BernardTPM

It was a bubble car conversion, but, yes, I remember that one too!

Almost, Brian. BR1 and Commonwealth bogies had 3' 6" dia. wheels (Parkin, 1st ed. p.3), the 3' 7+bit" was the pre-Nat. size. It's amazing, half a century on from their introduction, how many people still don't realise B4s should have smaller wheels. Same applies to 1st generation DMUs too - I chuckled when reading an old RM article (1981) where someone was P4ing a Lima DMU and replaced the almost 12mm dia. wheels with incorrect larger wheels and had to slice the brake shoes back!

The Farish A4 body is pretty good, but there are two alternatives: the old Minitrix A4 (which, being plastic, will be much easier to cut and shut, though it doesn't quite capture the look, even ignoring the kinked hardrail) and the Foxhunter A4 (whitemetal, but a very good shape and not quite as tough as the Farish body to cut).

Beautiful work! Mmmm

Under the Whyte notation a 2-2-2-2 would be a double single, i.e. two sets of driving wheels each driven by their own cylinders. Crewe built double singles, Swindon did not. This is a 4-2-2. Big, handsome ones too! The model looks good.

I thought at first that was a Mk.3 (1981) Escort van, but in close up thought it might be the short-lived Astramax ('86-'94), but the date is too early, so it must be an Escort!

An old Farish Mk.1 roof is 133mm long over ends. Filing the rainstrips off the edges (replace with new, thinner ones underneath) improves the profile. On a 64' coach the scale difference makes the N gauge coach 4mm longer!

It's probably not worth putting too much fine detail on these 'printed' bodies as they usually need a lot of filling and smoothing to get rid of the stepped effect. Better to make the basic shape, smooth it up and add the detail after that.

Looking at that shell, an FR 'Barn' body in 1:200 scale looks tempting.

They should be, though I did a small revision a few years back.

Looking good, Pete; I agree the vertical joins should be just paint/weathering lines. Well done!

That's what was done when they were first introduced by Airfix; the TSO took a few years to follow the BSO and FO.

Aerofoils on the B-W hi-speed?

Yup, either Mk.2 or Mk.2a, depending on the style of corridor doors used. That roof panel will have to come off, though. The underframe is almost the same as the Mk.2c.

Re: the Mk.2 (c going by the LH roof panel). Around that time many FOs were declassified to become SOs; I don't know if it applied to any in that livery, but someone might know (or I might find something in my old Platform 5 books). The parts on the underframe can be rearranged without too much trouble. Drop me an e-mail.

The thing is you're actually trying to model a very small diference in thickness, 152 (or 148?) times smaller. I certainly think you've got the right approach with the 'butting' method. You do need to ensure the corrugations line up (I think they mostly do!) as the real sheets can only properly be laid that way.

Actually for the Japanese models done so far the track gauge is too wide as they have all been 3'6" (1067mm) gauge EMUs which would mean 2.71mm gauge track - only the Shinkansen lines are Standard Gauge. You could argue the scale should be 1:355.666. Oh, and the obvious scale for 597/600mm gauge lines on T track would surely be 1:200.

Yes, it is - An ill-spent youth collecting too many chocolate boxes it seems!

That car in the second picture, Paul - Ambassador! You are spoiling us

Yup, cyno = cyanoacrylate = superglue. These days I tend to buy the cheap multi packs from 99p/£1 shops as you can never seem to get to the end of a large pack without it going off. I have also used double-sided tape for laminating plasticard as well, but it's hard to get really good quality stuff, tedious to apply to larger areas and adds to the thickness. Come to think of it, I should probably say cyano rather than cyno

As a test, starting on a smaller and simpler structure, at the start of this month I made two mirror image walls layered from 80 thou." Evergreen sheet with Slater's Flemish bond 20 thou." brick Plasticard one laminated with cyno and the other with normal (Humbrol) solvent and left them to see what happens. Well, after about two and a half weeks the cyno bonded wall is still dead flat when laid on a mirror while the solvent bonded one just shows a chink of daylight, which wasn't there at the start. Conclusion, I'm planning on laminating with cyno and keeping the solvent for bonding corners and other places where there is direct continuous support (e.g. round a floor or ceiling or at a corner). Incidentally, if you build compartment stock, don't glue the partitions to the sides, but do ensure they are all the same tickness and in line; I guess building internal walls and intermediate floors would be much the same. If glued, there's a tendency to create a slight dimple effect either side of the partition. I build a NG Third like that just over 30 years ago and the sides are still pretty much flat. They're not that thick either; a layer of 10 thou. clear overlaid with a 10 thou." white panelling fret. Of course, the bodyshell is glued at floor and (false) ceiling height and at the corners. On the other hand, a side I built for a 4mm scale 1930s Collett full brake just three or four years earlier, laminated from three layers and over 1mm thick, has warped all over the place.

I think you've made a very sound decision on the seats. In my opinion putting in a seat base that is far too high (like the Dapol Mk.3, 153 and 156) looks worse than none at all, especially if passengers are then plonked on it!

I have great difficulty with this too; it's a race between the enthusiasm for starting and the inevitable newness of the next idea.

K2 was the name given to the cleaned up version with the revised bonnet and vertical panel seams introduced in 1982. The larger version (originally 300, later 400 series) came out soon after using some of the same panels. I guess they called it K2 after a mountain you might find a Sherpa going up!

That picture actually shows some of the many differences in the K2 series. The LH van has the original K2 grille but with the later bumper while the one behind has one of the three versions of the horizontal barred grille used later. There were also changes in the rear lights and lettering styles and, as you can see, different roof heights too with the original low roof largely superceded by the medium height one on the RH van (a higher roof was also an option, I believe). After the K2 came the final LDV 'Pilot' derivative, the last in a line dating back to 1960's Morris J4. The kit is most like the one on the left, but with the earlier black-coated metal bumpers (chunkier than the old J4 chrome ones).