Hi everyone,

Some time has passed since my last entry mainly due to waiting for replacement wheels, the arrival of which proved too much for my computer which sadly passed away despite desperate attempts to revive it. I now have a new little notebook, I chose this because hopefully being much smaller dimension wise might follow through on the problems front, wishful thinking I'm sure.

The said notebook is French of course as that's where I'm based, French computers don't have qwerty keyboards they have Ewerty keyboards designed like all things French to make life more difficult and complicated. Nevertheless here's the latest run down on 4101.

As I said in the last entry I soon found out I'd fallen by the wayside with building the chassis, consequently I stripped it all right back to the basic frames and started again, this time using Romford wheels and axles which proved so much more simple to get the quartering right.

I carefully reduced the thickness of the brass spacing washers by rubbing on a flat file, these had been too thick and may have contributed to the tightness before. When everything was re-assembled and the running checked I re-soldered the gearbox securing bracket to the chassis.

I then set about getting the final drive cog correctly positioned on the new axle and securing that in place once more ( with superglue as I was unable to buy Loctite 601 in the UK).

Next I screwed in the crankpins and temporarily attached the coupling rods, when I power up the motor it turned over quite freely and of course this time no wheels slipping round on axles, lessons duly learned!

Here's what it looks like now with the new wheels less coupling rods. I have toyed with the idea of making up and fitting con rods but I think that may be a step too far at the moment I can always come back to it and add them later when my confidence/ skills improve.

I cut out running plate and with some trimming of the apperture for the motor got it to sit nicely on the frame. in retrospect I think the frames are a millemetre too deep, it looks like the center of gravity is too high to me let's see when the body is in place.

In the background of the photo is the wrap for the boiler being formed from 0.25mm plastic card wrapped around 14mm copper tube, once this had set I cut out the apperture for the motor:gearbox assembly, filled the smokebox with Milliput etc.

This was attached to the running plate as were the sides of the tanks seen in the next picture I completed the sides and tops of both tanks and cut some strips of sheet lead, inserting these into the hollow tanks before fitting the end panels

Included in the above shot is the back panel of the cab, this also forms the rear buffer beam, I'm a bit concerned that the cab structure will be a bit flimsy as it only sits on metal poles (1mm wire) at the front I've arranged that they go right through the tanks and into the running plate for maximum security, but nevertheless will be vulnerable.

The next task was to give the cab some detail, I created a backhead and regulator and brake handles, the available space is rather cramped due to the width of the tanks, this was an oversight, I should have reduced their width at this point before construction. Here's a close up shot.

Red square - brake:throttle green square - cylinder to drive crank that when engaged turns the crane (not complete) blue square - chassis fixing nut

I made up a couple of toolboxes and stuck them in place, the cast brass chimney was too high so I cut out a 3mm section and fitted it back together with Araldite, put the whole thing in the Dremel, spun it up and filed it to even out the thicknesses, the whole casting is terribly distorted though so it isn't too even, Finally I fitted the safety valve assembly, in the original photo they appear to be mounted on a round plate, I managed to get one of there from Alan Gibson.

Then it was a quick coat of primer to see where the blemishes were, not too much making good I'm pleased to say. This will be an awkward model to spray paint, I can see most of it will be brush painted due to difficulty in masking up, we'll see

So that's it for now, I'll post some more pictures when I've made some more progress

cheers for now

Roly