Airfix 1/32 WW1 B type bus 'Ole Bill'

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Sat Sep 01, 2018 6:18 am

As soon as midnight struck i couldn't wait to break into this kit. Also went and got the real wood planks from sphere products to replace the cardboard card sides that come with the kit.

a little dab of history of the b type

inside the bag was total chaos, parts broken off the spues all over luckily none of the parts themselves look broken.

Post by **Twokidsnosleep** » Sat Sep 01, 2018 6:23 am

Well I’ll be buggered, Airfix has figures in there for ya

I cracked open my kit too and managed to wait until the GMT midnight
Best of luck with your build

pourquoi61 · Post by **pourquoi61** » Sat Sep 01, 2018 10:20 am

Nice to see an old Airfix kit make it to the starting blocks. Good luck and happy modelling.

DBMiller · Post by **DBMiller** » Sun Sep 02, 2018 12:45 am

I saw one of these built up at a show. It looks pretty nice - I was tempted to buy one myself.

Here is a shot of that model (not mine!) in case you want another reference photo.

Post by **digger303** » Sun Sep 02, 2018 3:16 am

Twokidsnosleep wrote: ↑Sat Sep 01, 2018 6:23 am Well I’ll be buggered, Airfix has figures in there for ya
I cracked open my kit too and managed to wait until the GMT midnight
Best of luck with your build

figures with seams

It really looks like a shake and bake kit

BUT I'm sure you will sort it out in short order Johno.

Kevthemodeller · Post by **Kevthemodeller** » Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:57 am

Looking forward to this one

I had one when I was kid.

Post by **Tomcat64** » Sun Sep 02, 2018 6:41 pm

Kevthemodeller wrote: ↑Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:57 am Looking forward to this one I had one when I was kid.

Yep same here!

Looking forward to seeing how you build this up!

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Sun Sep 02, 2018 10:37 pm

digger303 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 02, 2018 3:16 am
Twokidsnosleep wrote: ↑Sat Sep 01, 2018 6:23 am Well I’ll be buggered, Airfix has figures in there for ya
I cracked open my kit too and managed to wait until the GMT midnight
Best of luck with your build
figures with seams

It really looks like a shake and bake kit BUT I'm sure you will sort it out in short order Johno.

yup figures with seam and gaps and flash galore, i can tell already this is gonna be a real patience tester. I mean i knew it was a ww1 kit , what i didn't realize is that the tooling is almost as old as the subject matter.

Post by **digger303** » Mon Sep 03, 2018 5:28 am

Johno wrote: ↑Sun Sep 02, 2018 10:37 pm
digger303 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 02, 2018 3:16 am
Twokidsnosleep wrote: ↑Sat Sep 01, 2018 6:23 am Well I’ll be buggered, Airfix has figures in there for ya
I cracked open my kit too and managed to wait until the GMT midnight
Best of luck with your build
figures with seams

It really looks like a shake and bake kit BUT I'm sure you will sort it out in short order Johno.
yup figures with seam and gaps and flash galore, i can tell already this is gonna be a real patience tester. I mean i knew it was a ww1 kit , what i didn't realize is that the tooling is almost as old as the subject matter.

that one in the show turned out really nice.

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Wed Sep 05, 2018 4:21 am

So i started to dig into the kit and wow holy injector pin marks batman, seriously though they are literally everywhere on this kit

so i began the tedious task of sanding all these buggers down, unfortunately and surprisingly in a completely unrelated incident i pulled something in my wrist so my sanding has come to a halt for now, so i instead will regale you with some history

B-type buses were built in Walthamstow and replaced the X-type bus. It had a 34 seat capacity and is often considered to be the first mass produced bus. The first bus began carrying passengers in 1911. By 1913 around 2500 had entered service.

The B-type was designed by Frank Searle, who was chief engineer of the LGOC. It had a wooden frame, steel wheels, a worm drive and chain gearbox. Its top speed was 16 miles per hour (26 km/h), which was above the legal speed limit at that time of 12 miles per hour (19 km/h). However the vehicle could reach 30–35 miles per hour (48–56 km/h) under the right conditions.

B-types carried 16 passengers inside and had seats for 18 on the uncovered top deck. These outside seats were fitted with wet-weather canvas covers. Electric lighting was introduced from 1912, and headlights in 1913. Before this, it was thought that interior lighting would render the bus sufficiently visible at night.

