Wilesco Steam Engine D 5 Model Kit

It is what it is - fantastic. I didn't realise it was in kit but that only increased the fun.

As a recently retired person catching up on the things I couldn't afford when younger, I really enjoyed building this kit. The base and "superstructure" are made of lighter gauge metal than perhaps you would expect with 'Steam-Engine-engineering', but its adequate for the job. The instructions are not perfect or optimised/refined,so you have to think a bit.As others have said, parts of the build are quite fiddly, namely fitting the really small bolts - but once I'd worked out that the screwdriver provided was strongly magnetic, I found you could use it to pick and place the bolts into the not very accessible holes where your fingers let you down.The manufacturers quality control failed with one crucial part which had to be screwed on to the threaded end of the flywheel spindle - the part ( in my kit ) did not have the corresponding thread machined into it, just had a plain hole.I was able to thread the hole using an old engineers trick of cutting vertical grooves down the sides of a couple of spare bolts (of the right size ) to make improvised thread-cutters. It was an interesting diversion for half an hour,but I accept this would be an absolute "killer" fault for many, which would have stopped them getting any further making the kit non-viable - so manufacturer - Take Note!Having said that, the finished steam engine works very nicely - It gets my vote

IPicture of item looks very attractive as indeed all the components are. But item is very small & I think the youngster for whom this is a Christmas present will be a little disappointed.

Good design and actually works a treat. Avery fun thing to build and use

Very disappointed, bought for my 78 year old father. Instructions extremely hard to follow, when we finally managed to put it together it didn't work. The heat resistant washers didn't work and expanded so much that they no longer work. All in all extremely disappointed and would not recommend buying.

It doesn't come with brass chimney as illustrated and the plastic one melts

works well still

Bad in every way possible better if you make your own