Plastering Miscrosol on the containers continues, but they are slowly getting there, just one more transfer to apply. Tedious, but worth it. A complete disaster with the LNWR Motor Car Vans transfers. The lettering was about 1.5mm too tall to fit inside the framing, and in the process of trying to see if squeezing them in would work it rapidly became apparent that the transfers were suffering from old age and started breaking up horribly. Ah, well, such is life. More positively the Mica B is built, bar buffers, couplings and safety chains and some half-round brass rod for the (intentional) gap between roof and sides - all with Postman Pat. I hope. A spot of cleaning required. This was a faff-free kit build.
So while waiting for things to happen made a start on the Shedmaster GWR Caldon wagon - the two tank version, diagram DD5?. This looks like being another fafftastic wagon. Googling around straight way revealed that these were conversions, using any old chassis that happened to be lying about, be they wagon or coach (or, of course, the DD5 label may be being applied too widely?). This kit, going by the length and coach wheels, used a coach chassis. The differing chassis lengths mean differing tank lengths too and some appear to have a handrail at one end, some not. The plumbing on the ends of the tanks is very definitely in the 'representational' end of the market - some experimentation with making my own plumbing is needed (there is another kit around that does this much better). Also, the outer tank supports will need to be filled and then carved out to support just the ends of the tanks. It seems there should be two rods, with nuts on the ends, running through all four tank supports, these are going to have to be added too. The good news is that my nice new shiny roller did a good job with the tanks. It rolled them to about double the diameter required, but then finishing off the rolling with a tube on soft toweling was easy as the hard part has been done (getting started, square, without creasing the brass). The instructions say to fill the ends of the tanks and stick on the domes, but they actually push securely into the tubes and the rivets sit just before the curve as per prototype photos, so that will do nicely. There's some weirdness with the floor too - the cut-outs in the sides don't appear to serve any function (the ones at the ends are ok). Always a bit worried I might be missing something. What fun!
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