Ordered up a couple of this crowds planked van kits as they looked quite good. Pictures will follow on arrival as usual. Cheers Toto
here is the ( dodgy ) photos. apologies. delivered in the usual plastic cassette box ........ comes the planked van ........ with decent instructions including parts list, photos of the prototype, photo's of the build progression and sketches. then the white metal parts ...... White metal buffers which I dont like but it keeps the kits price down I suppose. So I'm on the hunt for a cost effective replacement. and the brass etches which come in great condition thanks to the packaging. and there we have it. lets not forget the slaters wheels that arrived as a seperate purchase. First build starts soon now that Elgin is out the way. cheers toto
In between working on my competition entry I am also working on a couple of the Slaters examples of these. I am building 5 wagons for a fellow modeller who is suffering from Motor Neurone disease and has lost most of the use of his hands but is attempting with help to build one last layout. These are a bit of a thank you for all the help that he has freely given others over the years. I will post some pictures once I have more than the basic bodies to show.
A very noble gesture Rob. I'll bet he will be very appreciative. I'll look forward to the photo's. cheers toto
I had another look at these kits again and in particular, the White metal components. They seem very good. Very clean, sharp and well formed casts. Simple things like the holes for rodding etc are very clear and look like a very accurate fit. The only casts that may need the bare minimum of cleaning up are the corrugated end overlays. It's not a critisism in any way as we are talking negligible amounts here. This combined with the fact that a reasonable amount of the main build components are achieved by bending rather than soldering gives me great confidence that these could turn out rather well. The hardest parts will be getting the spacing between the various under floor support beams correct and forming the curvature for the roof panel. I think that regardless of the potential for me to still make a pigs ear of it, people will like these kits once they see the quality of the components as I pho graph them during the progress build posts. They really seem good quality kits at a reasonable price. I promise to take better care to produce decent enough photos in order to let you appreciate the quality of the component parts. So ....... Until the weekend ....... Cheers for now. Toto
