I've come to the conclusion that I am my own "man from Porlock". I'm so easily distracted from whatever path I've embarked upon. I could have been CEO of a major British .... ooh what's that shiny thing over there?

Anyway, back here on Planet Mark, at the 2mm Expo in 2013, I was chatting with Allan Doherty about various things, including 2mm narrow gauge stuff and he gave me a part completed loco body for a Letterkenny & Burtonport Extension Andrew Barclay tank loco (top one on this page):

http://www.worsleyworks.co.uk/Image-Pages/Image_NG_Irish-Locos-N.htm

A few days after the Expo, on what was probably the hottest day of 2013, I took a look at the loco and decided to desolder and reassemble to tidy it up a bit. I also wanted to cut a hole in the footplate for the Marklin mechanism I intended to use. Unfortunately, while the cab & tanks came apart very easily, the footplate distorted and corroded very badly. Not sure why, I was using a small blowlamp to melt the solder. Perhaps some flux was still active and extra heat caused it to eat into the metal. It was simpler to remake the footplate from 2 layers of nickel-silver, 10 thou and a slightly smaller layer of 20 thou to represent the valance. I made a boiler from some K&S brass tube and a wrapper for the smokebox. What I ended up with was this:

The footplate was fretted out to be a snug fit over the chassis and this shows the components loosely assembled.

You might spot that the loco is now a 2-6-0 rather than a 4-6-0. I did try some experiments to see if the chassis could be altered to suit but by the time the necessary changes had been made, it would have been simpler to build one from scratch. So a 2-6-0 it became.

Then the project, as so many of mine do, became dormant for a while as other things took over - like the unfinished Peckett.... !

With the prospect of Narrow Gauge South West looming in a couple of weeks time, the project needed a bit of a jumpstart, so I took a day off work yesterday to complete the major assembly. I'd already remade the boiler, smokebox and smokebox saddle as the originals didn't quite match the drawing I had (Model Railway News May 1962). Fortuitously, I'd found some suitable boiler fittings from sample castings Nick Tilston of N-Brass gave me to review. These were for a Midland Railway 1F tank loco but suited the LBER loco quite well.

Correction - they are actually the boiler fittings and smokebox door Nick offers for the SECR C-class 0-6-0.

The cab, tanks & footplate were soldered together using 180 degree solder, as were the boiler, smokebox door, saddle, chimney, dome & safety valves. Then the boiler unit was soldered to the footplate, tank & cab unit using 145 degree solder. This was the first time I'd used it. Until now, I've always been a bit of a "one-club golfer" where solder is concerned. The low temp solder allowed me to get the two main units joined without disturbing previously soldered items. I can see myself using this stuff a bit more. At least it's a little bit easier on the fingers! What I'd like is a heat insulating soldering glove, about the thickness of a rubber mechanics/surgeons glove. If someone could invent one of those they'd make millions.

Here's few shots of the bits:

The end result is this:

Next job is to pop on a set of couplings ready for it to haul some Tralee & Dingle coaches on An Clár at NGSW. The coaches are also in an unfinished state...

So that's one distraction moved on significantly. I can now see a part-completed Peckett beckoning.

Addendum 20/2/15

Here's a photo of the loco on my layout. The camera can be a cruel critic but I think it's useful to see where improvements in your work can be made. The Marklin wheels do show up as rather coarse in this view and the valve gear could do with a lot of refining.