Right then, so going from where i left it last time with the valve gear mounted the next step was to get the wheels & cogs back in and get the whole thing running smoothly. Easier said than done, it took best part of an evenings work to get the wheels lined up to get the coupleing rods on and the chassis running smoothly, the problem was getting the wheels at such an angle that when they were dropped into the axle slots that the they would revolve around the idler gears so the the crank pins would line up. Anyway after much to ing & fro ing i got it sorted and the motor reconected and wired it up for a test run, thankfully all was well and touch wood still is

With the chassis put safely to one side it was now time to start on the body, i followed the instructions on for the main body components pretty much as they came except for leaving off and detailing bits as i knew id knock them off as there was a lot of mods to be done. The gas works line had a very limited loading guage so first job was to chop the cab sides down so out came the saw & files

This was the easy and i was feeling pretty pleased with myself, all i needed to do now was re profile the spectacle plate and i was laughing....

That didnt last long as when i got some plans scaled down i realised it wasnt just re profiled but it was a whole new cab that had been put on when it was rebuilt by Hunslet, que a bit of head scratching a few cups of tea until i came up with an idea

I didnt fancy drawing the curve myself so i chopped the the plans up and stuck the cab profile onto some plasticard and cut round it very carefully. It was all going a bit too well so i cut the cab spectacle holes out and was rather pleased. Next was making the roof so i pre rolled some thin plasticard to roughly the right profile and cracked out the liquid poly

After trimming down i thought id give it a test fit, then i realised id messed up pretty badly, for some reason id measured the distance from the back of the bunker to the front of the cab so the damn thing was 6mm too long, and as id done it to scale with the plans, it was nearly 2mm too wide!

Golden rule measure twice, cut once or measure as many times as you can but make sure you measure from the right points!!!

So after a bit LOT of cursin, i managed to get on spectacle plate off and cut off the extra 6mm but then was left wondering how to slim it down, only was i could thing of was by cutting it down the middle and filing the 2 halves to get rid of the 1.5mm extra. It took time but i got there and last night glued it back together and let it harden over night.

So tonights job was to cut the cab openings into the new roof, i checked it was all ok from last night and smootherd over the joins which will require a little filler but look ok at the mo. Now i didnt fancy drawing the outline of the cab opening on as drawing on a curved surface is a nightmare so i choped upn the plans again. I cut out the top of the cab on the plan and then cut out the opening to leave me with a paper template of the opening which i taped on and followed with a pencil, the results i thought were pretty good so after careful checking and straighting up out came the scalpel.

I carfeully followed the lines scoring away till the openings literally fell out, after a bit of filing it was begining to look something like. Now for the spectacles themselves, i did try chopping off the rims off the original spectacle plate but this ended in disaster as i couldnt get them cut withought bending and endangering my fingers

So i coilde up some thickish copper wire round a scredriver and made my own. After gluing them round the window holes i filed them down to flatten them out. It seems to have done the trick but its a apin to keep them on especially filing out the window holes when they are attached, they soon come off and disapear into the black hole on the floor....

Next job was to lop off the top of the chimney, Hunslet literally did the same when it converted, i drilled it out a little and glued it into the smikebox.

So as of tonight heres what Spencer is looking like, its getting there but theres still a lot to go. Next job is to check it runs ok, so tomorrow there coudl be a bit of cursing as i think it might start shorting......but for another day....

Cheers for looking

James