John Brenchley

Hi Justin The LMS wagon books by Essery explain that both fitted and unfitted versions were built for these diagrams so the chassis you have bought should be quite OK - if correct wagon numbers are important to you though you'll have to pick a wagon from an actual photo as allocation of numbers was somewhat random. One thing to note is that as originally built, the LMS seem to have only had brake shoes on one side - the side with the Morton clutch - the plain lever was the other side, link by a cross shaft but with no brake shoes that side. I'm not an LMS expert but as far as I can tell from the books, the LMS style of fitted brakes used Morton levers and either 2 or 4 brake shoes. I think the conversion to clasp brakes occurred in BR days. Best wishes John

At the end of last year when I was looking at Osborns Model's website to buy one of the Farish 64xx Pannier tanks, I noticed they were selling some kits by Arch Laser for various GWR wagons. Not being too sure what they would be like, I took a risk and ordered the Hydra/Loriot and the Beetle C. This post is about my attempts to create a reasonable 2mm scale model from the Beetle C kit. Although the instructions refer to numbers built for diagrams W13 and W14, the positioning of the diagonal bracing on the ends means it is only correct for the later W14 design. The model so far with its first spray undercoat (the windows having had to be masked off) - I'll probably brush paint the final coat of brown for the body. The sides, ends and most of the chassis are laser cut from ply which is about 0.8mm thick. One of the limitations of ply is that it is not possible to represent the T stanchions properly as they only really look like flat bars but at normal viewing distance, I hope this is not too noticeable. Measuring the kit which I assumed was to N gauge size, I had expected it to be a bit large for 2mm scale. The model should be 52 mm long by 16 mm wide. It looked as if the ends were designed to go between the sides which would make the ends marginally too wide but the length was quite a bit short at barely 49mm. I therefore used some bits of spare ply to widen the ends to the correct width and fitted the sides between the ends. This gives rather wide corner bracing but at normal distance this was acceptable to my eye and gave me a length slightly over 50mm. The wheel spacing on the chassis was spot on at 32mm so the shortage in length was occurring at each end and it certainly looked like the support brackets for the brake levers were too close to the w irons. I do not think ply is the best material for a chassis as it is not strong enough for the V hangers and various other fine detail. Comparison with photographs and drawings showed that most of the chassis details were wrong anyway (V hangers on both sides, supports for brakes levers on all four corners and no representation of brake blocks) so I cut everything off leaving only the side frames and the W irons. I narrowed the floor of the chassis slightly so that when top hat bearings were glued behind the W irons, they would be the correct distance apart for the associations standard 7mm coach wheels. The springs are represented by being laser cut into the ply and the axle boxes were rather crudely shaped bits of ply to be glued on. Not liking either of these, I used some of the Associations old white metal spring and axle box combinations that I had bought many years ago and glued these on the outside. They should really line up under the sole bars rather than proud of them but again, at normal viewing distance, I can live with this. I then used bits of left over chassis kits to create clasp brakes, DCIII brake rodding etc and added a vacuum cylinder, various cranks and rodding, door bangers and the central steps each side. These were soldered together where possible or glued into holes drilled in the ply base. Self contained 3D printed buffers completed the lower part of the model. At this stage I have not attempted to model the tiny steps on each corner. The body seemed quite reasonable in appearance though until it is fully painted I won't be sure if the grain of the ply is too course. One thing I found was that as soon as the ends and sides were separated from their supporting ply frame, they took on a severe curve. I was not convinced that just the small corner joints and a couple of ply cross braces would be enough to correct this curve without risk of the glue joints breaking at some point in the future so I made up a solid body from layers of thick card and glued the ends and sides to this, clamping them in a vice till the glue was well and truly dry. This seems to have worked OK and has given the wagon some useful extra weight. I also cut and scraped the card interior to the shape of the roof so that a curved piece of 10thou plastic would have support over its entire size. I used plastic for the roof rather than the piece of thin card supplied with the kit. So overall, what are my conclusions - if you can live with the slightly too short length then the body is quite good but at best the chassis has to be treated as an aid to scratch building. If an etched metal kit existed for this model, I would probably buy it instead but I think when painted, this kit will look acceptable as an attachment to a train coming down my branch line.

