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Review of a (typical) Sidelines wagon kit

photo courtesy of Sidelines / Pepper7 and used with permission

Quick review:

Open packet, centre chassis on up-turned body, apply a few drops of ACC on the inside, drill 0.7mm hole in "buffers", cut 2 dressmaking pins to twice length of buffer height, fix buffer to wagon in centre of end of chassis (ACC), fix a pin in each buffer with ACC, paint, enjoy!

photo courtesy of Sidelines / Pepper7 and used with permission

Serious review:

The Sidelines Gn15 wagon kits are probably the easiest, quickest kits to build that I have ever come across. They're all pretty similar, so "one review covers all".

Each consists of a handful of resin castings, a coupling loop and 2 sets of wheels. The only parts you have to supply yourself are a couple of pins to hang the coupling loop over. Normal dress-making pins are ideal and can be bought almost anywhere. The bolster wagon and passenger car have a few extra castings but all follow the same general design. Even the "long" wheelbase cars are short and will easily go round 6" radius curves.

Steve Bennett says that some of his wagons are based on scaled-down 2' prototypes, some are true 15" gauge prototypes. The Heywood-style passenger car is actually slightly wider than it should be to allow plastic figures to fit better - their bottoms won't squeeze between the sides like real bottoms do! One thing is for sure, all of the cars have that quirky narrow-gauge look we all like.

Step	Image
1 - Open packet
2 - Centre chassis on up-turned body and apply a few drops of ACC on the inside
3 - Drill 0.7mm hole in "buffers"
4 - Cut 2 dressmaking pins to twice length of buffer height
5 - Fix buffer to wagon in centre of end of chassis (ACC)
6 - Fix a pin in each buffer (ACC)
7 - Add some lead strip under the floor for weight (not included in kit)
8 - Paint	photo courtesy of Sidelines / Pepper7 and used with permission
9 - Enjoy!

The resin castings are so clean I have not had to do any filing on any of the wagon kits I have built. Even if you've never built a kit like this, they are so simple you'll wonder why you never tried before!

Total construction time (excluding painting): 2 to 3 minutes - seriously! (the ones with bolsters, the tank/barrel wagon etc. take a little longer).

Read Steve Bennett's article on painting his range of wagons.

photo courtesy of Sidelines / Pepper7 and used with permission

Notes:

Quality of kits (out of 5): (simple but good quality, no bubbles in the castings)
Difficulty rating (out of 5): (very straightforward)
Supplier: www.pepper7.co.uk
Alpha Cyanoacrylate Cement (ACC), often called Super Glue in the UK. Sticks (almost) anything to anything :- plastic, metal, fingers, jeans, etc.

All construction photos by John Oxlade

Narrow-minded
and proud of it!

Where would you like to go today?

Review of a (typical) Sidelines wagon kit

Quick review:

Serious review:

Step

Image