Having reached the limit of work on 5813 (at least until I am able to get a small diameter drill so that I can get the handrails drilled and fitted) I have decided to crack on with another project, 7723 from a Mainline Pannier tank.

This was decided by a single undated photo of a pannier in one of the Cheddar books which did not have a BR smokebox number plate, I will also be following a similar route on a second pannier (all be it working from the more recent Bachmann body). I'm undecided on the prototype yet (as yet to find another photo, but I quite fancy one of the later cab type with no topfeed)

The model was picked up from Tim Easter who had started the detailing a very long time ago, adding sprung buffers, the linkage for the some of the wire handrails and making a start on the underside.

My intention,

Remove the rest of the fictional infill over the top of the middle driver. (I'd have ideally liked to do the same on the section either side of the fire box, to get full depth of detail on the pipework. But that is a step to far and would likely look worse than as it comes, that said, the more I look at it the more it bugs me........

Another job I'd have liked to sort, but will be leaving is new pipe runs on the top of the tanks, heading to the top feed. While I think having a separate pipe would look a lot better, it crosses so many bits of detail I think there is just too much chance of damage

Then its onto the easier bits, re-profiling the dome (or replacing it if that falls through)

Add cab floor/ bulkhead / backhead along with any other easy to model cab interior bits

High Level chassis

As with other projects, given the summer setting (and research indicating that it was a particularly hot summer) I have also modified the roof to open the hatch, removed the 1mm of part closed shutters from the open part of the cab side, and I am thinking about having a crack at modelling the cab front windows open.

As ever I am interested to hear if there is anything else worth changing on it.