World War I service
A total of 900 of the buses were used to move troops behind the lines during World War I. After initially serving without any modifications and in their red-and-white livery, they were painted khaki. It was soon found that the glass windows on the lower deck were prone to breakage, mostly from contact with the men's rifles and packs. The glass was therefore removed and replaced by planks nailed to the sides of the vehicle.

The B-Type could carry 24 fully equipped infantrymen and their kit. Some were converted into mobile pigeon lofts to house the pigeons used for communication along the front. They served until the end of the war when they were used to bring troops home.

B-type Omnibus "Ole Bill" troop transport

The Imperial War Museum preserves a B-Type bus, B43, which was built by AEC in 1911 and ran on London bus routes until being purchased by the War Office in 1914. B43 served in France and Belgium until 1919 when it was repurchased by the LGOC. On 14 February 1920 B43 was inspected by King George V at Buckingham Palace, becoming the first bus the monarch had ever boarded. During the early 1920s the bus was retired from service and preserved by the Auxiliary Omnibus Companies Association, who renamed it Ole Bill after Bruce Bairnsfather's celebrated caricature of a British soldier. Ole Bill continued to appear in commemorative parades, before being presented to the Imperial War Museum in April 1970.

Kevthemodeller · Post by **Kevthemodeller** » Wed Sep 05, 2018 4:59 am

Great bit of history there mate

They look so unstable especially when you see people and equipment on the top deck

Beaulieu has a replica 1912 Type B that you can ride in

Hope your wrist gets better soon, looking forward to more up dates

pourquoi61 · Post by **pourquoi61** » Wed Sep 05, 2018 7:32 pm

When I saw the competed model I thought " wow I have missed a lot"
The bus never looks safe when guys are on top leaning over the sides, loving it.

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Sat Sep 08, 2018 7:02 am

So i finally got through the sanding marathon needed to begin the first step of assembly. After getting the front wall and drivers bench on i ran into my fist fit issue

so the sides come all the way to the front and are supposed to set flush to the sides of the drivers bench here and as you can see the bench part sticks out a bit on the left side and even more on the the right and even jutting out at the top some, so took the files and sanders to it and got the sides to fit on flush n smooth

next went on the back and there were a few small gaps that i filled with vallejo plastic putty

now the inside is ready to prime, im leaving the benches out and will paint those seperately then insert them.

as you can see there is a poster frame at the back there and saw on someones build thread of this bus they printed a small ww1 poster to put there and i thought it was a great idea, i have decided to do a poster of the Ole bill cartoon character this b type was nicknamed for and settled on this one

next will come priming the inside and benches and waiting on paint to arrive as i'm not going to use the humbrol paint that came with the kit, after a little research i decided on vellejo english uniform that i thought best matched the khaki they were painted that you can see here

Post by **digger303** » Sat Sep 08, 2018 9:54 am

Seems these old kits have a lot of sanding involved, but your knocking it into shape nicely.

pourquoi61 · Post by **pourquoi61** » Sat Sep 08, 2018 7:35 pm

She is looking fantastic, I love it.

gaz45 · Post by **gaz45** » Sun Sep 09, 2018 9:35 pm

Great choice there mate it's coming along nicely

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Tue Sep 18, 2018 7:36 am

So finally got a little bench time, primed the inside seats and a couple of test strips of the scrap wood for the panels since ive never used wood on a model and wanted to test the primer and paint combo ill use so primed with the black stynylrez primer

then painted the seats in army painter brown leather and spayed the test panels the vallejo English uniform and realized i definitely wanted to lay the primer on the wood much thicker cause the wood was just sucking up the paint

i then started to prime the inside of the bus and realized i need to put the wood on fist

and thats when i realized on the inside the wood panels had no groove line for the seperate boards so it would just look like a flat board so i decided the cut the wood into seperate boards, which was pretty easy i just scored the groove with a knife and just bent them along the line to seperate them, then lightly sanded the edges.

then got them glued on and primed and made sure to give the wood a bunch of coats of primer, pretty much till i could see it wasn't just soaking in right away and the primer was staying wet on the wood for a bit. And once i put them on i realized seperating the panels was well worth the little extra effort cause the effect from the inside of the light coming through the panels really brought the insde to life

thats all for now hope to get some paint on the inside tomorrow and hopefully weather the seats a little.

