Putting together the prototype wagon revealed very few issues other than the positioning of the 'wee dangly bits' that hang from the frame and stop the doors swinging down far when they are lowered.
It turns out that these DZ's, in common with most narrow gauge rolling stock I've ever tried to model, are not nice and symmetrical.
As you may recall from previous posts I began the DZ project by making one of the three sets of doors which make up each side and then casting copies of that which I joined together to make one complete wagon side.
The original cast came complete with dangly bits which meant that when three of them were put together they were spaced identically, and evenly, on each third of the wagon.
The catch is that the real wagons, it turns out, are not so straightforward. Himself examined a couple of them at Dinas and noticed that the 2nd and 5th WDB (wee dangly bit) are positioned differently relative to the rest of the door unit.
You can see in this picture below of one of the original wagon sides (bottom) and one of the new ones (top)how the positions differ.
Not only that but on the model they were slightly restricting the bogie swing in their original positions.
Fortunately it's been relatively simple to correct the error. I went back to the master and simply chopped the offending DB's off, and repositioned them. Resin parts stick excellently with superglue and as the master is stuck onto a backing sheet of styrene they're not about to get knocked off.
All that was left was to carve off the old hinge detail and replace with new styrene strip and then produce a new silicone mould and get casting again.
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