Awaiting me when I arrived back home yesterday was a packet form Charlie at DC Kits containing parts to build 2 NSA and the missing bits to complete the other side of the NUA.

Once presents were wrapped and children were asleep, I was on child watch making sure no one went downstairs and discovered presents before midnight. (It wouldn’t do well to see presents from Father Christmas before he is supposed to have arrived)

This gave an unexpected couple of hours modelling, with the NSAs the clear winner.

I have refined the technique a little from my first attempt on the NTA, the min change being the removal of the bottom section of the Bachmann side, turning around and rotating 90 degrees and gluing in place in the Chanel. A length of ten thou stripmwas glued to this which provides a solid base upon which to glue the new side.
A short length of 30 thou is glued to the ends of the sides to space it out and reinforce the joint.

The end itself is modified cutting back to the inner bracket, which provides a firm base for the new side. As for the side itself I started with the sorting side, this uses the standard DC Kits construction so needs to be cut to length (one moulding does both half’s so you cut the door off one side and shorten the other by the same length.

With this done the first side was glued into position, adding a length of 30thou to reinforce the joint before test fitting the roof.
M

Moving to the other side the first job was to assemble the large doors, this needed 3 parts glued together before being put away to dry.

The next task was to start on the corridor side, this consists of 2 short sections (which are handed) the two doors and a long centre section. All need to be cut to length to work with the large doors, the other build will be easier in this regard. Once shortened the outer sections were glued into place and allowed to dry.

Finally for last night the doors were glued into place , with a base added to fill the gap from 30thou (a fix needed on my other builds). The final panel now needs to be cut to size (needing to be an exact fit) before flying into olac.

The new sides are fractionally shorter than a Bachmann mk1, so as per the NTA it needs a length of ten thou flying to the top of the sides. It will also need detailing such as post boxes, window grills etc. While the roof will need the raised panel to match my prototype 80322.
https://ukrailwaypics.smugmug.com/Coaches/NPCCS/NSA-Post-Office-sorting-van/i-MK59Tq6/A

Another lesson learned from my NTA is the need to add an additional spacer in the middle of the coach to stop
The sides bowing in at the top. Again this still needs to be added