Kevthemodeller · Post by **Kevthemodeller** » Tue Sep 18, 2018 8:45 am

Very nice mate

pourquoi61 · Post by **pourquoi61** » Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:21 pm

Well the internal photo looked fantastic.

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Sat Sep 22, 2018 3:27 am

Got a little more done, ran into one issue along the way when i started spraying paint on the inside the paint was laying down really grainy

it was only happening at the bottom and i figured it was because spraying in such an inclosed area and all the air blowing around in there was drying the paint as it was laying down so i sanded it down reprimed the bottom and sprayed it again at 15 psi with a retardent in the paint and also sprayed closer to the suface with the trigger barely pulled back so there wasn't so much air blowing all around and it layed down fine. Then i sprayed some future down and got to weathering, used a combo of Ultimate dark dirt wash and some chalk pastels. Think the finished product came out pretty decent.

mocked up the roof to see how its gonna look when its assembled

Kevthemodeller · Post by **Kevthemodeller** » Sat Sep 22, 2018 5:13 am

The wood colour is spot on

and the inside pictures you'd think where of the real thing

Post by **Twokidsnosleep** » Sat Sep 22, 2018 7:07 am

Excellent modelling and problem solving
Wood siding looks great

This thing looks like a death trap riding along inside that coffin

gaz45 · Post by **gaz45** » Tue Sep 25, 2018 3:37 pm

Awesome i'm loving the work on the interior mate

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Mon Oct 01, 2018 8:08 pm

Twokidsnosleep wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 7:07 am Excellent modelling and problem solving
Wood siding looks great
This thing looks like a death trap riding along inside that coffin

gaz45 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 25, 2018 3:37 pm Awesome i'm loving the work on the interior mate

Kevthemodeller wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 5:13 am The wood colour is spot on and the inside pictures you'd think where of the real thing

thanks guys, really liking this one so far regardless of all the extra sanding work involved

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Mon Oct 01, 2018 9:03 pm

Little update here, first thing added the ol' bill poster and think it looks great.(ignore the dust and sanding particles theres been alot of it)

next came assembling the cab and front end, the first issue was on the sides, the number plate had a big bubble of plastic on it and there was a bunch of little bubbling all over the part, took a hobby knife and dug out the large bubble and then sanded the whole thing down.

got the hood/grill assembled which was a little tricky cause the only guides were a lip on the back plate that wasn't very accurate and the two tabs on the sides that had no grooves to fit into to help so made it a little trick getting it all lined up right.

i was gonna leave the small cab parts till the end so i didn't end up breaking things off but pretty much everything had a gap or guide hole that needed putty so i got every thing in except the steering wheel.

[/url]
also drilled out the end of the horn to give it a better look. Once i got things all puttied and sanded, next was fitting it to the frame, first issue was the cab floor section lipped below the rest and kept it from setting on the frame flush, so needed sanding/filing.

Next was lining it up along the frame, which was a little tricky because when i put on the frame rails i just set them along the guides and glued em on and i should have made sure they stayed flush to the edge of the body so i had to crack the glue on the ends a bit and reglue it flush to the corner of the body then go inch by inch lining it up gluing it, hold it tight let it dry, then line up the next inch and repeat.

next was these little gaps at the very front and because there was nothing underneath i took a couple of the little sprue number tabs and glued them under the holes so the putty had something to set on, then got it puttied and smoothed

really like this kit but man o' man there is a ton of clean up and fit work every step of the way.

Post by **digger303** » Tue Oct 02, 2018 12:27 am

Your doing a marvelous job of it, but you and Scott have put up a huge sign in my brain ....don't go near the old airfix.

Gary30 · Post by **Gary30** » Tue Oct 02, 2018 8:38 am

Wow that's looking GOOD so far!

Post by **Tomcat64** » Thu Oct 04, 2018 3:58 pm

That's some absolutely superb work - as the other guys have said the woodwork is spot-on and could be mistaken for the real thing in some of those shots. The fading and shading on the interior fixtures and fittings is great as well.

Really enjoying seeing this come together.

pourquoi61 · Post by **pourquoi61** » Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:16 pm

I agree the interior shots look like the real thing.

