Build a plywood van

 

A few weeks ago, I needed an unnumbered van for some filming. Not a problem I thought, I have a box with built, but unpainted kits somewhere. 

That somewhere eluded me, but I did find a Parkside kit for a 12T planked van. Perfect. It's one of my favourite models. You can work out how old this is from the price...

I always ignore the instructions and build the chassis first. There's no point in spending time glueing things together is the model won't run, and anyway, I find it easier to work with the floor upside down on the modelling board. A little cleaning up of the mould lines and then some sticking soon saw a rolling base that would also sit with all four feet down on a mirror. 

Taking the body out of the packet, I spotted an issue. One of the sides was missing. I searched the modelling space and, no, it definitely wasn't there. Some bad words were said. 

Another dig in the stash and another result - a kit containing just the body for a plywood sided van. I've no idea where the chassis went, but since the body would fit the floor, I didn't much care. I think the wheelbases are the same, but for the purposes of the filming, that didn't matter much. 

Underneath, I added the brake gear and even replaced the safety straps with bent staples. It's a simple mod that looks great if you look along a rake of wagons. Well, I think it does anyway and it's one of my few concessions to finescale. 

On the bufferbeam we have a pair of vac pipes from the whitemetal bits stash and a random set of buffers from my collection as there weren't a suitable set in the kit. I think kit one assumed the housings were on the body, but kit two had a flat beam - and I didn't have the chassis mouldings for kit two. Buffer fiends will tell me they are wrong. By this point I didn't much care. 

A spray with some bauxite colour (for a change I didn't just use brick red) and brush painted black bits finished the job. I only sprayed because the sides would be seen in closeup, so a good, consistant finish was required. 

Next time though, I'll make sure the kit if complete before starting work!