Having temporarily put the big building on the layout for some pictures I found that I couldn't summon up the energy or will to rescue it from the rather cold studio last night so looked around for something to finish off. I considered one of the Wrightlines Baldwins but settled on the Dick Kerr petrol electric that I had started a few months ago. Just to recap, I had soldered up the body and had cut some chassis frames but got no further. I turned my attention to the frames and finished them off on the milling machine (which is now working beautifully), and drilled and reamed the sides for the roller bearings. Now this is where it all started to go wrong.

I had intended to make this chassis (which is completely hidden by the body), outside framed so I could use roller bearings and still have room for a proper gearbox (or two!), but..... The clearance against the body was just too tight and thining down the chassis spacers wasn't an option as I was not going to leave enough clearance for the wheels - guess this is pay back for fitting an O-16.5 chassis into what should be a 14mm body. Plan B then was to try it as an inside chassis but....

As you can see there was just not enough room for a gearbox. Start again!

I ran up a very simple plan in PhotoShop printed it off and double sided taped it to some brass bar that I had cut to length and doubled up with solder so the two halves would be the same. A bit of drilling, sawing and reaming later I had the simplest of chassis with ordinary bearings this time.

On it's wheels for the first time.

Next stage is to make up the gearboxes and the dreaded pick ups, but thankfully have a lot more room to play with this time.