andypops

Blimey…it’s been a nause reading all of this retailer bashing, mostly completely off topic! FWIW I am hugely grateful for what Ben and the team at revolution are doing, not just with this model but across the piece. Pushing standards up and giving us new models that the box-shifting big players don’t want to touch (probably because they don’t want the development costs). It’s amazing to think back just ten or so years, when all “current day” layouts looked the same because of 90% of the models were made by 2 large retailers. (However I do admit to missing the prices - when I could pick up 8 MBAs for £72 or 8 VDAs for £64!) Back onto the topic - I’m hugely looking forward to these stalwarts arriving. Having lived in and around South Wales and the Marches these are the main gap in rolling stock from the last 10-15 years. They’ve served us well, and I will miss them. I have a question for Ben or the Revolution team - when do you envisage the book closing? I am desperate to put my order in (well, to increase it 😉) but with this time of year and other family priorities I’m still saving. as you recognise, this is a non-essential luxury spend and family has to come first. I hope it won’t be for a few months yet, but as much notice as possible for the book closing would be a huge help to those of us budgeting. Cheers

Quick note with Vallejo - they have a special ingredient in their thinner formulation which I’ve found by trial and error is critical to the paint stability, if you use water or IPA (or mixes thereof) you will very likely get some precipitation of solids which blocks the airbrush and leaves a horrid surface finish. This doesn’t seem to be the case with other paints (eg Tamiya) which I regularly thin with water-IPA. The specific formulation Vallejo use can be made at home, but for anyone who isn’t a chemist (and even those who are!) it’s far easier to just buy their proprietary thinners - I grudgingly resorted to this as a final sanity test after having to repaint a Sea King model four times, and can say with conviction that using their acrylic thinners is absolutely critical to get a decent finish. Oddly some colours (e.g. pink) weren’t that badly affected using just IPA or water, but I consistently found that yellow was terrible when water / IPA was added - it went clumpy very quickly, like when gone-off milk is added to tea. (no connection to Vallejo, just a customer who was initially very angry with their paints, couldn’t understand why other modellers raved about them then worked out where I was going wrong and started enjoying them!)

Used to See Myfanwy and Tom Jones bobbing up and down the valleys, sure I saw them together at some point heading up past Cathays C&W works.

Thanks for the update Charlie - as everyone has mentioned I can’t wait to get my hands on some (I have a couple of your ATW 143s which are superb).

It could be anything to be honest so long as it’s in gauge! Warflats - Land Rovers (110 and 90, plus wolf from early 2000s), also Forward Controls in 1990s. Saxons, CVR(T) light tanks in either period. Also FV432s. Warwells - warriors (should be on cradles, all in the same direction and with turrets angled a little to the one side to stay in loading gauge), Bedford trucks (with dropped canopies), Saxon / 432 with Peak turrets, or engineering plant - both periods. biggest differences I’d suggest is the state and paint of them - 1990s almost everything was green and black, whereas from early 2000s almost everything lost the black (applied at units) and reverted to one-colour green. So that would be my biggest indicator of time period. always remember rule 1 though

Also looking at it - are you sure that wasn’t just the date the photo was uploaded to Flickr? I’m sure Fox was loooong gone by then. Their dates have caught me out a few times when researching - I saw some BR blue 08s based at Hereford which were apparently from 2015 the other day

Most of our Saxon got sold to Ukraine quite quickly after withdrawal...several press releases around about it. A very small number did make it to Afghanistan (esp near Kabul) in the early days but didn’t have much use. I think that was their swansong - I can barely recall them from mid 2000s. Remember their primary role was to get a large body of troops quickly from U.K. to BAOR in the case of mad antics at the IGB - that’s why so many were in War Maintenance Reserve but also why a lot were issued to TA regiments. Even a lot of the publicity bumf in 1980s-90s used to call them “battlefield taxis”. Although strangely there are hundreds of photos of them on warflats. Perhaps movers just seemed to like booking them, or felt they were a good training opportunity (being quite heavy and close to gauge - would test the people loading them!) However, the perennial problem - there are very few models of them around in our scale. There’s a white metal kit (BW Models) but they’re rarer than unicorn hair and about 100g each - so too heavy for a rake. Resin ones can be found from some suppliers (perhaps Matador models?) but are pricey. I think I saw on eBay a while ago there was a convincing Saxon model in a close scale that was branded up for the HK Police force - I think they were about £6 per - and could be a cheapish way to get a good number if you don’t mind some repainting. Sadly I can’t find the link now.

