SALTY

Wheels arrived and we have some completed pca’s

Little more progress, inspection saloon completed and a little more work done on the cement tanks. Awaiting wheels to Finnish these off.

Few jobs done over lockdown. skytrex mk1’s all now have added detail and are finnished, my easybuild mk1 rmb is likewise finnished. I’ve started some skytrex pca’s though waiting wheels to complete assembly. plus did a tad more on the inspection saloon.

Well transfers on and I’m really happy how it’s come out!

Paint applied and it sort of looks like Teesside steelmaster.

While deciding what colour to paint 501 - no one seems to do/or know the correct colour I’ve dcc sound fitted the chassis. Adding a large speaker to the setup, this means fitting the xl5 chip into the tanks.

Little more done on the 37 however had a disaster with painting, seems bsc blue is a lot darker than the livery 501 was in. At at least it’ll make a decent base coat, but frustrating.

Other cab added, a lack of primer has brought a halt to proceedings but apart from a few mods to the bufferbeams that’s the body mods complete

Am really happy with progress, just the other end to do and a few small mods

The cabs are Laurie mm1. I’d say there’s half a mm in the bonnet width but the rest lines up well. I could of just replaced the cabs, but I’d need alternative glazing then. Plus the valance doesn’t line up with the Heljan body. Like I said I like to do things differently.

Yes Jim, a transplant has occoured

Start of a new project, seen this conversion done before, but I like to do things a little differently. Take one 37/4, paint strip and let surgery commence.

The suspension bar works fine a you don’t effect that.

Hi jim unfortunately not as I’d like to fit an interior. The side roll on the etches means that to make the chassis removable it’d have to be rather narrow, once if assemble a full coach I will look at various methods but I’m thinking some form of underside support.

I had a look at one of the mk2’s today, this actually looks like a decent kit at first viewing. I’m sort of making assembly up as I go along but the method I adopted was cut the coach in half, then Cut out the The part under the cantrail leaving just the ends. I glued plastic strip on the edge on the etch then glued into position. The instructions advise to use wood as the frame but how you get internal access to the coach if you do that is beyond me. So I will utilise part of the triang chassis but in a way that it can be removed. Here’s how far I got this aft. I think scale wheels will give me the correct ride height. Compared to a modified skytrex mk1 it looks to measure up correctly.