Goods vans

"How do I glue van sides together?" was a question I asked myself when confronted with my first van kit for many years. To experienced modellers there is no doubt a simple answer but initially I was stumped.

The first kit I picked up was an old Ian Kirk BR 12T Van, which has buffer beams that are part of the van end so extends below the bottom edge of the van side. Unlike the mineral wagon kits that I'd previously built there seems no common edge with which to align sides to ends allowing me to get the ends and sides square and level to each other. After a few dry practise runs I was getting nowhere. I was trying to use the engineers squares along with packing to align the sides to end in the vertical position. When turning the engineers squares over the solution stared me in the face.

Once each end was glued to a side it was an easy task putting the two halves together. Certainly not ground breaking but I'm happy.