CMSC (Continental Model Supply Company) were a military vehicle kit manufacturer, mostly 1/76 but some 1/72 and 1/87. Most kits were resin with detail parts in resin or white metal. They made a huge range of vehicles, mostly British military covering light and heavy armour, soft skin vehicles (land rovers, trucks) from the 1950s to early 2000s, focussing on the BAOR era. They also made stowage, bridges etc. A massive range! They closed in the early 2000s after the proprietor passed away - their masters & moulds were sold to a few other suppliers such as Friendship Models and Kingfisher Miniatures, and some have been lost but other kits (such as the CVRTs) live on. Again, it’s a problem with so much of this being done by a cottage industry, rather than having any big suppliers in this area - I guess they’ve always seen it as too niche? The CMSC kits were incredibly well made and everything fitted well, crisp details and with very little flash - but these days they’re rarer than a rare thing! I’ve seen some of their kits go for > £100 on eBay over the last few years - not exactly affordable to stock a load of wagons! But they can be very effective for some small points of interest in a wider scene - this is exactly what I’m planning to do with mine. I’m happy to answer anything else but I’m conscious I’ve derailed this thread about the fantastic KFAs...if anyone else wants to ping me a PM I’ll answer, or if a mod wants to split this thread out I can continue it without detracting from the main theme

I agree with the poster above - they are just long enough but (a) don’t be tempted to trim too much off and (b) they need strong superglue or ideally heat sealing with a soldering iron tip. There are some aftermarket white metal tracks available from somewhere - possibly Matador Models? - but I’ve only bought from them at shows. I tend to leave the tracks off until after painting (esp if painting a camouflaged scheme) and do them last. Another tip is to put the ugly join in the middle underneath - it hides the join and you can sand it flat so nobody knows it’s there.

Yes, as far as I know - I spoke to the proprietor last month via email and they sent me an updated price list the same evening. The website isn’t the greatest but it seems that most mil modelling manufacturers are better to reach using direct comms. As an indicator of their other CVR(T) kits, this is an Alvis Stormer - an elongated chassis with an extra wheel, used as transport, or modified for AA or as a flatbed mine scatterer (sadly the mine scattering systems are now out of service but were definitely interesting to watch on exercise!) (placed next to the Sabre for comparison) Again, no link to them other than as a satisfied customer. Would be happy to answer any other mil vehicle modelling questions if I have the answers!

Here are some side by sides of the Scimitar from Airfix and the CMSC / Wee Friends Sabres. I’ve gone for a very plain Scimitar without any scratchbuilt additions to show what you get from the box - hopefully you can see they don’t give the right overall impression of CVR(T)s. The Sabre is much more (correctly) “squat” and has plenty of stowage hanging off it! a slightly lower angle to try to show the turret ring mod on the Sabre - it might not look readily apparent in the picture but it’s very pronounced (correctly) IRL. These are some individual shots of them both for comparison. Forgive the clumsy headlight painting on the Scimitar - at the point I painted these I had just build 8 and was losing patience!! I considered modifying them to early 2000 spec (eg changed light clusters, added stowage, potentially dieselification) but as they’re just going to be loads on moving wagons O didn’t see much point. In summary, the CMSC / Wee friends vehicles are much better as loads for these wagons, or for placing around the scene if you want other dioramas. The S and S are very good but do get very heavy on a long train (I have 12 white metal war wells and war flats, so only the most powerful locos can pull them!). But the Airfix Scimitar is a fair enough representation and light enough to be a good load.

