I have been inspired by some of the conversions of Parkside kits to other diagrams being carried out by Jim Snowdon on RMweb and the Guild forum. At Telford this year I swapped some Parkside GWR kits for some Slaters MR kits. Two of them being for the 8 ton van. While up north over the New Year I had a look through the Essery book on Midland Wagons and although there isn’t a photo to go on I decided to have a go at a conversion to a sliding roof door version. By good fortune the spares box yielded a couple of spare roof struts for LNER cattle wagons which saved me having to mess about curving the guides for the door although I did have to curve a piece of sheet for the door itself – this I did by rubbing the curved end of a Swan Morton knife handle across it. The kit itself is one of the quite old (in small grey box) versions that had buffer shanks moulded into the ends. This actually means that the mouldings themselves are very crisp when compared to the second kit which is in a new red box. The ‘castings’ for the door furniture are moulded plastic too but to be honest they are equal to the brass castings that I have for the second kit. I managed to get a coat of primer on it this morning so here it is.

I have left the roof loose until I finish painting the inside.