Whilst waiting for some parts to finish the slag ladle I knocked this together. Its an old Ratio pre-printed kit from, I think, the early eighties, found recently on e-bay (thanks to New Puritan for bidding for me whilst I was away). The livery is completely fictional but the van itself is Ratio's rather fine GWR 12T vent van. A couple of pics;

Ratio's plastic can be a bit brittle, the tie-bars between the w-irons were broken so I replaced them with .020" x .030" plastic section. I thought this might be to heavy but once painted looks fine. I would have rather used brass strip but coudn't find anything fine enough, the smallest I have being .040". I have seen some etched ones somewhere but can't remember where. Apart from the tie-bars the only other change to the chassis was carving off the brake gaurd straps and replacing them with etched ones from a Mainly Trains etch. A pic of the chassis;

The pre-printed sides were sprayed with gloss varnish to protect the finish before being built onto the chassis which was sprayed beforehand with Precision Dirty Black. The body was well braced inside and fitted with MJT buffers. Transfers for number, tare and tonnage were from an old sheet that I found in a box, the Ratio ones having very thick carrier film. Finished off with matt varnish I reckon it looks pretty good.

But why? Well, I like Badger Beer (Fursty Ferret and Poachers being very fine indeed) and it is nice once in a while just to build something without worrying about authenticity!

Now if I can find an unbuilt Huntsmans Ales van...