See my message above?? They’re a bona fide manufacturer of mil vehicles at this scale, but I was referring to S and S and have qualified this above. If you would rather not have contributions from someone knowledgeable about military modelling then I will of course happily withdraw.

They are a genuine firm I promise! https://www.scalemates.com/brands/sandm-models--1924 However you were of course correct and I was thinking of S and S for the 432s etc. S and M models produced a lot of aircraft kits and also a kit of the Alvis Stalwart which I’ve heard mixed things about, but would be much better as a load than the much heavier BW Models Stalwarts. (If we’re on dodgy names, don’t search for that one on eBay either ;-) ) Sadly, so many of these kit manufacturers have gone out of business over the last 10-15 years. BW Models ceased about 8 years ago, and the proprietor of S and M models sadly passed away earlier this year. It was online until recently, but it seems their website is no longer online.

The Sabre used to be produced by the infamous CMSC range. Sadly these are long gone and are like rocking horse excrement to find on eBay - but thankfully most of the CVR(T) range have been taken on and reproduced by Ian at Friendship Models as part of their “Wee friends” or “Braille Scale” range. They have I think all of the CVR(T) range including Sabre (including I think the BATUS variants such as Sturgeon and Salamander) in resin / white metal. A little fiddlier to build but *much* more accurate. And the tracks are white metal so will actually close, unlike airfix! Most importantly - Ian is very fast and responsive to email questions, and the kits are about £15 per which is similar / slightly cheaper than the horrid plastic kits on eBay. No brainer to me! I have no connection to them other than being a very satisfied customer - and after receiving these I will likely be ordering even more! If anyone would like I can post some pictures of the sabre and airfix scimitar later for comparison. I can also second recommendations for the S&M models (unfortunate name!!) FV432s and some other of their kits including Sampson, Spartan and Samaritan, but I don’t think their Scimitars are as good as Wee Friends.

I unfortunately can go one better - they’re at my local sorting office as we didn’t hear the postman!! Really looking forward to collecting them in the morning though - the pictures I’ve seen posted look great.

Brilliant, thanks for getting back to me - much appreciated and this time on a Sunday too, great service will look forward to hearing from you soon!

Brilliant news indeed. Can I just check about the order book - I placed a pre-order in April last year and another in April this year but I’ve not heard anything yet on either, and I’m getting a bit concerned I’m going to miss out on these. Especially as a poster above mentions they’ve paid for theirs. Can I just check my pre-order is in and you haven’t started asking for payments yet? I don’t want to be disappointed on these... thanks

Sorry, but you are misinformed. The chemicals which actually dissolve the grease / oil / silicone on your dinner plate / clothes / plastic kits are called surfactants. I won’t go into excessive detail but try to imagine them as small uninflated balloons the water. If they find grease / oil / silicone, this is pulled inside the balloon which swells up; these big (relatively!) droplets are called micelles. You may have seen a makeup remover advertised called “micellar water” recently - more on that later. But micelles are what dissolve the grease into the water. Micelles have an enormous ability to suck up oil - you may have seen just how little washing up liquid is needed to decrease even the filthiest greasiest pan. Each micelle can hold many times (sometime, many hundreds of times) it’s own weight in oil. So, whether or not lanolin (or any other “moisturiser”) is contained in a washing up liquid formulation, it will still still have the ability to remove the vast majority of contamination in a single rinse. Otherwise, putting it in the washing up liquid would be patently absurd! Regarding the Halfords surface cleaner, I personally would be STRONGLY against using it, particularly on plastics or in an enclosed area like a flat or even a kitchen. If you look at the MSDS (materials safety data sheet) it states its primary constituents, and all of the known hazards. I would be most worried about the light naphtha and (unspecified isomers of) xylene. Both not nice chemicals, which will stay on your surface and could even eat away at the plastic or any paint on it. Look them up if you don’t believe me. Oh, and these 'surface cleaners' work by dissolving the grease into more grease, and this being wiped / dripping off or evaporating. So, the surface remains greasy but the silicone has been exchanged for an alternative grease. It is really not formulated for modelling with, and while you’re free to do your own thing, I couldn’t be paid enough to use it for modelling purposes in the home. I would even think twice about using it in the garden. * About that micellar water. It basically means “soap and water”. And that’s probably what is being sold, at many pounds per bottle. Advertising is a wonderful thing!

