When you fit the spring seats 25 to the chassis don't fit the 0.8mm wire spring retaining pins at this point. Spoiler alert - you'll wish you didn't when we get to setting up the springs!

More solebar detail. Bump stops 26. The location marking and rivet spacing on the underside of the solebar is incorrect for the folded up 26, but not a big deal. Fold them up ignoring the 'dink' in the middle. Bend the 'dink' after they're soldered on.

Parts 42, 43, make sure they're on the correct sides relative to the end door. Check with detail on parts 2a, 2b from earlier. Again, the instructions show the assembly the right way up and you'll be working on it upside down. Look at photos if unsure which side the brakes are on.

Fine chain and brake pin 65. That's so tiny, it's approaching the limit of what I can do. One pin on the floor, don't think I'll be seeing that again. There's a spare on the fret. Just the one spare! Good photos show 9 links. Split the links with a scalpel. Thread through holes in pin and the brake lever guide. Close up with tweezers and solder. Take a breath. The fine chain supplied for this looks very slightly over scale so the pin hangs down a little further than the prototype. But only just. You could use just 8 links, and that's probably what I'll do next time. There's no way I'm taking these off and removing a link! It's a reflection of the level of detail in this kit that we're counting brake pin chain links.


Brake guide stays 47 aren't any easier to fit in 7mm than in 4mm. I'd recommend you fit them later, after you've finished setting up the springs. They do get in the way of fitting and removing the springs.

Bearing carriers, wheels and side play. The bearing carriers are a clever fold up lamination. Virtually no fettling required to get a good fit in the W irons. Be economical with the solder or else you'll spend time digging it out of the slots where the W irons run. The instructions suggest using thin paper as a spacer during assembly to provide clearance in the slot when soldered up. I didn't find the need for that.

Here's where things start to get interesting. With the bearing carriers fitting nicely in the W irons and the Slaters bearing cups soldered in, the first trial of the wheel and bearing assembly in the chassis showed lots of side play, just over 2mm side to side. The supplied etched washers that are intended to fit over the axle ends don't even reach from the bearing flange to the face of the wheel, so no use. We'd need a stack more washers, buts that's not good engineering. We can either space the bearing cups inboard by 1mm each side, or make a sleeve of the correct length to replace the hoards of washers. I decided to unsolder the bearing cups and make spacers to move them inboard. A job to do on the lathe tomorrow after measuring things.

The sometimes dysfunctional relationship between the distance between the inside of W irons and the distance over axles and bearing cups is quite usual in my experience in 4mm. Axle lengths and bearing detail, although similar, don't seem to be standardised. Faffing around with spacers, shims and washers to eliminate axle side play is routine. I'm new to 7mm so I'm wondering if that's the case in 7mm too. Slaters wheels seem to be ubiquitous so I wonder why kits don't accommodate them?

10 hours today, that's a full shift. Total 25.5 hours.