fodenway

i too was disappointed with Oxford's Zephyr, particularly the grille area - far too simplified. I also thought the hubcaps were too flat, not capturing the slightly conical profile of Fords ubiquitous "dog dish" caps of the time. Am I right in thinking that the Husky version was a little exaggerated in width in relation to its length? I haven't had one for many years, so can't make a comparison. I wish that Oxford would revise the tooling and produce a Mk111 Zodiac instead.

Be VERY careful using aerosol paints on Minix plastics, I've tried several from different manufacturers over many years - CarPlan, Dupli-Color, Halfords and Hycote amongst them, and every time I've ended up with what I can only describe as "swirl marks" on the surface. Try on a scrap body first! (If anyone knows of a "safe" combination of primers and paints to use, please let us know.)

I make mirrors from tinfoil (take-away trays are the ideal thickness). Oblong ones can be cut with scissors, and round ones punched out using a piece of brass tube of the required diameter sharpened internally with a drill bit. The resulting heads are epoxied to a length of fishing line, which has the advantage of flexibility to resist handling damage. For windscreen wipers I use the etched ones for various classes of diesel loco by several different makers.

I'm looking for a 1/50 model of a 1980's bus or coach ( but not the Joal Volvo) such as would have been used by a British provincial operator. I don't want ex-LT Routemasters or other "heritage fleet" types. Kit or out-of-the-box, new or secondhand would be fine. Detail and proportion must be good - any suggestions?

Oxford are quite accommodating with requests - if you have any photos, livery details and registration numbers of such vans, send them in, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Most, if not all, of these are available from Road Transport Images!

Fox Transfers still do the former Roadscale National Coal Board transfers in 4mm scale, check their website for prices etc.

Giles, that is truly excellent work on the TK. I have just bought the Hales Cakes van from a dealer in Portugal for a friend, and it's rather a nice model. The way you have reworked yours provides very convincing speed and smooth, steady steering action rather than the jerky jackrabbit motion normally seen in R/C trucks. The brake lights are a nice touch. Congratulations, very impressive, Kevin.

It will be interesting to compare this with the old EFSI model, which was good in its day (except for the wheels).

Very well done, that man! And good to see tax discs and operators licence discs in the windscreens, easy to do and adds realism, but left off by the vast majority of modellers!

Dave, "240" referred to the van's carrying capacity, i.e. 240 cubic feet. Hope that helps, Kevin

De Agostini have recently suspended distribution of their Dinky range "temporarily" for unspecified reasons. There is speculation that it was a marketing trial that did not meet expectations (possibly due to being run in tandem with the Atlas releases, which are continuing). My latest Atlas arrival last week being the Bedford TK tipper, although the next issue Guy Flat truck is already appearing for sale on Ebay - Atlas release schedules seem to vary widely.

The DeAgostini range may well be marketed only in certain geographical outlets, I have yet to find any in any of the W H Smiths branches in Lancashire and Yorkshire that I visit often. The Atlas Dinky range ran to eighty models, and DeAgostini plan to issue the same castings but in different colours to Atlas (their subsidiary company). This will provide alternatives for collectors, but I wonder what they will do when they come to the Leyland Octopus tanker. Dinky originally only did the Esso livery on the tin-tank version, their later Shell-BP and the rare "Corn Products" promotional had a new, more modern style plastic moulding instead of the previous tin pressing. It would be nice to see it in the earlier red/green Shell-BP livery - we will have to wait and see.