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Hi everyone I know that this kit has already been built and is not as such 'work in progress' but I thought it may be more useful in this section for those who may be constructing the same model. Hopefully it will convince others that it is possible to find a way to light this kit and improve on my attempt. Regards Kevin

Another one I am starting this year. I have has this in my stash for a considerable time. Just look at the dust... The box is suitably crammed with plastic: I love the way that Revell just calls it "London Bus". I wonder if it's a copyright thing? I am planning to do it as a refurbished version with the Scania engine. Not sure how accurate that is, but that's what I am planning. More to come soon... Cheers, Alan.

hi and first i would like to welcome my self i have just finished the revell routemaster, have never done any modelling before so its not perfect but acceptable im currently making a 24th scale diarama and now the diorama got a little while to go before finished but getting there

My next build is something of a departure for me - well actually if you know me at all you'd say that for most of my builds as I tend to build whatever takes my fancy and fires my imagination, be it a WWII aircraft, bar-armoured recce tank or piece of Sci-Fi ingenuity. However for this build I'm coming down to earth with a bump - or rather a "ding ding hold on tight please"! Back in the dim and distant past that was the 1970s I used to take the bus from my home village of Swanscombe in Kent to Gravesend to attend Gravesend School for Boys. The bus I invariably caught was a 480 whose route took it from the eastern side of Gravesend, Denton or Valley Drive all the way along the busy industrial North West Kent roads to Dartford and Erith. This was an ara of heavy industry, paper mills, printing factories and most of all cement factories. Blue Circle had the biggest cement factory in Europe on the banks of the Thames in Northfleet and Swanscombe also had its own cement works, in the shadow of whose chimney I grew up. So, I hear you ask, what has this got to do with anything apart from me indulging in a little nostalgia? Well its because the heavy industry had a major impact upon everyday life in this area - it was filthy! If the wind blew in the wrong direction (which it did frequently) the emissions from the cement factory chimneys would float down through the air like snow, covering everything in a grey white ash powder and turning what would have been pristine clean buses into this: Phoarrr, look at the weathering on that!!! Overdone? I don't think so! Thus instead of building another of the very pretty and shiny red London buses we've seen so much of over the last year or so (lovely as they may be), I will be attempting to produce a replica of RML 2343 from the early 70s period with the yellow London Country logos... in fact this exact bus: Now doesn't that look a pretty bus? Look at the paint loss, dents, dirt and general squallor!!! I won't be doing it with the jacks and wheel off, but I will be doing it with that livery and adverts (or lack of them!) Here is another shot: The model now - well of course its the old favourite Revell London bus: I won't bother with the sprue shots as they've been shown numerous times before, but I will talk about the decals. The kit decal sheet is enormous, mainly due to all those seat decals: However, I'm going to need some custom decals and here is what I've drawn up: and a close up of the advert: I had to create that from scratch in Photoshop, although I was able to reshape the one in the photo above to act as a guide. The most difficult part of that was getting a decent image of the Invicta horse symbol of Kent! The destination decals were created using a scan of the kit decal sheet and using that as a guide to build these over the top of the originals. Similarly, the London Country logo was created using the London Transport logo of the kit as a guide for the font, size and spacing. The yellow used is an approximate match - does anyone have an exact colour for the yellow used? On to building then! First off is the engine. I'm using the earlier Leyland engine and I added some details and changed some of the pipework around to match photos I found in the Haynes Routemaster manual and online and then of course I dirtied it up... Did some wheels, which still need to be dirtied up: The lower deck was next which started off like this: and ended up like this: Then there are the seats, lots of seats... The sharp eyed amongst you might notice that these seats are not perfectly smooth - if you had ever ridden in them for any legth of time you would have found that most of the seats were worn, sunken and grubby to say the least. So the Dremel came out and added a bit more realism to the seating. Then there are the handrails and seatbacks. These were invariably shiny chrome, so this seems like an ideal opportunity to try out the Alcad I spent so much money on back in November at Telford. I must say they turned out quite nice... Finally for this update, progress on the driver's cab: I always remember sitting behind the driver, admiring the big red indicator switch. As a little boy what could be more exciting that a BIG RED SWITCH that worked the indicator lights!!!! Its almost as if the designers were tuned in to what would appeal to small boys and make them want to grow up to be bus drivers!!! Now in a further departure from the normal Routemaster builds I've seen on the net, nice though they might have been, not a single sign of a passenger or more importantly the driver and conductor!!! Fear not, I aim to rectify that! A quick purchase of a group of resin 1/25 scale figures from Hong Kong will sort that out! The seated man whose originals arms were held in his lap almost as if he was in prayer has had them sanded off and another of the standing gent in a suit has sacrificed his arms to replace. These figures are rather tall so a bit of drastic surgery was required to get the driver to fit in the cab: the bend at the knee had to be increased and the legs shortened by a few millimeters, the torso had to have about 5mm cut out to bring it down to size and of course the arms have had to be remodelled: At this time, the uniform would have still been green, again I'm not sure of the exact colour so this is an approximation. IT also will mean having to scratch build the conductor's ticket machine, ie one of these: and here it is - although I'm afraid the flash has overexposed it its made from milliput and will have extra straps etc added along with a scratch built money pouch: That is the progress so far... I was intending to start doing the seat decals this evening, but well frankly I couldn't be arsed I'll update further when there is something more to report...

