From looking at the photos in the Mike King book, they look right to me. I cannot vouch for them dimensionally as I haven't seen any plans for them. 

To be honest, I don't really care if they are wrong, as long as they capture the right look and atmosphere. Let's face it, records from that far back are not exactly thick on the ground and may be wrong anyway. Wooden vehicles were notoriously difficult to produce uniformly. Many bus body builders used wooden frames well into the 1960s and, as the preservationists have found out, nothing was entirely interchangeable between bodies from the same stable.

Jeff.

Yes, I noted that some of the wagon kits used Dapol underframes. I would have thought they might be a little too modern for the wagons represented by the kits but I'm no expert in these matters (as my previous comment illustrates all too well!!).

All of the brake van kits I chose use the bespoke resin chassis supplied with the kits, which I found to be extremely complex, multi-layered works of art with very good depth of detail. There is a fair amount of flash but I found it was easily cleaned up in less than 10 minutes per chassis.

My only other reservation was the axle bearings; none are provided and the axles just run in the bare resin. The wheels run freely so I figured that if they do eventually wear, I can drill them out and fit top-hat bearings anyway. It wouldn't be that difficult a job to do.

I have a number of Smallbrook kits waiting to be built, and one to be built. With a one-piece resin chassis it will surely be difficult to drill out the axe bearings. I did see a tool which would do it advertised in one of the Model Mags a few months ago but failed to keep a note of what it was called or where to get it.

Anyway, it looks to me like you are doing an excellent job. The hardest thing I found was getting the handrails level and straight. And especially the window bars!

Chris G

Getting handrails straight is always a bit of a challenge. I have got it wrong on a few occasions, which is where my old method comes in handy!

What I used to do in my "less skilled" days was to drill the holes oversized, fill with modelling putty (or Milliput, or similar). then stick the handrails (and any handrail knobs on locomotives) into the putty, straightening them as I went and remoulding the putty to fill any holes or slots left by moving the handrails about. This method still works where even one drilled hole is out of alignment.

For the axle boxes, I have, on a few occasions, drilled through from the outside and inserted non-shouldered bearings then used filler to cover the hole again. That applied to a few very old plastic kits that had worn the axle bearings out and a couple of ancient wagons that didn't actually have pinpoint axles at all, just blunt ended rods for axles.

I think it was DCC Concepts that marketed the tool you are thinking of, Chris. I wouldn't mind getting one of those myself. 

In the meantime, filler is my friend!!!!!