Building a JLTRT Gresley Coach kit
This coach kit was a slight impulse buy from the Warley show in 2006. I had seen the website pictures but it was seeing the models in Pete's showcase that convinced me to spend some money. The kit I chose was the 3rd class corridor model.
It doesn't appear to be a cheap kit at £180 (ish) but the weight of the box alone tells you this is going to be something worth the money. (I had to carry the darned thing round the rest of the show after buying it; mail order is the way to go!) A trip to the Phoenix precision paint stand got me the teak colour and the base coat required for the wood grain effect.
The instructions are somewhat basic but point you in the right direction, I suspect JTLRT think you have some knowledge of the prototype and kit building in general.
I did a dry run of the kit with lots of blue tac and sellotape just to see the general run of things. One thing that was apparent was that the body sides would need to be assembled around the coach interior rather than have the interior drop in when complete, there is no way to lever it in after the body sides are glued together. The other thing that struck me was that I would need to build and paint each side before it was assembled, a bit of a completion backwards principle for me but I was willing to give it a try.
I have built a few "OO" gauge Comet kits previously and the normal advice for achieving the teak effect is to use a fine sable haired brush and dry brush the paint on to achieve the wood grain effect. On "O" gauge this looked a bit smeary when I practiced on some scrap so I decided to use a bristle brush and have more of an attacking attitude (this is in no small way to having watched the weathering techniques demonstrated by the men from DEMU at the same show, how do they have the courage to slap that much paint on then calmly wipe it off to just the right level to produce the excellent weathering?
Having painted the sides and assembled the chassis and interior I had another dry run to see if I had missed anything, all looked good.
I must admit to being reluctant to use superglue as I have always thought it was a one shot thing that required right first time precision, but I persevered with the instructions and was surprised to find how easy it was to construct. Here's another tip I found useful; apply the superglue by cocktail stick rather than straight from the tube, you have far more control and can always add another dab. It's a lot harder to wipe the stuff off when too much is applied especially if you have just painted it. The only thing I found to the kit's disadvantage is the great weight of all the assembled components, it weighs an absolute ton!
Having got the beast to 95% complete I reckon it won't be long before I have to buy another, the full brake looks very nice and it might give me some incentive to hurry up and finish the DJH A4 kit that has been sitting around for nearly two years now.
