The cab window beading [34-37] can be fitted before or after assembling the cab. My preference is always to fit such items before as this enables them to be fitted flat and even before removal of the cab panels from the fret. These parts are very delicate and must be at the limit of the etching process. The cab side windows [36] are even half-etched.
I found the removal and subsequent filing off of the tags very difficult to do without some distortion of the part taking place.
The easiest way to solder these parts into their half-etched recesses is to lightly tin the back of each beading, place them in the recess and with plenty of flux but no more solder on the iron apply heat and let the flux do its work. Once complete the cab panels were removed from the fret and tidied up. It should be noted that with the cab side beading the larger window is positioned forward with the half-etched vertical facing outwards. Also, when filing off the remnants of those tags be aware that the cab side panels have a thin half-etched border at the top outside and the rear/forward inside edges - it may help with assembly to leaver the latter tags until after the cab is built.
The doors were soldered into the side panels from behind with the hole for the door handle forward on each side. Once again it is much easier to do this while the panels are flat.
The two half-etched rivets on front and back panels I believe correspond to the windscreen wiper mountings, again these should be punched before assembly.
The instructions give warning of the fact that the cut-out in the bottom of the cab front panel to fit over the baseplate is not present. Suggestions are made to either file this out, or to split the baseplate (I think this weakens the design integrity) so I will simply file off a thin layer from the bottom of this panel.
I also prefer to build my boxes square on a metal plate rather than the suggestion of on the baseplate bolted to the footplate - perhaps I just do not have THAT much faith in the solder stop/grease preventing solder run and locking everything up.
I do however have faith in these etches being square and so am happy building the cab off the baseplate. Then soldering it to the baseplate while off the footplate. As always with this type of construction use small tack joints until the box is formed square and on the baseplate. Then finally run solder round the seams to complete.
A couple of points to note are that the cab sides fit outside the cab ends and not to forget that a small amount has been removed from the bottom of the cab front.
Even so, and with absolutely no fault of the kit just me rushing at the end of the day, I somehow managed to solder the cab front panel in back to front - I only spotted my gross and stupid error after completing the assembly. So after much blue air, the heat of a micro-burner and a lot of scraping to clean up, it was put back in the correct way round.
In the end I'm happy enough with the result.
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