Agree with 34 B&D. Have had two of the recent design HST do similar. I didn’t need to use cyano to fix them; I found some thick grease (think lith-moly*) liberally applied to all parts of the gear mechanism did the job. My issue may have been different to yours but the symptoms were identical. * - not sure if Lith-moly is conductive - mine was a non conductive grease for constant velocity joints, as old as the ark and with no label. Ref the high speed movement / low speed nothing, think physics. You’re almost certainly getting a lot of friction at slow speed which you overcome with increased power. As the power overcomes the friction, you get movement. As a proof, if you have another similar HST why not try to run it on the same track at the same time? I bet this one runs slower and won’t catch up. The cause of the friction needs to be sorted as it could cause a major problem. In a worst case scenario, the motor and / PCB could burn out (both fire risks) or the gears could disintegrate (or a drive shaft shear). Unpleasant. As an aside, I’ve found that lights on modern Hornby are a law unto themselves. I have some unchipped locos which if I put on my DCC track either show no lights, both directions or for one (problem child) Class 60 show a red at front only, moving in both directions. I know it isn’t the locos as I have swapped chips into them and they behave fine. Presumably it’s just an issue with Hornby’s PCB on DCC ready locos.

Thanks for the thanks - this is exactly the reason that I wrote the thread, so that people can learn from my mistakes, and follow the build more easily. Cheers, Andy

Finishing Touches These are some pictures of the physically completed wagon. It's in a terribly painted state - I actually wanted to test some brush painting techniques, so decided to have a go at this without a primer - predictably, it's turned out to be a mess, and so I'm currently waiting to strip the paint off and start again. However, I often keep things waiting for a while to be painted, so it might be some time before I get around to posting the "Final" final look of the wagon. Sorry for the terrible lighting - but it is after 2am and I don't want to put too many lights on lest I wake up and continue modelling after writing this! This is the overall view of the wagon - and to my eyes, it looks a very close match to the real thing. NB that the holes for the brake wheel handles are located towards the centre of the wagon, as per the prototype. This shows one end, with the NEM pocket It looks to be perfectly sited to me - clear of the buffers and jacks (to allow free rotation), but broadly unobtrusive. This is a close up: As can be seen, I had to remove the lower portion of the coupling chain representation to accommodate the NEM pocket, but that's not going to worry me - the hook is still present. This is the other end, where I have no such NEM pocket In my view, I think the completed kit (ignoring my dodgy paintwork) looks great! I am over the moon with it. It runs nicely, and just needs painting, weathering and loading to make a cracker of a kitbuild. Summary Hopefully, I've been able to show that this kit is very simple and easy to build - unlike other people have (IMHO wrongly) said otherwise. I am by no means an expert; I would definitely still say I'm a novice - I've built other white metal kits, but never a railway wagon before - but I would rate this as somewhere between a breeze and very easy. I estimate that this took me no more than three hours, spread over a couple of sessions. The instructions were very clear, although I went a bit off piste at times without really thinking as I didn't read them carefully enough. Hopefully however, I've demonstrated the likely pit-falls that can be made, and how I recovered from them. Very little specialist kit or knowledge was needed. Plenty of photos exist online (in the usual places, or even just via Google image searching), and as the wagons are simple, there's not much that can go wrong. I would say that a pin vice with some drill bits between 0.5-3 mm and a scalpel are the only really essential tools. I only used the other extra ones because I have them lying around. I would give this fantastic kit a 10/10, for its ease of build, quality and its well thought out design. It is obvious from my dealings with Ken at Genesis kits that they thrive on producing kits that us modellers are happy with and are produced to a very high standard (the best I have seen yet from any other white metal kit suppliers), and I would recommend this kit to absolutely anybody. Hopefully, my work has been straightforward to follow. I have written all of this down to help anyone who is unsure how to do it themselves, and I'm happy for anyone to message me directly or via here and I'll do my best to answer any questions. It's also an aide memoir for me; I have three more kits to build soon, and once I've paid off my post-Christmas sale shopping, I will likely be investing in more! Happy modelling, Andy

