Over the weekend I finished the valve gear on both sides of the S15, and I'm pleased to report that all went well. I've still to add the slide bar support bracket on this side, but as it needs to be cut down drastically so as not to foul the bogie, it's easily done at a later stage. Now that I'm happy with the running, I soldered the return cranks into position.

The next stage, as mentioned in earlier entries, was to consider adding brake gear. The kit makes no provision for brakes, but the chassis looks undernourished without them, and since my layout is at eye level, such details do stand out more than if I were looking down from the standard "helicopter" view. Like DLT, I decided to make use of the Mainly Trains Southern loco brake gear etch. Although it doesn't have the brakes for an S15, the Maunsell N class ones are a good enough substitute.

I've always found brake gear to be a bit of a fiddle until it's all soldered up with the pull-rods in position. With Comet brake gear, the pull rods are perfectly designed to lock everything into the right configuration, so that even a hamfisted idiot like me can get it working. The MT etch obviously can't include the pull-rods, so it's all a bit more fraught. I found it hard to solder anything to the DJH frames, which are so heavy they suck heat away quicker than my iron can apply it - I had a similarly trying time putting in the bearings.

Compounding the problem is that the gap between the first and second drivers is too tight to allow the gear to be hung off the frames in the usual way, so for now I've only fixed the rear two sets in position, while I devise a bodge for the leading gear. Hornby encountered a similar problem with the King Arthurs, by the way, and they've solved that by dropping a section of the chassis down behind the brakes, off which the brakes are mounted. I might try something similar, using plastikard to avoid shorting issues. DLT's demountable brakes are more elegant, but once the brakes are on I can't see any reason why I'd need to remove them, so (in my case) a cruder solution should suffice.

With the chassis work nearly done, it's time to focus on the specific prototype for my model, which could end up in anything from LSWR dark green to late Southern livery. The only thing ruled out is BR condition, as that would mean fitting a decoder, and I'd rather not go down that route in view of the live chassis/metal body combination of this model. In early condition, the loco would have a tall chimney and no smoke deflectors, which would certainly look different...