Hi Tony Would you be able to tell me the wheelbase in mm for the Fruit D please As its for the Dapol model, I assume the etch is 1:148 rather than 2mm scale. I think the vans had a wheelbase of 18' so if N scale I would expect 37mm but if 2mm scale 36mm. Thanks John

Hi Ian I think 1906 or earlier could be a bit of a problem for you with the 5 plank. According to the GWR Goods Wagons bible, the first ones appeared in 1902 (O4) but did not have the extra depth top plank. Even if you could file back the top of the wagon, the door fixings on the kit look to be on the wrong plank for an O4. The O3 appeared in 1904 and would probably be your best bet if you carefully cut away the T stanchion (in the blog above I incorrectly called it "L") to leave it as a flat strap. On studying the book in more detail, I realise my comment in the blog about the kit not working for O9 is wrong. There is a discrepancy in the book between the words and the pictures. In the wording it states " On Diagrams O3/9 the end stanchions were parallel T-irons, and the side stanchions flat; on all the others both end and sides had tapered T-stanchions." However, looking at the pictures it seems clear that O9 did actually have T stanchions so if you model a brand new O9 fitted wagon when it first came out in 1906 you could use the kit without alteration. They did have sheet supports though which I think would be tricky to model in our scale. Best wishes John

Since my last post I’ve been trying to catch up with the backlog of unmade wagon kits that have been sitting in my “to do” box for far too long. Before giving some details and final pictures of each wagon, the above picture is a fun little test for the wagon experts among you – can you identify the wagons with only a coat of grey primer? They are all constructed from the 2mm Scale Association plastic body kits with the appropriate etched chassis. Well – how did you get on? The DC1 and DC3 brakes on the left hand two are a dead give-away for GWR. The next one is a bit more generic but it’s the 5 plank LMS kit. The plank numbers on the other three may help. The 8 plank as an SR open and the other two are the 6 plank LNER kits, one modelled unfitted and one fitted. GWR Diagrams O14 / O5 These two wagons are sold as a twin pack labelled as O3/O5. I don’t have a problem with the O5 description for the 4 plank but I don’t think the 5 plank is correct for diagram O3. Two of the distinguishing features of the early diagram, 5 plank wagons were the diagonal strapping and the side stanchions. The kit has a diagonal strap with curved feet at the bottom. This is appropriate for diagrams O3, O9 and O14 – other diagrams had a straight diagonal. The stanchions either side of the door on the model are L section. I believe this is only appropriate for diagram O14. Photographs of the other two diagrams show flat strapping for the side stanchions. (subsequent edit - On looking again, O3 had flat side stanchions but photos of O9 show T section) I therefore chose to model the 5 plank wagon as a diagram O14 similar to the photograph on page 54 of Cheona Publications book GWR Wagons Before 1948 Vol. 1. The only addition I made to the body was to add two vertical pieces of plastic to represent the protection for the door when it drops against the door spring stops. The picture shows a DC3 cross cornered brake arrangement with brakes on all 4 wheels. Although it is an unfitted wagon, I included bracing between the W irons as this is shown in the photograph. The O5 was built as per the kit but with the addition of a small circle of plastic on the top plank as protection for the door when it drops against the end of the brake shaft as there was no door spring stop. I chose to model a chassis with DC1 brakes (on 2 wheels only) but with the adjustment to cross cornered handles. The instructions for the GWR chassis mention that it is not possible to fit DG Couplings and at the same time model the DC1 cross shafts at each end of the wagon. While this is correct if you use the fold up support for the couplings, it is actually possible to adapt the coupling by folding it in a right angled Z shape so that it fits round the back of the buffer beam and is soldered directly to the floor of the wagon – the fold up support is left flat and unused. A slot also has to be made in the fixing end of the coupling so that it can be fitted either side of the central cross shaft support. Hopefully the picture below explains what I mean. LMS Diagram D1666 This wagon was built as per the kit with a standard 9’ wooden solebar chassis with independent either side brakes on all 4 wheels. The wagon is numbered 54680 which is listed as one of the known numbers for this diagram in Essery’s reprint of LMS Wagons Vol. 1. SR Diagram D1400 Having previously modelled one of these kits as the earlier diagram D1398, I decided that for some variety I would go for the later diagram D1400 this time. No change is needed to the body but the chassis now has to have independent brakes on each side operating on all 4 wheels. Being a 10’ wheelbase, chassis kit 2-332 was used with the steel conversion overlays. I must admit I find the conversion overlay really difficult to work with particularly as the door bangers always seem to snap off if you want them to correctly follow the shape of the solebar channel - I invariably have to solder them back on one by one which is incredibly fiddly. D1400 only just fits into my time period of mid to late 30’s and therefore had to be lettered with the smaller post 1936 style letters. As with all the models, Modelmaster transfers from the N Scale society were used. LNER 6 plank opens The LNER 6 plank wagons come as a twin pack so I decided to model one as fitted and one unfitted. This also gave me an opportunity to introduce a new wagon colour to my fleet as the LNER painted its fitted wagons red oxide. Unfortunately I did not have a tin of this colour but had some LMS bauxite which I hope is a reasonable approximation particularly after some weathering has been applied. The wagons were numbered to match the two pictures on page 19 of Tatlow’s book A Pictorial Record of LNER Wagons. Note that at this stage I have not painted the inside of the wagons - the grey primer needs to be changed to something slightly browner to represent weathered unpainted planks. The unfitted wagon uses the standard 9’ wheelbase wooden solebar chassis, this time built using the Morton brakes. Luckily the Association also produces an appropriate chassis for the rather distinctive 8 shoe braking arrangement used by the LNER for its fitted wagons. Also, by the time I got round to building the fitted version, I had acquired some RCH style ribbed buffers so used these as being more appropriate than the generic earlier Association turned brass style. So that's my fleet of open wagons complete for the moment. I need to get the airbrush out to do some weathering and then I can move back to building construction. I think my next project will be the GWR stables for Tavistock