Completion of the Bogies After installing the bogie mounts, I then had to build the bogies. After cleaning up all four bogie sides to remove flash, I then drilled out the dimples using a 2mm drill bit (in a pin vice) to allow fitting of the bearings. These were Markits M83 2mm "Top Hat" type (ex. Romford). I found that I had to drill almost all of the way through the bogies to get the required depth for the bearings - I would definitely recommend care being taken with this stage, as it would be difficult (nigh impossible) to repair the damage to the bogie if a mistake was made. I also drilled the holes for the brake wheels - I measured the diameter of the brake wheel stem using a vernier caliper, and then used an appropriate drill in a pin vice to drill right the way through. The instructions (and prototype photos) show that the brake wheels are mounted on all bogies towards the centre of the wagon, so I drilled in approximately the right spot. I couldn't see any guides or markings on the bogies, but it looks like the same casting was used for all pieces. As said in an earlier post above I am not going to fit the brake wheels until after the whole wagon is finished and painted, but this was the best time to drill the holes without stressing / bending the bogie sides. Once the holes were drilled and bearings were fitted (and glued), I moved onto the spacers. NB - drilling the bogie frames essentially makes these chiral, and so care must be taken when fixing the spacer bars that the bogie is assembled such that the holes will be towards the centre of the wagon. I will also say at this point that I decided to build the bogies without wheels - I thought that it would be too fiddly to try to hold everything in the right place while also holding the bogie frame together while the glue dried. I was going to add these after painting - although in retrospect, I should have added the wheels at this stage so that I could check the alignments, rather than have to adjust at a later stage. I used 10.5mm wheel from Peters Spares (part no. PS33); 2 sets were needed per wagon. The spacers, as shown in a previous post, come in two parts - a slightly wider one, and a slightly thinner one, with a pair making a "top and bottom". The slightly thinner one has (or should have!) a tongue, which forms part of the coupling later. As I didn't read before cutting (thinking it was a remnant from the casting), only one end will have this. The other end will be the outer end of the rake. The instructions say to trim these to 24mm. I actually measured these before starting to clean the ends up; one was 24.5mm and the other 23mm! So, I trimmed / tidied up the ends of all spacers to 23mm to ensure continuity. The thinner spacer has a smaller hole, while the wider spacer has a larger hole. I did read the instructions for this bit, carefully, but got a bit confused. I initially figured that these should have the larger hole closer to the top of the bogie - to give some wiggle room around the mount to allow free rotation, while the small hole should be underneath, and could then retain the pin that holds the bogie in place. That was the plan at least! Thus, I build the bogies like this, showing only the one spacer bar in place for clarity. This is the view of the assembled bogies at this point (viewed from above) This is the overall look This was proven to be the completely wrong thing to do! When test fitting the bogie, I found that there was far too much space between the bogie and the mount, leading to a very unsightly raised effect. Also, it wasn't possible to fit the pin through - it was too short. These photos hopefully show the larger gap - it's a bit tough to see in photos because it's all shiny silver colour, but stands out like the dog's doo-dah's in real life. I realised that this was because the bogies were sitting in the wrong place on the mounts; the pesky transverse spacer was pushing the bogie out too far. So, I needed to re-build, with the spacers the other way around - the thin one at the top of the bogie, and the wider one with the wider hole towards the bottom of the bogie. These views in my hand show the re-assembled bogie a bit better in the light. Although they show some bowing to the spacers from where I had to disassemble the bogies! This was repaired though. Once the two bogies were together, I drilled out the solid stem in the mount, ready to put the pin through. The small pin only has a short stem, and goes completely through the large hole in the wide spacer to actually sit within, and acts upon the small spacer. I hope that makes sense! Again, a picture says a thousand words. After drilling, the bogie was put in place (making sure to get the brake wheel holes in the right spot!!) and the pin tip (and just the tip!) carefully glued within the drilled bogie mount stem. I found it useful to keep the bogie moving while the pin dried, so that I didn't inadvertently glue the bogie in a fixed position by excess glue. Also visible in the final pics is that I've added the odd C-shape casting to the end of the tongue, to make the NEM-type pocket for pitting couplings to. This picture shows the much smaller gap, now that the bogies are correctly fitted. This is the view from the bogie end. Final details The only details that I was planning to add before painting were the bogie jacks and the representation of the coupling. I did the jacks first; this was by far the fiddliest bit of the entire build, and found me swearing at the tiny little bits which pinged all over my desk (and floor!). With a limited supply and no spares (since I was only sent the number needed to complete the kits and no spares), I had to crawl around among the dust at several points trying to find them. Quick setting glue and tweezers which aren't sprung (so they don't suddenly snap shut) are musts for this stage. Some views of the wagon ends with jacks. The couplings were added in the recessed part of the wagon - as with other parts, I measured the stem diameter with a vernier, and drilled an appropriate hole at the dimple before gluing in place.Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of this in place, but will show this in the final pics. In my final post I'll show the complete wagon and give some summary points. Andy