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:00 am

So finally made enough progress for another update been fighting tendonitis so its been slow going lately. Firstly got the interior roof primed painted and weathered. I didn't bother filling the injector marks because where they are they won't be seen at all and also because every flat piece on this kit has them everywhere in the worse spots i am sick of dealing with them. tried out my new abteilung oil paints for the weathering and really dig using oil washes

the next step before attaching the roof was to put together the sides for the upper deck, and after spending what felt like days sanding injector pin marks and the weird bubbling that is all over this kit i got the sides attatched the fit was good just a few little gaps to fill and seams to smooth

next it was on to attaching the wood panels on the sides and taped off all the windows on the inside and attatch the top to the bottom

then it was on to attaching the stairs which gave me all sorts of trouble, first on the base, the slats on the floor came flush to the guide to place the stairs causing them to not set flat on the base so i filed a groove for the stair to set in to sit flat

next was at the top where the railing met the side, at the bottom where the side ends and the rail continues there was a large ugly gap

so i cut a small piece of flat plastic from one of the sprues

and glued it below the lip of the top

than had to file a the top of the side piece of the stairs to accomodate for the wood panels over the window

then finally was able to glue on the stairs and man oh man i gotta say as much as i hate all the little issues with this kit i'm really loving the way its looking as it comes together!

now it's on to smoothing out a seam here and there and a few tiny gaps and it will be on to attaching the last few exterior pieces and she will be ready to prime!!!

Post by **digger303** » Fri Nov 02, 2018 11:13 am

REAALLY like the wood planks , it's coming together despite those ejector marks.

Kevthemodeller · Post by **Kevthemodeller** » Fri Nov 02, 2018 5:39 pm

digger303 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 11:13 am REAALLY like the wood planks , it's coming together despite those ejector marks.

I'd second that

pourquoi61 · Post by **pourquoi61** » Sat Nov 03, 2018 9:16 pm

It is an amazing build so far.

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Thu Jan 31, 2019 5:16 am

Well i have finally got myself off the injured reserve list and got some bench time in!!! Finally got all the odds and ends cleaned up and started on getting her ready for paint. First little hiccup was as im assembling i hear a rattling inside, one of the benches had come loose inside. So i had to carefully pry off the wood planks on one side to get access,a little CA glue and i was back in action

next was this handle, when i fitted it to the side it came up so high it came above the steering wheel and looked like it would make it impossible to drive so i cut it glued it back and put it in place.

now ive got every thing on except the benches up top and the wheels axles and exhaust that im painting seperate. So now she is ready for prime and paint.

Kevthemodeller · Post by **Kevthemodeller** » Thu Jan 31, 2019 6:32 am

Great to see you back at the bench mate

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 4:38 am

Made some more progress, finally got all the seams smoothed and hit it with black stynylrez primer(aka ultimate) than went to paint and made a super rookie mistake, i turned up the pressure on my airbrush to spray off dust n stuff and then forgot to turn it back down, and since im really new to airbrushing i didnt really think about why it was misting every where and wasnt till i sprayed around it a few times did i notice all the little bumps of dried particles everywhere and died a little inside when i figured out my mistake. So i let it dry then took out the micro mesh and toiled away at sanding every nook and cranny smooth than hit it again at the prpoer pressure. Then i did all the little cab details used vallejo brass for the lamps and extinguishers and tamiya black and titanium silver for the wheels and axles and muffler. And found had the most amazing color for brass tarnish in my army painter set, wizards orb, ended up going a little heavy on the wash but the color is perfect and once i pin wash it i think it will look great

then got a light gloss and some decals done which were really thick and took a good bit of softener to get em right and now she's sitting pretty ready for weathering

Post by **Twokidsnosleep** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 5:38 am

Nice work, keep up at her

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Fri Mar 29, 2019 7:29 pm

Got some weathering done on it, used albteilung 502 oils and testors enamel. Now setting it in a drawer to cure then will seal it and use some pigments for mud dirt and dust.

Kevthemodeller · Post by **Kevthemodeller** » Sat Mar 30, 2019 7:03 am

Very nice, looking really good

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Sat Aug 31, 2019 11:41 pm

Well i pulled ole bill back out the drawer to finish him up, added the seats and now he's ready for a matte coat tomorrow hopefully.

Post by **digger303** » Sun Apr 12, 2020 1:37 am

progressing well

Ps....yes aware of the date, but only just caught this.

Hawkmoon · Post by **Hawkmoon** » Sun Apr 12, 2020 8:59 am

All looking good and very nice work