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Manufactured by WEP Models. 23 Wellington Court, Best Street, Cradley Heath, WARLEY B64 5PB. Tel: 01384 566059 (After 7pm). |
| Built by Raymond Walley © Raymond Walley - All rights reserved |
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Arriving at Halifax
some years ago to do some demonstrating I found I had brought all my tools
but not the kit I was going to work on! (Murphy's Law strikes again - or perhaps
a senior moment.) I wandered off round the exhibition and bought yet another of
Bill Parker's kits, this time the Gunpowder van. I should add here I have no
interest in WEP kits other than as a very satisfied customer.
What do you get in the kit? The usual etched sheet taped to stout card, a bag of
white metal castings, bearings, coupling links, etc. There is also the usual
comprehensive set of instructions with background information, exploded diagrams
and a good drawing.
These vehicles where made of iron and therefore had rounded corners. This is
well catered for by a series of etched bend lines in the integral half side and
end etchings. Therefore, getting accurate and even bends is easy.
There are vertical stanchions along the sides and these were fitted by gently
twisting the locating tabs from behind after passing them through the relevant slots. This
serves to hold them tightly with no solder to clean up afterwards.
The doors have side stanchions etched in and, once folded over at 90º, fit in
slots and serve to hold the body together. This is the only difficult part and I
found (as with the Beetle and others) it paid to solder some brass angle across
the inside to hold it rigid before twisting the tabs on the door stanchions. The
solebars protrude past the rounded corners so some care needs to be taken and
there are several hundred rivets to push up. The brake gear goes together easily
using a clever method of bending the supports at right angles to the blocks.
This gives a positive stop against which the remainder of the detail can be held
while soldering.
As usual I used an RSU for all soldering so there was very little cleaning up to
do. The awful white metal buffers were drilled out and turned into self contained
units with steel heads by Doug Thomas again while
Ian Hopkins painted it in
early style to suit my 1900ish period, but they were in use into the 1950's. The
photo shews the finished model, which is an accurate representation of
the original. I would not recommend this for a beginner but someone with a
little experience should have no trouble. Altogether a well-designed kit at a
reasonable price.