I seem to recall reading somewhere (an article in Wild Swans' Great Western Railway Journal perhaps?) that the GWR did try out Pullmans for a brief period (late 1920s?) but then dropped the idea

All looking very good Julia I have a vague recollection that many blogs ago you wrote about that yard crane. If I am remembering correctly, it was an etch and there was some talk of whether it could be made available to others. I am in need of a similar crane for Tavistock and am not looking forward to doing it from scratch so if an etch existed and could be sold to other modellers I'm sure it would be lapped up. Best wishes John

I've been following these blogs with interest and am really impressed with the look of the weathered timber floors. The delapidated look is coming along brilliantly John

Thanks for your comments Mikkel, David and Ian I agree about the outside framing - I enjoyed building the associations kit for the Midland outside framed van as well - their slightly smaller size makes them appealing too. John

Thanks Mark I've taken some photos of progress on the train shed so will post something on that in the near future John

What with a change of job and one or two modelling projects either stalling or taking longer than expected, it’s been a while since I last posted on RMweb though I didn’t realise till now that it was over 18 months. Having recently finished the paint job on a couple of GWR wagons and taken some final pictures now seems a good time to add a blog about the diagram AA16 brake van. Detailed notes on the construction of this David Eveleigh designed etched kit have already been written up by Gingerbread in his 4 blogs on Building an old Toad so I don’t propose to repeat the excellent notes that were written there. However, Gingerbread’s toad was based on the original 1882 design with 4 shoe push rod operated brakes. I wanted a version that was more suited to my modelling period of the mid 1930s so chose to vary the chassis to match the version that was "modernised" during the First World War by fitting clasp brakes, self-contained buffers and a few other modifications. This version was given the diagram number AA16. By this time, the van would also have been fitted with oil rather than grease axle boxes and had additional hand rails and sanding gear added. Luckily I had some clasp brake etches left over from a 2MM Scale Association wagon chassis etch that could be used on this van. The wagon chassis was for a 9‘ wheel base so I had to separate the clasp brake etch into two parts so as to fit the 11‘6“ wheelbase of this brake van. I also took the opportunity to thin down the etch where it joins the two triangular parts together so as to better represent the rod connections that could then be bent to approximate the way the operating rods were connected (see bottom left of first picture below). I think David’s etch is meant to represent the original grease axle boxes and since these seemed rather too square looking and omitted the obvious join between the two parts of an oil axle box, I opted to remove this part from the final layer of the etch (attached to the footstep layer) and replace it with a large oil axle box etch left over from another kit (can’t remember which one and might not even have been GWR but it seemed close enough in appearance). The picture below shows the chassis folded up with the brakes attached and oil axle box layers soldered on to one side. One footboard etch is shown before alteration and below it the folded up and soldered version with the grease axle box removed. The final addition made to the chassis was to solder four pieces of wire into holes drilled in each corner to represent the vertical dry sanding pipes that are visible in some photographs of these brake vans. I opted not to fit the final sole bar and footboard layer until the body had been fitted to the chassis so as to make sure no gap was left between them – a tip learned from Gingerbread’s notes (its great being able to learn from other modeller's observations) Another thing I picked up from Gingerbread’s blog was that it was difficult to line up all the body parts if they were soldered to the top of the chassis one by one. I therefore opted to build the body as a separate box which would be screwed to the chassis once completed. This method also allows the roof to be soldered to the body from underneath which would not be possible if the chassis was already in place. David uses the clever approach now adopted by many etch designers of attaching the body layers to separate frames that have holes in each corner allowing alignment of the layers for