Hi, This is just a bit of fun to show a project I completed back in 2012. The vehicle in question was build for the Bo'ness Fair, which is an annual festival held in the town. All primary school children take part and if selected for various roles within the retinue or procession, we the parents, usually have to either build an arch outside the house or build some sort of frontage / display in order to celebrate the participation. Full details of the fair can be found here http://www.thefairday.com/about.htm The theme in 2012, was the spirit of London 2012 and I decided to build a London bus, scaled up from an old dinky toy of my sons. The scale of the bus was unknown but I upscaled it using the dimensions of the toy ie 1 cm = 1 foot It was built in my neighbours garage over a period of about 2 months. excuse some of the poor quality of the photos but you'll get the idea. Basic frame, using mainly recycled wood from previous arches I took up one half of the garage and kept measuring to make sure I could get it out again Front end taking shape and used some dense phome to relicate the curved engine cover and topped off with some MDF. Clad the entire frame in MDF, which was generously donated by a local woodyard. They use the MDF to protect their good wood during transit. The motto was measure mesure 10 times and check twenty !! The wheels are again made from polystyrene blocks cut to shape and sanded. They would not be load bearing, just as well as the project was getting big & heavy The front end taking on a bus shape and the detailed plans can be seen sitting on the big bus bonnet The first coat of undercoat on and what a difference it made Paint was applied using a small roller and as you could imagine, it took a while. All the windows were painted and just masked off to represent the required shape & position. The top gloss coat was applied, just used cheapest gloss I could find in the DIY store. I still made alterations as I was going along, as you can see from the slight changing of the size of the upper front windows. Coachline applied and of course it had to be gold !! This took me ages to mask as the ground wasn't quite level and I had to try and make the coachline as horizontal as possible. The gloss paint looked great and certainly drew some looks from passers by if I left the garage door open whilst fettling away Lights were just cheap battery operated ones, painted red and hung on the front. The window glazing was painted with a metallic silver and provided a good base coat for what I had in mind. I thought the easiest way to bring the whole thing to life, was to paint on the window shadows. Obviously not strictly accurate but it gave the desired effect of shadow. I used a slightly darker metallic grey and was again applied using a masking technique to get the required shapes. I used so much masking tape !! The famous Routemaster rear stairs, built ot of more polystyrene blocks simply cut to shape. the pole was my mate weightlifting bar, which was a perfect size. The whole area was then painted, using some brown wood stain and the lines drawn on using a marker pen, to give the wooden board effect. You can also see the indicators on the back. These were a certain brand of yogurt pots, painted on the inside to represent the brake & indicator colours. Little added details such as the fuel filler cap and drivers step added. These were just painted on and shadowed to give a 3D effect. The front grill was my old dogs kennel cut up and painted and the various signage was cut to size and painted. Any lettering was self adhesive vinyl, bought online and was simply stuck on where required. The keep calm stickers were bought online also. For some reason they were plentiful in this year . Just to give you an idea of scale. I'm just under 6ft tall and the glasses and nose have been photshopped in !! Another front view, just showing the hand drawn vents and a bit more detail Finally after months of work, I coaxed her outside and diplayed her in front of the house, The whole thing was very heavy and sat on some axle stands and blocks of wood. The wheels were just painted and the hubs were again painted yogurt pots. In the background you can see the " Spirit of London " back board. This was a large MDF sheet covered in magazine cut outs then varnished. anything Royal/British or London based was stuck on. The front end. The lights were only switched on at night. I was sure someone was going to complain about a bus being parked on the pavement. Tut tut !! My final pic of the bus and my favourite. The whole thing was very enjoyable to build but hard to work out initially. After the event, sadly it was broken down. All of the wood and MDF was given to a neighbour for when it's his turn to build something. Gotta think recycle !! Thanks for looking in and as I said, just thought I'd post something out of the ordinary. If you think this was mad, check this out, built in a neighbouring street... Buckingham palace at night Windsor Castle More pictures of other arches can be found here http://www.thefairday.com/gallery/gallery_2012_arches.htm As I said, something a bit different for the forum. Hope you enjoyed it and see what can happen after years of tinkering away with plastic models

