SE Finecast Austin 'C' Cab van

Many weeks ago, I mentioned a couple of cars that I picked up to use on Clayhanger Yard. Progress was made as far as stripping the bodies of paint, then I was distracted and moved on to something else.

Anyway, wandering around Scaleforum, I picked up some Wills brick plasticard as I'm told it's better than the Slaters stuff. Stood on the stand, my eye was drawn to the whitemetal vehicle kits. A little voice in my head made me ask if I could look inside. I could.

The kit is made up of whitemetal castings plus some etched wheel spokes. These arrive in a neat little tray along with the instructions. I heard a voice asking if they took cards. They did.

Now you might wonder why I resisted a 20 quid kit at the O gauge do and then succumbed at Scaleforum. I don't know, but it might be that while my head didn't really want to spend the money, my heart did. There is something appealing about vintage vehicles with wire spoked wheels and while my efforts will look fine once I replace all the lost bits, I still hankered after a "proper" kit.

Anyway, I can eat and keep a roof over my head so s*d it, I was having me some toy van.

Back at home I decided construction better start quickly so I began with the wheels.

These are made up of a whitemetal tyre (puncture free but a bit hard on the road) which is filled with etched spokes.

The outside set has to be dished and a little metal dome is provided for this, you push the etch over it and in theory the forming is complete. This sort of work but really the metal needs to stretch and I can't push that hard.

In the middle, a turned brass pieces replicated the brake drum and gives you something to glue on the axle ends. All this is assembled with superglue - I found the thin stuff run in around the edge of the spoke etch worked well after experimenting with thicker stuff.