I have to admit that I was really not loking forward to making the tanks and even considered using a plastic box I found that was a remarkably close fit in size - only problem was I only had one of them and not sure where it came from and anyway, it was plastic so wouldn't really do. So, out with the bending bars to sheer off some more nickle silver sheet, a technique I am now using very sucessfully thanks to Simon Bolton's book ' Scratch Building Model Railway Locomotives' I made up four identical 'L' shaped pieces and soldered one vertically to a another piece of sheet to form the end. I then soldered another to this to form the box and filled the end back flush - simple! Was also rather pleased to find that they did indeed hold water very well on cleaning them up. Have left the other end off for now as not sure what they are going to contain in the way of chips, speakers or lead. I took the oppertunity to detail them now, before things get awkward once they are fitted.

Now for the backhead which is pretty visible in the cab so had to make a decent effort. I used a piece of the boiller tube sawn and side folded down with a couple of thicknesses of sheet soldered to the end and suitably shaped. various bits of tube, rod and strip along with some hand wheels and a reversing lever from the spares box made up into a pretty convincing if not 100% acurate display. Far more than adequate though especially when a couple of crew are in the way.

It was now a very simple and satisfying job to fix the back sheet and roof and sit it all on the frames;

The boiler was then cut from brass tube with various bits of sticky lable used in the vain hope of cuting it straight. I did try parting it off in the lathe but is too big to fit through the chuck and was crushing badly when I used the outside bit of the jaws. I know I could have used something of suitable diameter inside the tube but was also having trouble with the head stock again and just wouldn't stay put to hold it between centers. My lathe is a bit of a disaster area (got it really cheap as spares or repair which I did for £5 of gears and some WD40 so doesn't owe me anything), but somewhere in all this I did manage to successfully turn a rather nice chimney. Only other complication with the boiler was that a fitted a wrapper arround it so that there would be a step down for the smoke box. I had just read a blog (sorry can't remember whose it was), where brass for oil tanks I think it was, were rolled width ways not length ways. I would never be so silly to make such a mistake...............

Anyway, here it is in all it's glory, starting to look like a proper loco except for that steam dome from the junk box which is far too big;