I bought the HO Campbell Talc Factory a while ago on eBay. When it arrived, I took a look inside the box and all seemed well – packages of lumber and siding, a roll of shingles, and cardboard templates underneath. I assumed the instruction sheet would be under all that. This was listed as “new” on eBay, so I didn’t worry that they weren’t right on top like they sometimes are. But I opened the box again tonight and found that it does not contain the instruction sheet at all. It was omitted.
This kit will be next to impossible to build without instructions.
I’ve contacted the seller to ask if they can find them lying around and send them to me, but I don’t hold out much hope of that. The HO Seeker website does not have the instructions for this kit. Does anyone here have a copy they could send me or scan?
It shows as a current catalogue item (Campbell’s kit #399). Sheldon’s advice should be a slam dunk. They may well have a PDF that they can forward to you in nanoseconds.
Thanks guys. The reason I didn’t consider this is because I searched the Campbell website and while many of the kits had a page for accessing the PDF of the instructions, there was no such page for the Talc Factory. It didn’t occur to me that they might have it anyway but hadn’t posted it.
The page at the link Sheldon provided actually says that for a fee they can provide any documentation that the kit is missing, even if I bought it from a third party. So all’s well, and thanks for the idea. I’ll get the instructions from Campbell if I don’t hear back from the seller in a reasonable time.
Kevin, thank you! This is great. I went back to that Campbell page and it says there’s a “link on most kit pages” to request that kit’s instructions, but there is no such link on the Talc Factory page, so I’m not even sure that would have worked. Your offer is my best bet and I’ll take you up on it.
And there’s no rush… I haven’t finished building the Perkins Produce kit yet and I have a grain elevator to build after that, and I’m rethinking my upper town track design, too, so I’ve got plenty to keep me busy for months yet.
I think I have your email address in a message from back when I joined. I’ll hit you there and give you my email and snail addresses. Your model looks great. I can only hope to someday achieve that kind of weathering skill.
OK, I will look for them when I go through some stuff for the February train show. If I do not find them at that time, it will probably be when I finish the Master Bedroom.
Thank you. I stained the walls with regular redwood stain from Minwax. It turned out very nicely.
I did not build the vents like the kit instructions stated, but instead made them from strip styrene and airbrushed them boxcar red. I also made the vents larger.
I wrote to Campbell asking if I could buy a PDF of the instructions if they had them. Turns out they had never created a digital copy of the instructions, they only had hardcopy from the printer. So Tom Miller spent the day typing up the multiple-page instructions and the master list for me, and sent the PDFs to me free of charge less than 6 hours after I sent my email, saying that I would be the first person to receive the Talc Factory instruction sheet in PDF form. And this for a customer who bought the kit from a third party.
I was gobsmacked, flabbergasted and astonished.
I wrote back and told him that this single act of brilliant customer service has ensured loyal custom and postive yelps from me into the Hereafter.
What a great start to the new year.
And, @Kevin…
… there is now no need for you to rush to finish your master bedroom (I’m kidding, of course you would not do that). Thanks for stepping up, though.
I wondered about this, too. It seemed at first blush that Tom might have put himself through a lot of unnecessary work, but there may be things I don’t know. Maybe their copier is down, and he was the only one minding the shop and couldn’t dash out to the FedEx, and he was under the impression that I needed them THAT DAY. Maybe he was snowed in, working at home, and had just one hardcopy at his house that he could use to type from. It doesn’t have to make sense. My part is to be grateful. I got what I needed because of Tom’s effort. The rest is immaterial.
When I used to prepare answers for customers, I always assumed that another customer would have the same question again. I would create a file with the answer, then save time down the road.
