Building a plastic kit

The following is 'in the queue' for an MBF Journal having been sent in last year in order to provide some material. It details the building process for a plastic kit from getting the box to having a completed model. 

Enjoy! 

Back in 2018, Peco Models brought two plastic bus kits back to the market after a long absence. The former Tower Models Leyland National and Leyland Olympian models came out in a different range of liveries and are still available from a number of different stockists, for less than £10.

Older members of the MBF will no doubt recall the Tower models and will have built up numerous examples of them. As one of the younger members of the MBF, I would have been 6/7 when these kits were commonly available and my building skills at that age wouldn't have been sufficiently good to have completed a model, so these passed me by. 

My late Father acquired one of the National kits in 1993, with the intention of modelling a Southern National bus at his depot. Like many things he started, he never completed the model and I inherited the kit in 2018.

My Southwestbus fleet has operated three examples of the Tower Olympian back in 2013, though the vehicles did not remain in the fleet for a long period and passed on the same year, something which I've regretted since. 

I was impressed with the quality of the kit as it does a convincing job of looking like a standard lowheight ECW bodied Leyland Olympian. This is not something we can say about the Corgi OOC model, or even the EFE one, though it looks more like an Olympian than it's OOC stablemate.

So the announcement by Peco was of personal interest, as I became at a loose end employment wise and was looking for a project to fill my time. The low purchase price was also another factor, as if the model didn't work out as planned then I'd not have lost a great deal. 

I needn't have worried about this as the model has come out quite well, gaining a lot of interest on our associated 'Model Bus & Coach' facebook group and on the MBF forum.

With all this in mind, I bought one of the Riverside Buses examples and this arrived in January 2019. 

The kit as delivered.

 

It is important to note that whilst the kits are sold for different operators (Metrobus/London Buses/Blackpool etc) my kit arrived as unpainted grey plastic sections, with an appropriate waterslide transfer set. I presume this to be the distinction between the different operators. 

In any event I intended to model mine as a southwestbus vehicle, so it would receive my normal two tone green livery with a light relief colour. 

You also receive some simple to follow instructions which take you through the required steps to construct the model. These are worth reading, even if you don't intend to follow them. As I've built buses before I adopted a different method of construction, which worked for me. 

You also get plastic wheels, a steering wheel, and plastic axles to paint up, though if you choose to use these the wheels don't rotate. You also get a spare windscreen, in the event that the first one goes wrong.

The kit comes as a series of plastic sections, which you need to put together

My first job was to paint the two green sections of livery onto the model whilst there was no glazing to worry about. 

I chose to use Humbrol enamels on the kit, instead of my usual Games Workshop Acrylics so the paint time was slowed down as I need to allow 24 hours between coats (it takes less time to dry). 

I did however use acrylics for the interior, which didn't take as long. 

 

Roof, sides and front/rear with two shades of green added

Whilst I was waiting for the body sides to dry, I turned my attentions to the chassis and seating units. 

As supplied you don't have any protective screens for the stairwells, a drivers cab door or an engine housing. So these were cut out from 120gsm thin card and glued into place before painting. 

I also added three seats over the NSF wheelarch to maximise seating capacity.

Chassis painted, wheels painted then fixed with axle retainers fitted

 

I deviated from instructions when it came to the chassis, as I wanted to use whitemetal wheels (from my stock) to provide a counterweight for the model. Some spare cotton bud centres were used for axle housings and I secured these in place with a couple of strips of thin plastic, all of which I secured with contact adhesive before I painted the parts. 

 I was also a bit too keen trying to remove the steering wheels from the parts and so had to replace this with a Mark Hughes Leyland steering wheel I had in stock. 

The rest of the construction was pretty straightforward – the main challenge was in fixing the roof section which took a few attempts to get right. But the front and rear fitted fine to the offside section of the bus. 

Right hand sides together, along with roof.

front, rear, right hand side, top deck and roof fixed in place

 

I needed to add a little milliput to hide the joins on the front/rear of the bus, and once this had set needed to do a little filing before applying some more paint.

My bus has been finished as one of the 1992 batch of dealer stock all Leyland Olympians delivered new to Metrobus. These differ from the model in being full height and the rear registration plate on my model is in the incorrect position, later models had this set to the nearside of the tween decks panel. 

After the addition of detailing and the intricate lining out (which hides wobbly paint lines!) the kit is almost complete.

 I may get around to correcting this one day. A final additional touch was to set the destination behind a small piece of acetate sheeting to create an effect of destination glass.

I am quite happy with the completed model and it generated a lot of interest when completed on the MBF forum and on the 'Model Bus and Coach' associated facebook page. For the relatively low cost, I would recommend the kit as a good introduction into building kits. 

The 'finished article'.....

  

Postscript: In the middle of 2020 I was shown a model of a low floor double decker bus, which uses the sides and interior from this kit, with a slight extension at the front..... so I have a second example I could work with.