Complete, but still fighting

 

Well, the provendor wagon is built, and painted, and looks a bit rubbish. 

Despite gloss varnishing the sides, and applying lashings of Micro-Sol, the transfers haven't sat down properly and there's loads of silvering where air has been trapped underneath. 

The photo looks worse than real life, and a big part of the problem is almost certainly down to old, slightly dried up transfers, but I'm still a little grumpy about the whole thing. Maybe when I've cheered up a bit, I'll dig through my stocks of transfers (not decals) and see if there are some better GW ones in there. Ideally, some Methfix would be ideal as those don't have the transfer film. 

What I know, from bitter experience, won't cure things, is weathering. Adding dirt requires plank lines to the muck to occupy and right now, for much of the lettering, those are burried. It would actually make the model look worse!

Chassis on

 

More lessons learned. Plain bearings fitted into the axleboxes. I even drill them out a little to deepen the hole. Both solebars are carefully shortened to fit, and amazingly, I manage to have the axles of the Hornby wheels (no, I'm not using the plastic ones supplied in the kit) perpendicular to sides so they run perfectly. 

 

Even the tie-bars survive my ministrations. Good, except that according to the instructions, they should be cut off...

 

Talking of the instructions, they appear to be duplicated from typed originals. I'm sure the last kit I built had less old-fashioned versions. Were they updated during the run? 

 

Brake gear and buffers added, and the wagon is looking the part. All I need is paint, I can't go wrong now can I?

Return to the Provendor wagon

 

Back in May, I failed to build a Cooper Craft Provendor wagon. It's niggled at me ever since, so when an eBay search turned up another kit, I decided to have another go. 

Looking back at my blog post reminded me that one trick to this kit, is building the body first. I don't like doing things this way, as IMHO it's better to get the chassis working, but this time there isn't an option. 

As before, the floor has to be thinned on a sanding block, or it's too wide for the sides. Not a lot, probably no more than 0.2mm, but it makes a difference. 

After this, the sides are carefully attached, and weighted down to ensure the result is flat. Despite the instructions suggesting that sanding will be needed on the corners, they go together fine, probably because the plastic glue has softened the material enough that they can be pushed together without leaving a gap. 

Another improvement to my build technique is that everything will be left to harden before moving on. No rushing and dealing with squidgy joins. That means the body sits like this overnight. 

Tomorow, the chassis.