Tuesday 13 March 2018

Breaking The Rules

I am one of life's rule-followers.

If there's a queue, I'll stand it in. If there's a notice, I'll obey it.

All of which makes me a little uneasy about casting aside the instructions for putting together the Dundas kit for the WHHR Bro Madog carriage, but I think I'm doing it for the right reasons.


Many years ago when scratch building our carriages we realised that it made more sense to have the roof fixed in place and leave the floor removable.

On most plastic kits, though, just like this one, you are advised to build the body shell by fixing the side end pieces onto the floor and leave gluing on the roof until last.

The problem with this is what you do when it comes to glazing and varnishing the carriage?

If you fit the glazing and then glue the roof on, making a sealed box, when you come to give it a protective coat of varnish you end up spraying (and ruining) the glazing.

If you don't fix the roof down, so enabling you to spray it without the glazing in there, then you have to run the gauntlet of using solvent to secure the roof later and any runs, spills or drips could ruin all your hard work.

Keeping the floor / chassis removable until the very last minute solves these problems, which is why we do it that way.

So although it looks like I've built the carriage conventionally in the picture above, the floor is, in fact, removable.


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