Apparently its nearly Christmas and time to but panic presents before the big day is running out, not that I have had time to notice because the Domestic Overlord has kindly helped by filling in all my spare time with Decorating/DIY tasks

Just a snippet from the thoughtful schedule, will see me spend this weekend moving furniture so I can paint all the walls in the living room, then move all the furniture to the kitchen, then little respite of a couple of days at work. Then finish on Tuesday for the Holiday but on Wednesday visit the bank and get back to the house to supervise the carpet fitter, then sort out delivery of the two new sofa's and disposal of the old one for Thursday, then move all the furniture back, oh and sort out the new bookcase

How lucky am I? Most people have other halves who let them squander time off work by doing nothing, not the Domestic Overlord though who has kindly planned my every waking moments for the next few days, Thanks Boss

Anyway I have had a little modelling time, and I decided to "knock" off one of those little jobs we all have, so I thought I would finally try to build a few parcel vans to add to a little variety to my stock.

This project has been planned for quite a while and a few years ago I bought some stock which had roughly the correct wheelbase, this sat in a box labelled "future projects". Well after seeing the light of day, and then being attacked with my trusty craft knife to remove all raised details, I then used some plasti-card to bring each side up to the correct width and a nice smooth finish.

One of the group will be a clerestory roofed example and was carefully chosen because it had no windows on the sides, easy I thought a nice quick job. WRONG I forgot about all the beading that would be needed, and after what seems like an age I have one side finished.

I think adding beading in N gauge seems like a good idea, but when it comes to the practice maybe not so good, at least the other vans will have minimal beading, even if they will have windows

Anyway I thought you may be interested in a few pictures of the work completed so far, if only so you can witness my madness, and see an example of how not to build stock (if you are a rivet counter, I apologise in advance).

All I have to do now, is complete the other side, sort the underframe out, and the buffers, and the roof, then paint it, and line an transfer, and then a little weathering, and then work on the other three. EASY

As ever until the next time Happy Modelling