A week into this project and I now have a chassis - I know there things can not be rushed but it does seem to have taken a long time. Much of this though was down to the compemsation and the rather fiddly gearbox.

Anyway, on to cocktail sticks. Work was started on the gearbox, it being a High Level one. Now here, i have to admit that despite several attempts, I have never assembled one of this sucessfully and this one nearly joined that list as well. One thing it does have in it's favor though is that it has a final drive gear with a grub screw rather than being stuck on. Now to cocktail sticks. Having bent up theframes and cut the shafts to length (already done in my favorite Matkits ones!), I had to undertake the awkward task of fitting the gears complete with all washers and spacers. I managed this by assembling the gears like a kebab on the stick and then either sliding them off complete then screwing again through the hole of by cutting back the stick flush with the gears and sliding in complete with stick. The axle is then slid in displacing the stick. Well that makes it seem simple!

Another use for the sticks was when fitting the motor to keep it in place while fitting the first screw;

As per the instructions I then glued the ends of the shafts in place and of course siezed the whole thing solid. Luckily it dissasembled with the aid of yet more debonder but looked for a better way. This I found by soldering a short length if wire as a keep across the ends of the shafts;

The drive extender goes the other way when fitted in the chassis. And here is that chassis, complete with wheels and coupling rods and it even works! There is just one little stutter which will mean stripping down yet again to sort out but on the whole pretty pleased - even if it did take ages!