I seem to be getting on well with this now. There is a bit of cusp filing as some of the etches are nice and thick.

We ill start by showing the tender in its primer. It is now awaiting the loco for its top coats.

Now on with the frames. I had done a little work to these some time ago. But my methods have changed and I thought I ought to bring this one upto speed.

I have made the cylinders and motion brackets removeable, mainly because the leading drivers would have to be fixed in place quite early in the build. In doing this I removed the pony mounting from the cylinders and fixed it to the frames.

The cylinder unit is almost complete, I still have to add the drain cocks and vacuum pump. only because I forgot them. The castings are nice nickle silver ones. The piston rods and conecting rods are both steel. The white metal castings had little flash and were well defined.

The next alteration was to add 3 point compensation. I have done this using a centre bar on the front two axles. once the ride hieght is checked, it will be triangulated to stop the flexing. I also assembled the coupling and connecting rods These look like a Slaters product. These are steel and I was please with the way they went together.

The brake gear and main frame springs are ready to go on now. I have to make up some injectors for under the cab as it seems I have a few castings missing. The others being the reverser quadrent, and safety valve cover. I have a spare safety valve so I will use that, but not the others.

I have also made a start on the superstructure, it was because I wanted to check clearences. But it is all built on a frame so I have a little more to do before I can cut and check the clearences. I expect this will be parf of the next update.

I suppose I ought to get to the bench or there will be no updates for sometime.