National Bus moves on the Woody Way!

The instructions for this kit instruct that you build the body around the floor pan. Now I have in the past said I should follow instructions and certainly if Mrs. Woody gives one I do - well usually! In this case however there are issues if you do. For one thing you would need to paint the interior of the body panels and fit the windows. Do this and the job of masking all those windows to paint the exterior of the body becomes a nightmare. In addition I knew that the body panel parts did not fit together that well which would mean that I would have to either live with a model with horrible parts fit or struggle to make good the joints with the glazing fitted. So I adjusted the 'instructions' so that I would paint the interior, build the body, make good the joints, paint the exterior then fit the glazing and then fit the floor pan. Technically this should not be possible but I noted that I could flex the floor pan enough to get it into the body shell.

So with the revised 'instructions' in my mind the work began with painting the interior of the separate body panels. The instructions helpfully have the prototype colour scheme which was chocolate brown for the floor, green for the seats, earth brown for the lower body, cream for the window surrounds and roof and black for the doors and front panel. Say no more!

Once dry the body was built up and sure enough there were some issues with the fit of the front and rear panels. These were filled with plastic putty and after a while sanded back.

The bus then had its windows masked in readiness for the paint booth.

A grey coat of primer was then airbrushed over it which highlighted that my filling skills were not as good as they should have been! However the primer did highlight that the body shell is very detailed and deserved some time spent getting the parts fit as good as possible.

At the moment the joints have another application of plastic putty which needs to harden over night before being sanded and a further coat of primer added to see if I have cured the problem! Then we will see just how good the Woody Way is!