And now it hits a problem.....

Last night I finished the first wagon, adding the 10thou strip to the bottom of the chassis ribs that brings them to their full width. At the same time I also posted on DEMU asking for PTA underframe photos. Phil came to the rescue in the linked topic, however the photos sadly show that I have got things rather wrong.

The prototype should have 2 beams running the length of the wagon, then a gentle angle before the sharp angled pieces at the ends of the rib. I have modelled them flat before the angled end pieces.

While I have thankfully only done this on the first 5 wagons, its something of a paint to have only realised now that some are finished (and the others of this batch are practically finished.)

http://www.rmweb.co....wform&blogid=50

Its times like this that make me wish rather than persisting with these I had just brought some of the kits while they were available and solved a great deal of hassle for what wont be the most accurate model in the world.

The question is, do I fix it (ripping off all the ribs and starting again), do I live with it and model it right on the other batch of 5 or do I just say sod it the rest of the models accuracy is far from perfect so just model the other 5 wagons to match the first......

In the end I chose to go with the option of doing the other 5 models to match the first, tbh the discrepancy just isn't bad enough to justify the time rebuilding.

So the first batch of 5 are now finished, (although they are lacking the final details such as air pipes, tank and distributor) these will hopefully get painted tomorrow (and then transfered up before the Leamington & Warwick show on the 16th)

The second 5 are also making good progress, with the basic work on the chassis now completed. these differ in construction from the first five, in that I have started off with the central beams and then added short ribs (rather than the full width ribs with short lengths between them used on the first 5). made construction a lot quicker.

The next job is going to be finishing off the ends fitting the ribs to the end (along with the small plates on the headstocks over the buffer locations (not exactly sure what they are for....)

This then will leave the final job being the adding the top strip to the chassis ribs, very time consuming task which can wait for the morning (and TMS)