soldering. These frames are only removed after soldering is complete. The only problem I found was fitting the corners smoothly together. As designed, each layer slightly overlaps the previous one creating a stepped edge that creates interlocking between the side and end pieces at each corner. However, once the three layers were soldered together, I found it very difficult to completely remove the tabs that attached the ends to each frame – any residue of a tab rather got in the way of a tight fit between the sides and ends. With hindsight I should have removed the tab on each vertical edge and filed it smooth before soldering the layers together. The tabs on the top and bottom edges would have been sufficient to hold the layers in alignment and can be filed off more easily after completion. The original version of the 1882 van only had the mid-level horizontal handrails and a couple of vertical ones by the door to the verandah and at the far end of the cabin. In later life they acquired an extra vertical rail on the other side of the door plus two low level handrails along the bottom of the cabin sides. I decided to be masochistic and make up hand rails knobs from twisted phosphor bronze wire. The back of the inner etch layer had indentations to mark where these should go so I carefully drilled these through all three layers using drills of about 0.3mm to 0.4mm, breaking quite a few in the process but I think it was worthwhile as the handrails do stand out slightly from the side of the van rather than being soldered directly to it. A couple of extra fittings that show up in the next photograph are the brass brake lever bought from N Brass Locos and the sand boxes fitted to each corner of the verandah which were made from scraps of plasticard – I think some vans originally had one box or bench across the whole width of the verandah but I obtained some drawings and notes from other GWR modellers that suggested that the AA16 version had the two separate boxes. I could not find any evidence of examples of these vans allocated to Plymouth during the 1930's which would have been appropriate for the Tavistock branch so I opted for number 8819 whcih was allocated to Taunton, the closest location I could find. A little modeller's licence may be needed to explain it's presence at Tavistock. Also, I haven't worked out yet how I am going to do the lettering for "Taunton" as it isn't on any standard decal sheets Only two other things remain to be done. Firstly some light weathering which will hopefully hide the annoying edges of the transfers – I don’t think I had the finish sufficiently glossy before I applied them. Secondly, I only had thin shanked buffers available at the time I built the kit but I now hear that the 2mm Scale Association has some 3D printed self-contained ones available – designed I think by Julia Adams, so I’ll get some and retrofit them to any of my wagons that should have had this style. A final photograph showing the brake van and a couple of other wagons on Tavistock. The diagram V18 van uses the resin body available from the 2mm Scale association and I have modelled it as one of the vacuum braked versions that had an iron roof and an extra small central ventilator just below the roof at each end.

Excellant Richard. The weathering looks very realistic to my eyes. John

I have found 60cm to be fine in 2FS especially with the type of stock you are likely to be running. The only time I had a problem was when I was careless laying a long curve of easitrac and let part of the curve tighten. John

Richard - as a PS to the above comment, in the pictures of the unweatherd wagons sitting on my cutting board, the inside is still the grey Tamiya primer (the colour may not have come out accurately in the picture though). It is only on the weather waqons that I have added the Humbrol matt number 72.

Richard - I have no reference to support my use of this colour (it was what I had to hand) and my intention was to create the look of unpainted wood that had faded a bit. The model is probably still a bit too clean inside and perhaps should be more grey than brown.

Ian - yes, Modelmaster do include GWR in their range and it includes all the letter sizes. If anything, the scale may be a fraction too large - not really noticeable for the "GWR" letters but I did find it apparent when trying to squeeze the tare weight and tonnage in between the vertical stantions of my mink C van (they should be next to each other but I had to put the tare weight below the tonnage) and also at the end of the Macaw B where the letters were a slightly tighter squeexe than they should have been..

