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Looking good Kim, I am afraid soldering all the ribs was way beyond both my soldering and patience. I put a coat of primer on mine this morning so I can see the blemishes more easily.

With the kit finished, I moved on to the non kit bits I had decided to make. As mentioned previously a couple of the ribs are a bit wonky so I decided to fit side hoardings. A few of the hoardings still seem to linger until the late 70s so this one will go nicely with the Ellis Clark ones I have on order which I believe are unbranded. When the hoardings were removed the mounting tabs were left in place on the sides so I didn't fancy adding 24 tabs of plasticard from scratch building those any way. The hoarding was sized from the transfer which is 54 x 25mm, and is made from thin plasticard. Due to the pipe down the side of the wagon they need to be spaced off the ribs. I noticed APCM Presflo's have a pressure gauge mounted on the side of the body, connected to the vertical pipe. I made this from some plastic pipe and plastic sheet.

very impressive setup, seeing this does make me wonder if I can do something in our Garden....

Great job Dave. I always overlooked the BT mastiff as it looked very "squashed" but the work you have done shows it is actually it is a good representation. Skip lorry looks great as well.

I finished the kit tonight, the last bits to add were the discharge valves, brake handles and the inspection hatch handles. All was relatively straightforward so nearly ready for the paint shop. As I am modelling one of the rounded body APCM versions I fitted the APCM valves that Malcolm had sent me. There are a couple of jobs still to do, namely making the hoarding for the side which will hide most of the slightly wonky strengthening ribs. There is also a pressure gauge to add on the discharge valve side of the body, plan is to finish construction and get some paint on it over the weekend.

Hi Graeme, Thanks for your comments, I was a bit apprehensive at the start but it is not as tough going as I thought it might be. A week ago I would have taken you up on the offer of the kit but with the Ellis Clerk one on it's way I intend to standardise on those for future Presflo's. Despite a manic day job, due to lock down I have more modelling time over the last 2 months than I have had in the last 2 years so in normal times it will take me 6 months to build one of these.

I put the brakes on tonight, as per my previous post I am glad I left off the brake handles, these would have been in the way tonight. The brakes are quite complicated and the photos included aren't overly clear but I fathomed it out. The first job is to fit the brake shoes. I found this a bit tricky as the brass tabs aren't really big enough for the shoes which were literally balanced on the corner of the tabs. There are tie bars that tie the shoes together so these provide some strength and I cheated by gluing them to the W iron. The next job is to fit the pull bars from the V hangers. It is not clear from the instructions where these fit at the vac cylinder end but they just about rest on the edge of the tabs the brake shoes are mounted on. The pull rods fit behind, I had to trim these slightly to fit. Final job for tonight was to fit the brake mechanism under the vac cylinders. The rods on the outer components needed trimming slightly to fit. Feels like we are nearing the end with this build, just the discharge equipment, lid handles and the brake levers to fit then into the paint shop.

Very atmospheric, will follow this going forward to get some ideas as fellow 4mm to 7mm convert.

Thanks. I was really lucky building this that there were quite a few photos taken of Malago Vale which allowed me to capture the right details without going over board. The layout appears in the July BRM, I was looking over the draft article last week and have to say Andy Y has done an amazing job to capture some of the details in the layout.

Thanks Mike, I will have a look, I wasn't aware of the varying buffers.

Test run time, it runs like a dream The brake van is another ex M&M kit.

Major milestone tonight; the wheels are in. I skipped a step in the instructions and have left off the brake handles, I saw no reason why they needed to be fitted yet and thought they would get in the way and or get damaged. The axle boxes need a slot cut in them to fit over the cross member. I made this wider than the brass to give some wriggle room as there is no positive location for the axle boxes I found the easiest way to fit the axle was to fit an axle box to one side, then fit the wheel set and other axle box as one unit. The bearings are a roller type bearing rather than top hat that I am most used to but once I got my head round it they are easy enough to fit and free running. While I let the axle boxes set, I fitted the vac pipes to the end.

Play time tonight, testing the Presflo as I put the axle boxes and wheels in earlier. Remarkably I managed to get the wheels straight and true so the wagon actually ran like cream over jelly. Hopefully I should finish the build in a next couple of weeks and then get motoring on the layout.

Good tip. Our local B&Q is doing paint mixing again now

Great to see you back Dave.