Boris

Cheers Andy, I think the paint is what is going to take the time as I have completely exhausted all stocks of appropriate paint! First off though there is a huge amount of cleaning up to do, and once I have finished that, another clean will probably be done just to make sure, afterwards, I think I may just have in invest in an airbrush to get a decent finish off this model, it certainly warrants it.

Well, having fitted the roof, I have test fitted it all together: Next job, clean it all, clean it again, mask the windows, start painting! I still need to fit the dynamo belt, dynamo feed, and a large cast door hinge that goes both into the underframe and the body. There is a tiny gap at either end at the moment as the body is only sitting on the screw threads rather than being fastened all the way up becuase the nuts are a total pig to get at and I really don't want to fight them in only to fight them out again. Rail blue is calling... (Build time now at 192 hours)

10800?

So far an interesting weekend of tinkering with the GUV, the roof has been fitted out, complete with a 3 dimensional gutter strip (giving the correct "U" profile of the gutter) and proper 3 dimensional rain strips - no pieces of shaped microstrip here (which would have been easier but less rewarding), a image of which will be uploaded when I can take the photos in daylight because of camera issues. False ends are then added to the roof which slot down inside the ends of the outer body and the inner body, these have the captive nuts talked about earlier that holds the whole thing together. Because there is not a huge amount of space to move things round here, I have found it easier to bend these false ends outwards ever so slightly so they spring in, this coupled with shortening the internal body very slightly (0.25mm in total) makes locating the roof far easier. The fit of the roof is nigh on perfect, however there is no centre screw for what is quite a long roof, and I have found that if the centre of the coach body is gripped a little too tightly the body tabs will spring out of the slots on the roof and can be a pig to relocate, to this end I have elected to solder the roof to the body for the sake of a little bit more rigidity. This is in no way a reflection of the design of the kit, but as I have stated earlier, I have little or no feeling in either hand so can grip things too tightly on occasion, therefore the coach is being "Boris proofed".

Aside from buying bugles and frightening small children, some progress has been made towards the eventual goal of getting this GUV to run with the DPU and the Stove B. I have filed off all bits and pieces on the inside of the outside of the body, and finished off the outside of the inside. The next job is to prepare the roof for eventual fitting. This is where things get interesting as the roof is attached to a pair of dummy ends, to which captive bolts are attached to fasten everything together, these dummy ends will have to be a perfect fit inside the body ends otherwise the roof will be of a comedic shape. Firstly the roof has to be detailed, which is to say all vents, rainstrips and guttering/cantrail strips have to be added. The cantrail assembly is what effectively hides the join between the roof and the body and locates the roof, via a series of cunning slots, correctly on the body itself. I have attached a photo of the finished interior, showing window bars (one is a bit bent, but so are the ones on the prototype), door locking bar and securing chains. Some editing has been done of the picture to remove the peculier orange hue that the camera seems to add everytime I ask it to zoom into something. As the interior is effectively finished, I am going to prime it and place it to one side for safe keeping for a while.

Ahh yes, but it is an ever reducing pile. It's not fair though, I've even got the the wife saying to me now "you aren't going to paint that the horrible blue colour you paint everything else are you?". No lining on blue stuff!

That's looking really smart Paul, although I don't envy you lining it!

A little bit more progress has been made over the weekend, I now have all the brass etches fitted on one side (bump stops, hinge plates, handle plates, tie loops, chalkboards and label clips) and most fitted on the other side. I've made up the T handles and door bar arms, this wasn't as hard as I thought as they are just a piece of brass wire soldered to the back of an etched part, I cheated a bit and soldered the wire on whilst the handles were still attached to the fret as it stopped everything making a break for freedom (the carpet) whilst everything was being fastened together. Brass rod has also been added to the centre of bump stop etchings to give the required depth, chalkboard mounts and overlays have also been fitted, all I am waiting to do now is add the cast door hinges. Little more progress has been made on the interior at the moment, as I have been concentrating on the exterior fittings, just using the interior for test fittings occasionally to make sure that everything that protruded through from the outside has been filed back flush properly. Apologies for the awful photo, my camera really doesn't like doing detail shots, and it makes it look far worse than it actually is. There are also some really good GUV details shots here. (Time now at 142 hours!)