The Build I should highlight at this point that DRY FITTING EVERYTHING is key to a successful build! I found out at several points that I was trying to put things in the wrong place, or where I had tried to straighten the edges by eye and then realised that this didn't square with the pieces already on the model - so adjustments have to be made before gluing anything. The Wagon Frame The first step of the build was to fix to the deck the sole bars (on the sides) and the wagon ends, so that you're left with a sort of box shape. This was a slightly fiddly job - one of those when a second pair of hands would have been helpful. My personal technique here was to do one side, one end, then the opposite side and finally the other end. It's important here to end up with a square solebar, rather than a parallelogram-like one! Once all were in place and I was happy, I could glue. I simply used a mug as a prop to hold bits in place while the glue was drying, and when all four parts were on, they supported each other piece. I also fitted the trapezoid strengthening beam, as it would give me somewhere to hold onto while the glue for the (more fragile) sides was curing. All four sides (and centre beam) in place: I should add here that the underside of the wagon deck is crisply and precicely detailed to assist in the construction - there are nodules to help align the pieces, so it's really very clear how to put it together, even without the instructions. My only slight issue was with the alignment of the wagon ends - they dried very slightly out of square, and so there are some small gaps between the ends and the solebar. The angle can be overcome by gently bending the ends (i'll only do this once I've finished the wagon, and only if it doesn't look right), and I'll add some filler (green stuff or miliput) before painting to fill any remaining gaps. Next stage was to add the brake air cyclinder and distributer (valve) to the trapezoid beam (called the truss in the instructions). The beam has two recessed bits in the casting to assist placing them - the cyclinder went on without a hitch... But there is an overly-long spacer on the side arm of the valve gear. When dry fitting, the valve was spaced clear of the body by one spacer, but far too far from the truss by the long spacer. It may have been possible to drill the truss to accomodate this, but it would still have been too long and come through the other side. So I lopped this off, and then was able to fit it in the correct position. It is a very good representation of the simple brake gear on these wagons, as sen on the prototypes. If I wanted to build a 100% true to scale model rather than a representation that I'm happy to have on a working layout, I may have rigged up the air lines etc. underneath - this would be very easy for a competent modeller to do, as there is plently of space for it. But I quite like the simplicity of this without, so maybe will do that on a later build. Once the solebars werein place, I could move on. The bogies The bogie mounts that I described in my earlier post are fitted to the wagon body next. They should fit nicely into the squares cast onto the underside of the wagon body - as shown below. The incorrect way: The corrent way: Note that the transverse spacer has to lie lateral to the travelling direction of the wagon body. It doesn't fit when in line with the body - yet another good design by Ken et al. at Genesis, which stops over-eager numpties like me from messing it up! The instructions do of course also say this. My only concern with this part is that the underside of the square is actually remarkably hollow - this saves on weight, I supose (the wagon is already quite heavy, and I wonder if anything other than a Hornby 60 will shift a decent rake one loaded!) but it does mean that only the lip is able to take any glue. I guess this is one of the few weak points of the kit and I added plenty of glue inside and outside of the joint to try to give as much support as possible. This is what it looks like once the mounts are fitted These pictures show the amount of cleaning up of the bogies needed that I mentioned previously - probably not the best pictures, but the one above still has quite a lot of flash, whereas the one underneath has been largely cleaned up. This is all I have for now. I have to re-size a load of other photos I took before adding them here (pesky 1MB limit). But I couldn't resist a little piccy of the wagon showing two of my other "works in progress" - a CVR(T) Samson light recovery vehicle, and a CVR(T) Spartan personnel carrier! I was very happy at this stage - the scale looks pretty good and this had all taken me less than 90 mins. In the next post, I'll show the completion of the bogies and the final details before painting. Andy

