Way back in 2012 I received the kit as a Christmas Pressie from Chris and on the 31st of December I made a start. started by looking in my library to see if I had any info on the D416 Milk Van. Although not as extensive as my stuff on LNER based stock I do have the basics of the constituents of the LMS too. In this case the info was to be found in Midland Carriages, an illustrated review by Jenkinson and Essery. in this kit Jim seems to have provided more in the way of details than is necessary for this diagram of van. He provides torpedo vents for the roof and their positions but referring to the book above reveals: “However, in 1904, the MR decided to fit many of its fruit and milk vans with torpedo ventilators to improve matters. We have no evidence that any of D416 were so treated” The accompanying photo is the same photo that is included in Jim’s instructions along with the drawing. Jim also provides a more detailed approx 7mm scale drawing. Both of these drawings show long handles for one of each pair of doors and there are etched T handles provided for the left hand doors. The photo however only shows ring type handles on the left hand doors and by good fortune I had some nice Griffin castings in stock for these. I am not sure whether the safety chains would have been removed by LMS days but I like them so I have added them. I opened out the holes in some short handrail knobs and soldered the chain into them before adding the hooks and soldering them to the ends. Jim’s Midland buffer castings are very nice but I don’t particularly like the way that they are sprung. So I raided the spares box and came up with some turned heads and modified them into “normal” sprung buffers. This is where I got to as 2013 dawned.
Next up came assembly of the main body. I have to say that Jim's van kits are the easiest kits I have built for getting them together and square with the minimum of effort. As I got to the final details I was looking at the cast whitemetal vacuum pipes and thinking that they would be quite vulnerable so I got some 1.5mm brass rod a few bits of scrap etch and some 24 gauge brass wire and made up these as replacements In terms of time spent I could probably have bought some cast lost wax ones cheaper but I did enjoy fiddling about with them and I am pleased with the result.
You make it look so simple, got a feeling there may be some of Jim's coach kits getting ordered soon Paul
I look forward to seeing them Pete, I have at least one of his 6 wheelers in my stash too (full brake if I recall correctly).
I've some 4 wheel coaches which this will sit nice with as a rake. May start them off sometime in the not to distant future once I have finished my maintainence train rake that I am currently on. i'm even warming to the fact that the tumbleholms need to be formed on these. great stuff Rob .... you are the leading light on this one. cheers toto
Somewhere I am sure that I have some photos of my method of forming tumble homes using a length of tube and some wide masking tape. I will have a look for them and post them if I find them.
I had to form some on a couple of Westdale coach kits a while ago and remember using a short length of broom handle and a computer mouse mat, worked a treat, worked for the roof on loco cabs as well. Pete.