I sat and counted today, that I have made twenty four 4mm loco kits and including this project eight 7mm loco kits over a 40 year modelling journey. Only a Gibson 4mm loco kit that I never made was supplied with a turned brass boiler until this Slaters kit......... what a heavy beast !!!!

The instructions suggested using Araldite to make up the smoke box around this beast of a piece of brass, but I set out to use solder. I marked out some reference points on the smoke box front and boiler top, then riveted the smokebox wrapper.

This needed plenty of heat, so out with the flame thrower. I used solder paste, but it was`nt man enough in the solder or flux content to make a bond. So....................

Plan B was to use a seperate flux and my favourite low melt solder...........

This has worked very well......

To make things easier I annealed the smokebox wrapper which made a much better fit around the boiler...

I was then able to proceed and finish the soldering with an 80watt iron.