Thanks for that Tony, I've had Lauries catalogue on the computer for ages, but I've only just looked all the way through, and sure enough, right at the bottom, more bump stops and door handles than you can shake a stick at! I'm going to persevere with the etchings for now as I think, with a bit of attention from a file, they give the correct profile for mark 1s. This GUV certainly is finely detailed, with the interior set, I have decided to add some form of coach lighting so you can actually see what I have spent all this time putting together. Boris

Thanks for those photos Paul, they make it look almost half decent! As you may have gathered, both ends of the GUV have now been fitted out and I have moved on to the external body sides. To fit are chalkboards, bump stops, door hinges and tie back loops. Aside from the chalkboards, all of these parts are truly tiny, but I have found fitting has taken less time then I thought once I started a system. For example I have been round and fitted all of the door hinge etches, and am now working my way round fitting the bump stop etches. Many of these surface detail etches then have additional details added like door hinges or brass rod to represent the rubber bump stops, or door handle fittings, so progress is going to be nice and slow. In addition because of the fine tolerances of the interior etching, the internal surfaces effectively have to be totally flat and smooth, something I am tackling at the end of every second or third modelling session. I have uploaded a photo of some of the hinge bits and a finished bump stop (I am completely assembling a sample of each of the bodyside parts to see how they go together first) - doors also need grab rails and interior bars fitting as well as glazing cutting (but not fitting at the moment).

In the interval between my last feed and waiting for the opportunity to laugh at those who have been caught being as silly as me, I have pressed on with some modelling. The lower door on number 2 end has been fitted out and I am going to fit the large upper hinge set etching tomorrow. In the meanwhile I have had a play with the interior again and finished fitting the security bars to one side. I have also washed up again and cleaned all the excess solder from the part of the etching that sits against the outer body side. Now, the inner etching is designed to be a very snug fit indeed, the instructions citing tolerances of 0.008", which is the width of the glazing material so all spikes and solder must be removed as far as possible from the interior and exterior faces. Exhibit A would be one of the windows post barring and cleaning up. Exhibit B is a general shot of the interior etch, as the roof is removable as one piece I am going to fit a lighting system and battery so you can actually see all the effort I will have gone to making the interior look decent.

Not much to really report at the moment, aside from stating the obvious, that fitting out the other end of the GUV continues slowly but surely. I have also bent up the interior set, had a trial fit and am in the process of fitting security bars to the windows a couply at a time whenever I get sick of working on the body end. I have finally got round to getting some refills for the fibreglass pencil and have given number 1 end a bloody good clean and it looks a darn sight better for it. As a confession, I use powerflow flux because I find it easy to apply and remove, held under a running hot tap and gently rubbed with a paint brush. Also the Carrs stuff is banned from the house following an accident where a small child managed to get into the locked modelling box, open the childproof lid, and then spill red label all over the kitchen floor! It also helps that when SWMBO wants plumbing work doing the powerflow is handy for that, and I cna sneak it into the trolley in Homebase saying it is for the plumbing work.

After 3 days of modelling and micro-surgery all details and overlays have been added to one end of the coach. The last photo in my previous post shows the bottom door part way through fitting out, all hinges, straps and retaining brackets/pins have now been added along with door stops and lamp brackets. A nice feature of this kit is the chain securing the door retaining pins, complete with cut down brass pins through slots in fine brass castings. Next job is to fit the upper door strap and hinge detail, this comes from quite a large web etching which has to be aligned so the various holes in the end are still properly aligned, door hinge straps are then attached to the body as part of this etch. Bolt head overlays are then added, to give some depth and the correct profile to the door hinges, along with 2 more pin and loop sets. The final part is the door latch bar, which is detailed nicely with guides, and a nicely shaped operating handle, this sits correctly in a body top slot, and a slot in the bottom door. I really need to get some more fibre glass refills as this is starting to look very rough. Next 3 jobs are a)wash and b)other end. (Build time now at 96 hours)