed Oreo cookie, a soft cushie rich and decadent filling surrounded by the thin veneer of a hard coarse impenitrable outer shell that disguises the true nature of those on the interior of the power structure.

Now back to our originally shceduled program...