Thanks Justin I haven't tried Fox transfers. Are they better than the Modelmaster ones? John

Thanks for your compliments Andy Yes, the transfers are from the Modelmaster LMS sheet, apart from the number 16600 which is from the GWR sheet - rather thicker numbers than the LMS ones but it was easier to get the combination I needed from that sheet. Richard - Humbrol brownish grey paint number 72, applied quite thinly so I think some of the grey undercoat is showing through as well. John

Before painting and lettering the two Midland open wagons, I spent quite some time studying Essery's Midland Wagons Vol 1 looking for examples in LMS livery. I eventually decided that the majority of the 3 plank D305 wagons built with the shorter brake lever did not have either side brakes with levers on the right but in fact only had brake blocks on one side . On the opposite side, there was a lever at the left hand end which operated the brakes via a cross shaft. Although the model wagon was essentially already built, I hoped that it would be possible to alter the brakes without too much damage. Although the chassis etch did not cater for "same end" brakes, if one of the brake levers was assembled in reverse, ie making all the folds the opposite way to what was intended, this should give me a left hand lever and hanger. On one side, I carefully unsoldered the brake lever assembly and put it to one side for use on a future wagon kit - I did not try to refold it as I was sure the thin etch would break into pieces. I also snapped off the brake shoes and push rods from this side but left the single V hanger. From a new chassis etch intended for a future wagon, I folded up a new lever in reverse. As there was no hole etched at the left hand end to solder the top of the brake hanger into, I drilled a new one and filled the right hand hole with a wedge of plastic strip. I did not want to disturb the brakes on the other side so did not try to thread through a new full width cross shaft to replace the previous stub shaft. Instead, I butted it up to the back of the V hanger and soldered it in place. The picture below shows the new brake arrangement after painting - the new hole at the top of the brake hanger still shows up in close up but I did not want to risk filling it with solder because of the close proximity of the plastic body. I may try to wedge some bits of plastic into the hole to improve it a bit but it is not really visible from normal viewing distance. I chose the number 16600 from the picture on page 61 of the Essery book as this seemed to match the altered version of the model. For the 5 plank D299 wagon, I found a picture of 37729 on page 53 which seemed to match the model quite well though without a central door banger. However, this number was going to be quite hard to make up from the N Scale Society's decal sheet without applying some of the 5 numbers individually. I therefore changed the number to 37725 which I could make up a bit easier, hoping that this was appropriate for a wagon from the same batch. I also left the door banger in place on the model as I thought it would be too hard to remove without damage to other parts and there seemed to be an infinite number of variations in pictures so who was likely to argue that 37725 did not have one at some time in its life? Finally a picture below of the two wagons with quite a bit of weathering posed on part of the Tavistock layout. Best wishes John

Since reaching the stage shown at the end of my last blog on this wagon, I did not make much progress while working on other projects but I continued looking for photographs, particularly of wagons in LMS livery. At this point, my modelling took on rather masochistic tendancies as I realised from photographs that there seemed to be some sort of beading either side of the corner framework and also near the bottom of the wagon side. This seemed quite noticeable but was not allowed for on the kit so I tried to represent it by fixing pieces of 10 thou plasticard on edge into the grooves on the etch with superglue. I then scraped and sanded them down to approximately the correct shape. After a spray of undercoat (Testors) it became apparent that the disadvantage of superglue being totally clear is that it is very hard to see if all the surplus has been scraped off and some stray remnants were highlighted by the undercoat. So out with the scalpel blade again to clean this up before another burst of undercoat. At this point I was shown some better quality pictures in volume 2 of the LNWR wagons books and realised that there was also beading along the top of the sides on either side of the doors. So out came a bit more plastic strip and another spray of undercoat. At this point I was getting very concerned that too many coats of paint were being applied and I think with the final coat of LMS livery, it may be a bit thick and is slightly obscuring some of the fine rivet detail. The finished wagon, appropriately lettered and numbered is pictured below. I still need to spray the roof a dirty grey and add some weathering to the sides and underframe - some dry brushing might bring out the rivet detail again. With hindsight (isn't that a wonderful thing) I wonder why on earth I didn't try suitable size wire lightly soldered into the appropriate grooves instead of the plastic. It might have been easier to get straight and a more uniform size so if I ever try another of these kits, that's what I'll experiment with. At least from normal viewing distance and once weathered, the faults are not too noticeable though in the photograph, the slight kink in the right hand diagonal strapping annoys me quite a bit. At some stage I might be able to obtain more accurate LNWR style buffers but for the moment, the 2mm Scale Association generic ones will have to do. John

Beautifully made kits and I endorse the comments about the excellent weathering. One point that puzzles me is that the W5 seems to be one plank short in height - I know these were lower height vans but photographs (see GWRJ issue 62 or 63) seem to show 10 planks fully visible on the sides plus the top plank partly hidden by the roof. This model seems to have been etched with only 9 planks fully visible. Have WEP perhaps etched the planks slightly wider than they should be - this seems to be born out by comparing the point the diagonal strapping crosses the planks and the position of the top door hinges relative to the top planks . John.