Tools required Scalpel (with sharp blades) Cutting matt Steel rule - more to provide a straight edge for comparison than anything else Superglue Cocktail sticks - the cheap kind, as they're used to apply superglue to all of the small parts Caps from beer bottles - useful for putting the superglue into before picking up a small bit on the cocktail stick. Drinks - copious brews, or beer from the bottles mentioned above ^^ Method of assembly I have built all of my white metal vehicle kits previously using superglue - I have read elsewhere that due to the size of this kit, heating the metal with a soldering iron is a non-starter, as theres simply too much heat sink effect. Others (particularly more skilled kitbuilders) may disagree; all I can say is that I find superglue tends to work well for me, so that's what I used. Any reasonable brand seems to do the job, but I tend to stay with either Locktite or the Rocket glues. Interestingly, the least viscous Rocket seems to work well, although it is the fastest setting - so might not be ideal for use on all the parts unless you work quickly. I find the more viscous rocket does give a stronger bond. Kit Contents The contents of the plastic bag holding the kit contain a bag of white metal parts (I'll describe these later), and the large parts of the assembly loose - the sides, the deck of the carrier and the trapezium shaped centre strengthening beam All are incredibly well defined mouldings, clearly representing all of the important details - plates on the solebar are present, as are good representations of the wooden longitudional beams, and the mounting eyes for the vehicle restraining strops / chains. The instruction sheet is very comprehensive, and easy to follow I will point out that I wish I had read it more carefully, as most of what I'm writing I realised AFTER I'd glued everything together. Thankfully, it's quite easy to split superglued joints! I'll try to point out the parts where I made errors so that nobody else does the same! All of the components had a minimal amount of flash. It doesn't look like they have tried to file it off (as some other kit suppliers do), but it is very easy to shave off with a scalpel as it's so thin and soft. These photos show the main deck - This was fairly warped when I got it, but it is possible (and quite easy) to gently straighten it. The material is pretty soft, so I simply bent it by hand, and compared it to the flat desk and the straight edge of the steel rule until I was happy. I would strongly advise caution in bending parts though, as white metal tends to fracture easily, and I don't think it would be easy or really possible to repair. The rest of the large components were pretty well straight and square, or straightened as the deck. The bag contains the rest of the components, and contained the following: The wagon ends: The bits at the bottom under the solebar are to house the jacks, which are lowered when loading / unloading vehicles, presumably to stop the suspension rocking or bouncing the wagons off track. These are separate bits, I'll show them later. An air tank and brake reservoir. These are very crisply moulded, and fit into the recessed parts of the trapezium-shaped strengthening bar that runs under the main deck. Four buffers, and two odd C-shaped parts that I later found out were to make the female NEM-type coupling. The flash on the buffers was the hardest bit to remove, as they're so fiddly and I kept dropping them! Four brake wheels (two per bogie), two dummy couplings, and four pins for mounting the bogies The dummy coupings are a fair approximation of a three link coupling. You coud swap this for a finer scale example, but to me life is too short! The flash on the brake wheels scares me as they're such fine mouldings. The wheels are painted bright white against the background of the green wagon and bogies; therefore I'll only fit these after painting seperately, and after I've painted the rest of the bogies. There shouldn't have been four bogie pins. There should be only two, with four jacks, which were missing from this kit. These photos show a single pin and a single jack (from another kit). Initially I thought they were both parts for the jacks, but no. The four jacks were missing from this kit. I checked all of the other kits that I ordered at the same time, and found that some contained two jacks, and one three, but overall I was 9 diffy. I contacted Ken at Genesis kits, who was incredibly helpful and apologetic, and offered to send replacements immediately. I received them the very next day - demonstrating fantastic customer service! Parts for the bogies: The bogie mounting bits / pins. No idea what the proper name is for these, so will call them the mounts. Note the lateral parts, I wasn't sure what these are, whether they were there as spacers only, but it became clear later in the build. The bogie sides: These were the worst bits for the flash, but also one of the most detailed parts. I took a long time cleaning these parts up, and it paid dividends IMHO. The stretcher bars for the bogies. The design is such that they form a pair (big and small), with holes to go over the mounts and secured by a pin (described above). You'll notice that the smaller part has a long tongue of white metal attached. In my eagerness to get on with the build, I thought that this was simply a remnant of the casting, and lopped it off one of them. DON'T do this! ...on *carefully* re-reading the instructions, I realised that this is an integral part of the coupling design, where a seperate part (shown in the same pic as the buffers) is fitted over the end to make an NEM-type coupling female end for a coupling of the user's choice. No matter; this bogie can be the end of the rake, that I'll super detail in due course. I think this is all of the kit contents and prep; my next post will show some actual building. Andy