Hi Everyone I have posted this previously but Flickr have been taken over and changed all of their sign in details and I cannot now access my pics. I am in the process of uploading them to a new Flickr account and this kit was the first one I did. As I have had so much interest from this build I thought it would be better to post this as a new topic rather than try to go through all of my posts to replace the pictures. The links to both albums can be found below along with a video of the working lights. The first link is the finished build and second link shows how I built the bus and shows most of the methods I used to do it. I have built the kit twice now, once out of the box and the second with the lighting, but I am seriously considering getting another one as I have new idea's and ways to do the lighting better. I will say that it is one of Revell's best kits as it fits together so well and there are so many possible modding opportunities for it and I some of it was hard work and very fiddly but the end result is worth it. I hope you enjoy this updated post and I hope it inspires others to 'have a go'. Finished Build HERE How-to Pics HERE Video HERE Regards Kevin

Before I begin, I must thank Lindan who has appeared on this forum once or twice as he’d approached me to produce some custom transfers for his own build of the Revell bus. It was his build that inspired me to get myself the kit. I’ve not set out to be too faithful to any particular bus, but to build myself a model that I’ll enjoy building. Please excuse any technical inaccuracies, colour deviations or other ‘faults’. Let’s begin with the engine then. My preferred option was to go for the AEC Leyland engine rather than the Scania as I had better reference pictures that I’d taken whilst at the Cobham Bus Museum at Brooklands. The whole site there is well worth a visit as it houses a good story on the history of the bus with many fine examples to see, plus a superb collection of racing cars to compliment the history of Brooklands as a motor racing circuit. Outside, apart from some remains of the old concrete banked curve of the pre-war track, there’s also an interesting collection of aircraft that are accessible (yes, you can climb inside too) with in some cases, real human guides to take you through the history of the type. So, the engine. The basic block looks OK, and close enough to the one I had as reference, but it needed plumbing. This is simply some brass wire bent to shape and poked into appropriately drilled holes. I also sanded smooth the rocker covers and made new plastic card tops to match my reference. I also made the injectors (a little over scale) that the six fuel lines run into. They’re just some drilled scrap sprue that I heated and stretched until the diameter was about right. The black ‘boot’s on the wire is the insulation that came on the wiring. It’s all bent by eye, even though I considered a jig. There’s so much detail that could be added but I wanted to finish this someday as there’s plenty of other kits in the stash and only so much time! Here’s the block after a coat of Halfords acrylic primer and a bit of dirtying up with black oil wash. I used the kit supplied fuel rail (or whatever it is!) just removed the mounting tabs as it appears to be held in place by the short lengths of pipe from the injectors to the rail on the real thing. It’s the kit exhaust here too with a bit of weathering. There’s a tiny piece of foil at that joint that will hold a cable running past when the engine is installed. To lend scale, here’s the fuel cut off valve label that fits around the pipe. I put the kit transfer onto a piece of thin foil so I could bend it about a bit! The Engine's installed in the chassis now so I'll show this fitted just after we move on to the cab.

After receiving good advice about replacement engine grills for Revell's Routemaster bus, I figured it was time to pick the Britmodeller community's collective brain again! I've ordered some custom destination blinds, from fellow forumite 'wagoneer', but would also like to order some adverts for both the interior and exterior, suitable for the year 1978. The trouble is, I have no idea where to start looking for reference images or information. I've tried googling, but I always find it difficult coming up wih the right search terms to get the results I need. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions please?

Sorry! I posted in the wrong place. See In Progress.

Hi all, I've recently aquired Revell's Routemaster kit, and I've been reading through some of efforts of modellers on these pages. I have a question though; what mesh should I get to replace the Routemaster's engine grill? I've read various methods used, like splatter guard mesh from Poundland and etched Mesh from Aber. What do people recommend that is still available (I can't find any splatter guards at Poundland)? Alternatively, what mesh from Aber should I get (a part number would be usefull, as I can't judge scale/sizes from online pictures that I've seen!)? Thanks in advance for any advice...