Hi Tom I like the tree - nice open look to it. Can I ask what method and type of glue you used to attach the flock to the polyfibre. Thanks John

The crane looks excellent. I assume it is a 6 ton GWR crane. If so, is there any chance of me being able to buy an etch from you as I need this size crane for Tavistock and was struggling to work out how I was going to make it. Best wishes John John Brenchley Perth, Western Australia

Thanks for all your kind comments. From looking at photographs, I think the corner framework is square section timber so on the finished model they should look the same thickness when viewed from either the side or the end. Therefore if the sides go between the ends, the framework on the sides should be thinner than that on the ends by the thickness of a layer of etch. Now that the kit is assembled its hard to measure but looking at my first photo on this blog entry, if anything the ends look thinner which would suggest the ends go between the sides. I've just measured the finished model with a digital caliper - I come up with the following:- Length - model approx 29.9mm - 30.0mm, prototype drawing says 14' 11" Width - model approx 14.8mm - 14.9mm, prototype drawing says 7' 5" If anything, the model is a touch too long but I'm happy enough with the compromise construction method I used. I think if I'd stuck with side between end for all four corners, the model would have been too long. Now I need to measure the roof that came as a separate piece of etch - my suspicion is that it may measure too small in both dimensions. John

As the weather here in Perth, Western Australia has been too hot for me to use an airbrush outside, I decided to press on with making another of the 2mm Scale Association's kits and wait for cooler days before painting all the LMS vehicles in one go. This one was for the Midland Railway's diagram 257 van. The date on the etch is 2007 so it has been around for a while and I have noticed examples of completed vans in pictures elsewhere on this site but I am not sure if anyone has posted any details of the construction - apologies if they have. The kit is a nickel silver etch for the van body and has to be matched up with one of the Associations etched chassis kits. The body etch is one of Chris Higg's designs and this was the first time I had tried one of them - I was most impressed. The sides and ends of the van are made up of a series of overlays (in the case of the van side, 6 layers in total). The clever part of the design is the method of alignment - each layer is contained in its own frame that has 1mm holes in each corner - these are aligned by using something like a top hat bearing or anything else of a 1mm diameter inserted in the holes - the frames are then cut off after soldering. The method works very well and I know something similar is also used by David Eveleigh on some of his kits so I do not know who to credit with the original idea. The picture below shows all the layers attached and also indicates the method of aligning the parts together round the floor - the ends have a slot into which a tab at the end of the floor is located. Also, the inner layer of the sides is slightly smaller at the bottom, giving a lip that locates over the floor. Almost at the last minute before soldering the sides and ends together, I noticed two small holes etched into the sliding door layer. Checking with prototype pictures showed these to mark the position of a door handle so I found my last remaining 0.3mm drill and carefully started to drill them all the way through with the intention if inserting a piece of guitar string bent to a rather square cornered U shape and soldered from the back of each hole. With hindsight it might have been better to pre drill through each layer before assembly rather than trying to go through all of them at once since despite being really careful, I managed to break the drill after one and a half holes. This still enabled me to fit one handle as I cut off most of one side of the U and passed the other long side through the complete hole and soldered it to the back - the short side was effectively pulled tightly down and just sits in the half drilled hole. The handle on the other side will have to wait till more drills arrive from Eileen's Emporium. The instructions say that the sides fit between the ends but after I had attached one end and one side in this manner, I found that the floor seemed a bit short if I fitted the other end outside the side. Maybe some of my soldering had not been careful enough but there was no way I could adjust all the layers now so I was a bit stuck as to what to do. I decided to bend the roof to shape and see if this helped me identify if I had the van too long or too wide. In fact both seemed to be the case as it looked as if the roof would be a bit skimp in both width and length. Perhaps I have too much solder between some of the layers and this has made the sides and ends too thick. In the end I decided to compomise and assembled the other sides and ends with alternate corners either inside or outside, making the body slightly wider and shorter than intended by the thickness of one etch layer. I may have to cut a new roof from scrap metal so as to get the appropriate overhangs all round but that will have to wait till next weekend. Did anyone else who has made up these kits have similar problems or is it just me? Below is a picture of the van in its current state, taken from the side with the door handle fitted. It has been cleaned up with a glass fibre brush and old scalpel blade to get in the corners - the fine scratches show up on the picture quite prominently but I think from experience on previous models that they will not be evident once the undercoat is applied.