As described in my recent modification of a Bachmann VBA wagon to show an open door, I recently returned to railway modelling. I say "returned"; I had never really been away, but instead only been playing trains with RTR while spending almost all of my modelling time on military modelling instead. Thankfully, I had the sense to stick to a similar scale (1/76 to 1/72), to allow me to eventually combine the two. In the meantime, I've cut my teeth making vehicle kits of varying complexity, from relatively simple Airfix kits right up to >150 component white-metal kits from BW Models or Kingfisher Miniatures. This allowed me to get much better at handling kits and modifying things - although I am still by no means an expert! As with all of this hobby, it's a true learning process, so my philosophy is that my next build will always be better than the last. A bit of background - I've built quite a lot of British Army vehicles, including Land Rovers, various logistics vehicles, engineering plant as well as both heavy and light armour, which I would like to display on - or drag around - a railway layout. While heavy armour (i.e. Main Battle Tanks, MBTs) doesn't travel by rail, most things up to this size either has or still does. Particularly, light amour is still transported over longish distance routes, to limit track wear and the number of transporters needed to move formations of tanks. Two types of wagon are usually used for light armour, either Warflat or Warwell wagons. Warwells are used for the taller things like Warrior infantry fighting vehicles, while Warflats are often seen transporting the smaller Combat Vehicle Reconaisance (Tracked) (CVR(T)) series of light tanks. Unfortunately, no RTR examples exist. Bachmann have been saying since 2013(?) that they are designing a Warwell, but this is the much earlier type which was vacuum braked only, and retired from MOD trains way before my period of interest. A 3D printed example of a modern Warwell exists from Wild Boar Models, but seems pretty pricey and I've had a few other 3D printed models in the past which have terrible layering that I haven't come up with a decent solution for yet. The only option for a Warflat that I considered possible was the Genesis kits one. However, while I've been covetting these for about a year, I had seen many posts on here and other forums about how difficult they are to build, are poorly moulded, covered in flash or are otherwise beyond the averge modeller. I would like to say straight away that those comments are comlpletely wrong - I've found them very straightforward to build, crisply moulded, and overall well designed and pleasing kits. I probably spent no more than three hours on one wagon, including fitting the bogies, trimming all the flash and allowing parts to set in place. I'm doing a rake of four, so I expect I'll get quicker with the rest. My aim is to write this thread to assist anyone else who wants to build these kits, so that it's as straightforward for them as possible and to demonstrate anyone can do it. It will take a few days to put together (longer than the actual wagon!), so please bear with me while I add photos etc. Cheers Andy