I have terrible affliction in that I am totally unable to resist the temptation to start fiddling with things before the glue has fully set, or before the paint has fully dried on them.

To try and keep myself distracted from inappropriate fiddlings with the Baby Deltic yet *again* (having just had to remedy as uncured paint has rubbed off on my fingers) I have resurrected another project out of the unfinished box to keep myself occupied whilst things dry or set.

A while back I had started a rake of four COV AB/VCA vans. The bodies come as kits from the 3mm Society and contain the body ends and sides (image from the Society online catalogue below), but nothing else.

As mentioned above, the Society PP21 chassis kit purchased separately, provides the chassis and frame details:

But even with both of these kits in hand, it does still leave the solution for floors and roofs to the modeller.

My approach has been to cut the floors as a rectangular section of 1.5mm Plasticard, with the chassis solebars (fitted with brass bearings in the axleboxes) glued to them. Romford 12mm gauge, 10.5mm diameter metal wheelsets have been used.

The roofs have been cut from brass sheet and rolled with "Metalsmith" rolling bars to curve them.

The resin body sides were glued as a box using Araldite. The roofs being added later when the glue was holding, but not yet fully set, again using Araldite. Using an engineer’s square all the dimensions and angles were checked and adjusted where necessary. With everything square to satisfaction they were put down and allowed to set.

The floor/chassis sub-assemblies were then glued into the bodies.

So, they were at quite an advanced state then, should make a nice little distraction from more inappropriate fiddlings.