Van number 2 underway. As a slight variation this is PS28, again GWR 12T van but diag V36/V37 with sheeted sides rather than planked. Again rather than a straight build - all I'm going to cover is any deviation from the kit instructions.
As suggested by
@Overseer I took a little more care building the main van body to try and get the corners to fit as snug as possible. With a little sanding and minimal filling I think it should give a smooth finish to the corners. Now I'm not sure whether it was this was as a result of my fiddling with the corners or whether it's a particular issue with this kit - either way I reckon the floor was about 1/2mm too wide and about 1mm too long. So I reckon if you build the body around the floor you'll have some gaps to fill at the corners. If you try to build the body to fit the corners then you'll need to file the floor a bit to fit.
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As mentioned previously - this second kit has the alternative springing arrangement of the wire and hook. This was actually easier to fit as the wire doesn't need any precise bending to match the hole spacing.
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Again following suggestions the W and V irons have been chamfered on the rear to reduce the edge thickness. Hopefully it will be more evident once painted. This also is intended to show the filing of the brake blocks, the lower set is as supplied in the kit, the set in the middle of the photo have been filed along the lines of the coning of the wheels so hopefully it can be seen that the inside of the brake block is thinner than the original.
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These V irons and brake units are drilled out to accept a length of brass wire, the kit supplies a little but of plastic rod to stick between the 2 sets of brake units.
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When initially positioned it's not quite symmetrical - the left hand brake is rubbing on the wheel and the right hand one has a little gap. So for this build, again deviating from the kit build sequence, I glued the brake units in place first. Once in place as everything was connected by the brass rod I could move the V irons to adjust the position of the brakes and equalised the gap on both sides.
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This is my second effort at fitting the vac pipes and cylinder connection. This time I have run the pipe parallel to the chassis frame and then bent the pipe to cross over to the other side, including a tap off to the cylinder on the wagon. The previous van build has also been modified with the same arrangement.
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This time I remembered to fit a little weight to the inside of the wagon before fitting the roof.
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So this is the current build status. So a few more details to add, I will make up a replacement for the brake levers but they should then be both ready for the paint shop.
I've still to add a little weight to the first planked build, it's subtle but the sheeted van is riding slightly lower than the planked version. So I'd like to get them both weighted a similar amount before I draw any conclusion but first impressions favours this second wire and hook method for springing.
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