Whilst looking through the Westerham Valley Railway book I came across the pic below and thought I'd make the van body for my layout. The body is made to 7mm scale but could easily be made in the larger scales I'm not so sure about the smaller ones though.
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I made a drawing with the dimensions taken from an existing van and by guessing from the photograph. The drawing consists of one end and one side.
This was scanned, copied, pasted and printed to produce what you see below, the printed paper was stuck to some mount board and when dry painted with one coat of shellac, to harden the paper.
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I make two cuts along the planking lines very close together and the peel off the tiny cut strip. You can see these as white lines in about 1/4 of the planking.
This shows the parts cut out, the sliding doors glued to the sides and the various other bits of wood, metal strapping and odds and ends in place. When these are finished another coat of shellac will be applied before gluing together to form the body.
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It's a really cheap way of making a van or wagon and very absorbing it is too, mine is going to be flat on the floor no W irons by the way, I ain't that good.
The steel cladding at the corners is cut from thin cartridge paper, I also used very thin card for the roof to make it look really floppy, cereal packet card is good for nice straight and proper roofs.
I found an old tube of Seccotine, still in good condition after twenty years and used blobs of that for the bolt and rivet heads. I'd forgotten how careful you need to be and so made a bit of a mess off it, ah well.
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It's been painted with Humbrol matt to start with and then a few layers of thin Acrylic to weather it and finally just to try it, someones attempt to re-paint it, I used Acrylic for this as well, it seems to work OK with the brush marks drying out as does enamel paint.
Jim
I made a drawing with the dimensions taken from an existing van and by guessing from the photograph. The drawing consists of one end and one side.
This was scanned, copied, pasted and printed to produce what you see below, the printed paper was stuck to some mount board and when dry painted with one coat of shellac, to harden the paper.
I make two cuts along the planking lines very close together and the peel off the tiny cut strip. You can see these as white lines in about 1/4 of the planking.
This shows the parts cut out, the sliding doors glued to the sides and the various other bits of wood, metal strapping and odds and ends in place. When these are finished another coat of shellac will be applied before gluing together to form the body.
It's a really cheap way of making a van or wagon and very absorbing it is too, mine is going to be flat on the floor no W irons by the way, I ain't that good.
The steel cladding at the corners is cut from thin cartridge paper, I also used very thin card for the roof to make it look really floppy, cereal packet card is good for nice straight and proper roofs.
I found an old tube of Seccotine, still in good condition after twenty years and used blobs of that for the bolt and rivet heads. I'd forgotten how careful you need to be and so made a bit of a mess off it, ah well.
It's been painted with Humbrol matt to start with and then a few layers of thin Acrylic to weather it and finally just to try it, someones attempt to re-paint it, I used Acrylic for this as well, it seems to work OK with the brush marks drying out as does enamel paint.
Jim
