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1) The Mink D vans were rated at 10 tons all their lives according to Atkins et al. Tare 9-10. 2) Yes, if you use the 25" letter 1904 livery. Numbers were dropped from the end for the post 1923 livery with 16" letters however. 3) I've used the HMRS "GWR goods vehicle insignia" pack for all my kits.

I found it a bit thick on my first wagon I painted. However that was easily resolved by further thinning and using a couple of coats. I have several more kits lined up for an attempt at spraying it. I've got several different good stock colours from them and the LMS grey was the worst but others have been fine for applying by brush.

All well and good quoting some blurb on the site. However you cannot follow the instructions as the site automatically takes payment on order. If you try to cancel the payment, the order is not created.

Hi Shaun, good timing. I managed to grab a bit of modelling time recently and the end result was this: The horizontal plank has gone and planks scribed as per the pic in Peter Tatlow's book. I've also cleaned up the 9' chassis, the 10' one awaits further detailing (extending the strapping down etc)

The GWR open looks great, nicely "battle scarred" with it's replacement buffers and axle boxes etc.

Nice strawman. Ignoring the irrelevance of the price of an OR wagon to your coach kits, I would presume the answer is still "none" but for a completely different reason.

They were called that back here in the 70's when we had the likes of Lima's wheels.

Kinda missing the point, the main "attention to detail" people are alluding to is getting the simple basics right, not adding a multitude of fiddly little bits that add to the cost. Larry, please do tell us how many of your coach kits you decided to make by just drawing up one side and saying "sod 'em, I can't be bothered to do the other side so I'll just use 2 of the same side in one packet and tell anyone who complains that it'll do" ...?

Very nice, shows how research and design can be done properly.

You could be on to something here... Perhaps next time there is announcement they could take this into account. Imagine GWR Toplights being announced by Oxford Rail - to get round all the cries of "Oh but why oh why didn't you do Diagram XYZ???" they could model two completely different diagrams of coach on each side, doubling their sales potential and giving more variety to the modeller at less cost. Combined with GWR livery on one side and BR(W) livery on the other, job's a good'un! Not sure on the ARE emphasis? They already WERE, hence being able to tell what the problems are with the model.

Exactly, however on the one hand people whine for better RTR models but then when items like this are about, anyone pointing out errors is deemed wrong and "it's fine". Nowt as queer as folk. Maybe they had a different bar that they were raising the standard from and thought Triang was current state of the art?

Bare in mind also that that is actually the old Mainline body on the Bachmann in your pic. The retooled Bachmann version is even higher detail and easily identifiable by lack of the areola on the top of the dome.

Apart from the missing vac cylinder, the handed vac pipes not being handed on one end, the sides being identical to each other when they should be mirror images, the missing partition locators at the top, yeah, it's appears to capture the look OK.

I've just a quick look in my Tatlow book and came to the same conclusion. Hard to tell when there isn't even a vac cylinder on the Oxford version... The underframe looks very good bar that glaring omission.

That's not the partition guides you're looking at (not sure what they are supposed to be actually! Capping strips?). There ought to be a plank with notches in sticking up above the top plank, matching the 3 notches in the bottom plank on the left of this model.

I'm slowly working my way through this interesting thread. I've been trying to think of projects where I could use one, seeing Rob's use for making a planked roof got me interested. Then I saw this old post... A big grin crossed my face as I make lots of gaskets for my bike, cylinders, carbs etc and its quite tedious but essential. A Silhouette would be perfect for the job! Seen the Portrait for £103 now, so looks like I'll be getting one soon.

Please tell me you are not using Windows Defender to secure your PC. Even Microsoft themselves don't regard it as a serious security product.

It's not a mad idea SRman, I've tried that myself. Have to admit it didn't work out quite as I hoped as the stock GWR freight grey is quite dark. It might work better on a lighter grey though.

Agreed it's not as easy on the kits with underframe detail on floor but still doable. I just cut the bits to fit in all the gaps, two layers works well. This one is a Ratio kit, turns out I've not got round to doing the PD ones yet.

I fell for one a couple of months back (on sale @ £115 from Collett's Models), a very nice looking loco even if not my usual region.

What weight are you looking to get with your wagons? I manage to get up to 30g no problem using sheet lead. Maybe there's too much dead space between those balls to get the weight up easily. I used wire for the tarp rail too, no way is the plastic rod supplied ever going to be of any use for that purpose.

By your logic then ALL the models should have a top feed and the same whistles. But they don't.

Yes, back in December 2014 #141 and then again a year later in December 2015 #381. A PM about the same to DJ went ignored and is still unread. I finally mailed Hattons direct January this year and got the reasoning regarding the business case for omission. For those with condescending remarks towards Edwardian for being disappointed about the omission, here's a reminder of what was originally promised from post #1.

And with a visible gap around the edge. There is also a horrible gap at the base of the buffer between the square base and round section. I'm wondering if the safety valve and dome will be cleaned up on the final models so they actually look like sheet metal and not cast iron? The dome also shouldn't merge smoothly into the boiler cladding like it does here. There is a distinct lip on the real thing.

It's been working on a fresh build laptop since xmas, so I have now got a new larger SSD for my main PC, copied the image from my old SSD and am about to attempt an upgrade. Wish me luck, this may be my last posting on here....