It couldn't be put off any longer, so with a loco body almost finished I had to look at the wiggly bits. Various bits of brass tube, rod and section and an evenings work resulted in these rather nice cylinders;

But before they could go on the loco they had to have something to fix to so the front apron / cylinder block was made from copper clad sheet. I would love to have used proper metal but due to being split framed, it could not have been soldered on. In the end I gapped it in the middle and soldered it to the frames. Once again blutack came in very handy for holding everything in place while I worked out exactly where everything needed to go.

And then some connecting rods, everything left over length at the moment and tanks held on with yet more blutack.

As I really was keen to put off making the valve gear I allowed myself a slight diversion and drew up the makers and number plates and the rather nice smoke box door and had a home brew etching session. The firebox has come out particularly nicely and to mount it I cut down a piece of the boiler tube to fit inside the somebox and mounted this on the door so it is a snug, sliding fit so it can be removed to get to the DCC chip that is going to live inside.

And then, just because I was a little concerned that I might loose the other plates, I decided the best place for them would be on the loco, so here it is looking really quite complete - not that I am kidding myself in anyway about the amount of detail work there is to do - oh, and that valve gear!