I’m waiting for some araldite to cure on the fifth Banana van, - you remember, the one that is having a sprung chassis.

There’s no doubt that araldite is one of the finest adhesives, particularly the old fashioned 24 hour type, but that curing time and lack of initial grip can be a pain. In today’s case the araldite’s job is to fix a lead weight to the plastic body of the van as a part-floor. The weight is drilled and tapped for 8BA and as the thread in lead is likely to strip, an 8BA nut is soldered to the lead. This 8BA hole MUST be exactly on the body centre-line, to match a similar centre hole on the sub-chassis. To ensure everything is correctly centred, the body and chassis must be held in correct location while the araldite cures. This has meant resource to silicon baking sheet to ensure that araldite does not seep its cruel way between parts that later must be free of each other. What a fiddle it’s been!

The other four vans are ready for the paint shop but are currently posing on ‘Bowtons Yard’

And a closer shot of a pair

These Ratio kits are very nicely moulded and include some really fine detail. In my view some is much too fine, (and therefore fragile), for any but a model destined for a museum showcase. I’ve used the kit’s buffers, draw hooks and vacuum pipes, knowing that there is near certainty that some of them will break because they are all too fragile as plastic mouldings. If, (or when!), they break, they will be replaced by more substantial metal items.

The kits have also made up to be much lighter than I expected and even fitted with my ballast-weight/fixing nut they came out lighter than I aim for. All road much better than could be expected on my “ fling testâ€. For this I virtually throw the test piece through a section of ‘Bowton’s Yard’ which includes a double slip followed by a B8 & a B6 in a reverse curve. If they survive a dozen or so throws in each direction then I’m happy, after all, their test speed is approaching Mallard’s record!!

These four passed the test but when added to a train and subjected to some shunting there were more derailments than I could accept. Normally I aim for my four wheel, eight to twelve foot wheelbase wagons to weigh close to two ounces (55grm). Much lighter, and when being propelled, there is a tendency to be lifted by the heavier adjacent vehicles and derailment invariably results.

For these four I added two further weights onto the chassis floor, either side of the ‘fixing’ weight and they now run very acceptably indeed.

Dave