A Gent on the LNER Forum was asking about instructions and tips on building a rake of Slaters Bulk Alumina Wagons. Embarrassingly, one of these is yet another shelf queen and oddly I couldn't find any photos of the build. So in order to assist I dug mine out and took some photos of where I had got to and thought I would add them here in the hope that it might prompt me to finish this and the prototype conversion that I started in one of our competitions. These wagons were derived from the NER/LNER 20 ton hopper wagons and the Slaters kit is a conversion from the Slaters hopper wagon kit. You start by building the basic wagon and then add some extension pieces to the top of each end. There are castings for the bottom discharge equipment so you need to drill holes for them. As I recall the most fiddly and frustrating bit of the build was fitting the four sections together that make up the roof and then getting them to fit on the wagon. I ended up fitting some strengthening plates made from scrap etch. This is as far as I got, my soldering has improved somewhat since I built this and it will be good to get it finished. If anyone else has one of these stashed away, Fox do a set of transfers for it.
