B Set Coach

I mentioned that I seemed to have several coach based projects for the festive break last year, here's the results of the first:

A very light bashing of an Airfix 'B Set' coach, using the guide by Chris Ford in his Modelling Great Western Branch Lines book. It's one of those projects I'd been wanting to have a go at for a while now for the still somewhat embryonic GWR layout, and given a good majority of this upgrade is paint job based it was a good way to ease into the Christmas break. It still needs a light wash to bring out some of the moulded details but my supplies of earth brown have exhausted themselves.

The above shows an earlier moment in the build, and reveals that I actually used a mixture of two different coaches to reach the finished bash. Browsing a local 2nd hand market stall by chance I came across the two coaches bundled together, one had a good body but was missing a bogie, the other had a complete chassis but two deep grooves on the roof that look suspiciously like someone left a soldering iron resting on it! I couldn't grumble at £5 for the pair though, it was the perfect starting point.

The body shell surprised me. Unlike ever other coach I've encountered the roof is moulded into the sides and ends. I'm assuming this practice was dropped pretty quickly by Airfix, the later GWR autocoach I have in the stash does have a separate roof piece. It does need to be said though, it makes the bodies very rigid!

One down, a few more posts to go!