"That's the majority of the heavier work done, much of the remainder now is relatively minor..."

Famous last words. I laid the body back onto the chassis and found to my chagrin that it wouldn't fit!

Analysis of the problem revealed that the driving wheels fouled their splashers and the motor fouled the boiler barrel.... more surgery followed. The boiler was removed from the front 3/4 of the side tanks and replaced with paper. The splashers were cut away and then tolerances checked.

Satisfied that it now all sat at the right height, I cut away at the front of the running plate an the bunker to get the length right. Once this had been done I was able to use 0.5mm plastic sheet to give the model the correct pattern of side tank and bunker. I then used 1mm sheet to fabricate new splasher sides.

When it came to the cab the first thing I did was to file out the windows to the correct rectangular shape. I then filed the cab cutouts until I had a shape that looked about right, and because I managed to file away too much material at the front of the cab, used some small slivers of plastic to put get the right overall look.

I then laminated four sheets of 0.5mm plastic sheet over the cab roof to gain some height- the whole thing needs reprofiling- top tip holding the model over a lit candle will do wonders if trying to bend plastic sheet to a radius!

A couple of photos to show progress so far...