Greetings.

After a pleasant morning at the 2mm Association AGM in Bedford,returning quite a few quid lighter with some 2mm bits and pieces; and a after pint with some of the lads over lunch followed by a quick market visit to keep the other half happy, I decided to make a tentative start on the Ratio 2-4-0 kit while listening to Forest beat Peterborough on the radio.

Getting the two boiler halves from the box, made me realise the old problem with having a join line running through chimney, dome and valve. I considered replacing these with brass fittings, but decided to go ahead and see if they could be made good instead by some careful filing and smoothing. I actually think that a lick of paint will be enough afterthe clean up, but you can judge for yourself from the attached photos. And it is in keeping with the ethos of this build.

I have found hardly any flash on so far on any of the Ratio kits I've made, which is nice cos I hate cleaning it up, it reminds of those cheap foreign plastic kits I used to occasionally be bought as a boy!

As you can see, I have gone some way towards completing the loco bodywork, and it is already apparent what a handsome engine this is..

Extension of original entry:

The handrail knobs were a bit of a pig as the holes were not drilled out enough for the wire supplied with the kit - I am assuming that it IS the wire. In the end, I substituted some slightly finer guitar string, which passed through with a little encouragement ( and stabbed fingers!)

So that's the loco body more or less done. You will see that I managed to clumsily spill some excess glue on the boiler...

Regards,

Chris