A was for Austin, but now B is for Bedford

Two months plus!  Apologies for my lengthy absence, not that I was absent from activities B for wise, but from posting updates here. Needless to say once I get started this will no doubt waffle on for several individual posts – BEWARE, and read on.
I went into a malaise because when I obtained a further batch of paint (from the same supplier as previously) it proved to dislike what had gone before . . . reacting badly and turning whatever it was painted over into what looked like a mixture of crazy paving and the back of a sheet of hardboard! Replacement paint was organised but became a lengthy delay in which time I managed to address some of the little jobs I needed to do.I had planned to paint the roof of the cab, but that became a retrieval operation as I removed the traces of the mini disaster. Instead I moved on to making some mountings for the mirrors, not on the hinge mounted rods that would leave them up in the air where they would have been blind spots directly in my line of vision. Also I was determined to avoid unnecessary support arms and tried various positions to arrive at the final position. Next was deciding the metal to use, of sufficient thickness and shape to create stability. Buried in my spare scrap metal was a conveniently double bent piece that was just big enough to create the two mounts now on the truck. The picture below is a mock up of how the metal was shaped prior to cutting it up, the white showing bits removed:  Unfortunately I did not take pictures during construction (a sigh of relief from some of you?) so have only what is above to show where they originated from, and with the addition of a cunningly shaped piece of angle iron to match the door contour ended up with these:   
   
  The leading edge looks like it might slice errant pedestrians but if they are that close they deserve it!

I painted the wheels.
The spare is painted to suit front or rear but all the rest are black on the inside except the rear inner wheels are black back and front. Only one coat on them at the moment as that is sufficient for initial test runs and Port Broughton Run (first outing?),      I'm muchly satisfied that the cream with red rim looks fine.  

The back steps.Still in progress on a now-and-again basis. The rubber was originally made for a 1938 Chevrolet Sedan's running boards. With the ribs they should be perfect back there.      
Still nothing fixed in place and undecided whether to leave the thick wooden lower step as here, or replace that with decent metal?

You can see that something is happening above the steps also, on the doors, they will require a large logo to be created, as per the original picture (you've seen this before).


That will be the subject of my next bigger than Ben Hur post later. 

Just a quicky to show that paint did eventually make it onto the cab's roof. Not a fantastic finish by any means, but better than nothing!? 
    

So now you have the supporting evidence that I haven't been totally stagnant. There are still other things to post about yet . . .  

Identifying the truck as an Intava truck.
Ignoring the INTAVA letters on the turret, they’ll be easy compared to the rear logo - that was the big problem.
First off, finding a good reproducable image to start with, basically I’ve been working from some pretty poor images. The paper logo pasted (courtesy glue stick) on the left hand door was originally smaller, (as per the black and white image shown in my last post) but was increased in size to what is there currently because I felt it looked better. (Oh no, not 100% correct, heavens above! Is any of it?). I may make it a wee bit smaller yet, but that wasn’t my major concern, the size of the one on the back was. Initially having marked the larger circle . . .   
. . . I started taking measurements from the door size logo, logging height, position etc, and after about half an hour discarded it all!  Having already determined everything had to be increased by 3.625 to make it correct to the larger diameter on the rear door, with the aeroplane like image using the I, A, A letters from IntAvA I assume.
Next I made a paper template of the larger letter I, then the cross beam of the top of the A and so on, and on, and on, until I gradually (like about three and a half to four hours) built a complete “aeroplane” that looked like this . . .  
 . . . and when placed on the circle looked great.
At this point I had already drawn the circle and masked it to paint the upper section cream. The lower piece is paper glued on some of my surplus corflute sheeting (gee that stuff is useful). The “aeroplane" was drawn around, removed, and masked up to spray the red paint . . .   
  . . . time consuming yet again as the two doors took as many hours to mask!

When done it was interesting to note some of the text in the scrap magazine I had used seemed to have some significance to me. It was not intentional but I noticed it when I took the above photo, it will be shown on tomorrows post.  

Keep annoying us with this stuff!

It looks amazing

This is fantastic stuff

This were we need Langs input, but unfortunately he and Bev are having a bucket load of adventure on the otherside of the world at the moment

Any as to why Lang is needed now, most likely to tell me I have no idea what Im on about

But I feel the mirror brackets maybe influenced by wind as the mighty beast zooms along down the road

The brackets remind me of a young bucks spoiler on his boot of there hot rod

Really coming together now PDU

Thanks for sharing

Paul

Come on now Paul, speed in an O type?   

Rest assured they are quite solid and will not bend easily, and I will mark them not to be used as steps so they are not compromised that way!

They are angled downwards on the outer edge for water run-off, but might deflect wind/rain upwards with forward motion.

Controversial maybe and I'm ready to defend my choice . . .  

No need tp defend your choice, I'm just thinking out allowed
Who knows, these might actually aid road holding at speed


Paul

Great work, love the passion. Can you name names with the non compatible paints?