You seemed to of made good progress so far.

Thanks. So far, so good, hopefully it'll continue that way.

Excellent start,  I built one of these recently and it's a nice kit to put together. You will very quickly wonder what all the fuss was about regarding soldering - I ummed and ahhed for some time about my lack of soldering ability and as with many things, the worrying about it is far worse than the doing.

I look forward to further progress.

Thanks Rob. It's a learning experience but so far nothing is causing frustration or irritation.

Excellent job you're making of this. I have one of these kits in the loft somewhere so I'll keep your build diary to hand.

Thanks. If you are looking at doing one on these the there is one thing that caught me out early on. After doing the rivets the next stage is to put the folds in the floor piece. I made a bit of a boo boo here and initially put the fold between the wooden planking and the ramp in the wrong place. Jim tries to avoid people making this mistake by putting in etched fold lines, but I still managed to get it wrong at first. The thing to remember is that it goes wooden planking - a steel strip - then ramp. I initially put the fold in on the edge of the last plank. The pictures show the way to do it, the instructions say about the etched fold line on the underside of the floor, and I still managed to get it wrong.  

There is no doubt that Jim's kits are an excellent introduction to 0 gauge.  I jumped straight in with the Jinty and it has gone together very nicely.  Other kit manufacturers have said that this is the right way to go before delving beyond inside motion locos, etc.  My progression (all LM®) will be Jinty to 4F to Midland Compound by David Andrews.  Then maybe an outside valve gear loco?

My initial model is a small shed based on Bushbury 3B/Monument Lane 3E so I don't need more than a few wagons for coal and ash and these can be had from Dapol to allow a focus on locomotives.

Nice work, knapper!