The Best Bit

After weeks of hard work, finally I've got to the bit of carriage making I enjoy most - assembling the kit of parts I've created into a bodyshell.



On these WHR carriages the process starts by joining the recessed door sub-assemblies to the main section of bodyside...



And then the ends can be bonded on....



At last all the bits connect up into a box...



This is where the carriage usually starts to fight back, and 'Bodysgallen' was no exception from the rule.

The next stage is to make a removable floor which sits a little bit up inside the body. In a plain rectangular carriage this is usually quite simple, but on these WHR vehicles you need to cut away sections at the ends for the inset doors.

I find its quite tricky to get these right first time, especially when hacking away at large sheet of 60" styrene and you're making cuts of up to a foot long. I find myself trimming ever more fine slithers of styrene off the piece in an effort to get it fitting snugly, only to discover later on that it's now a little too small and then fiddling about grafting on equally thin strips to build it back up again.

Anyway, I got there in the end, and now there's the base of the roof made up too.



The next stage is to add the support ribs and fix a styrene roof skin in place - which is easier said than done - and mix up some Milliput to form the domes at each end.