The J12 sleeper is rapidly approaching the end of the build stage, the body has now been fitted with the missing droplights and given a coat of white primer.  Last year when I sprayed the Centenaries I had poor coverage issues spraying Phoenix GWR cream over the grey etch primer, while the process was a lot quicker spraying onto white.  The body will eventually need the roof handrail adding, along with the end pipes and flexible corridor connectors.

Moving onto the chassis, the first job was gluing the interior into position.  Once primed this will need to have the compartment doors painted on, I have a potential time saver planned here, I have a roll of masking tape which is the width of the doors.  My plan is to paint the tape the colour of the door (presumably some sort of brown), then cut to length and stick into position, it should save lots of masking on the model.

Now it was time for the underframe, I soldered up the two main trusses from some L angle cut and bent to shape.  The vertical supports were soldered to this, before filing to length (checking to the drawing).  Finally they were all epoxied into place on the chassis, using blocks of 60 thou plasticard to hold in position

This was followed by adding the gas tanks, and marking out the positions for the vac break gear, dynamo and battery boxes.  I have some ABS castings for the latter, while I should have some Bachmann parts for the former left over from converting mk1s to air breaked TPOs.   Once this is sorted tonight, the main chassis can be primed and I will just be waiting on the bogies.

Finally here is a quick comparison of the difference 50 years development has on the sleeper. 

In 1947:

Castle Class Loco, BTK, CK, 1st SLEEP, TK, CK,  1st SLEEP, 1st SLEEP, 1st SLEEP, CK, TK, BTK 

In 1997

Class 47/8, BSO, TSO, TFOT, SLEEP, SLEEP, SLEEP, BG

So the luggage space is about the same, there is a similar number of beds available given the mk3 sleeper has a higher capacity than the Collett, however the 1940s version had a much higher passenger capacity (even allowing for the mk2D having a greater capacity than the 1930s coaches)

My aim is to have the complete models of both formations running on the layout by the end of the summer for comparison.