This is the most critical phase of the build, soldering the boiler and ensuring everything is square.

Having soldered the overlap joint of the boiler I had to add the half circle the firebox end and the half etched ring the cab end. These went remarkably cleanly and now with the boiler soldered up, you must offer it up to the inner tank sides.

This went fine until I tried to solder the boiler to the tabs on the inner tanks. Strangly the whole boiler decided to sit up 1mm on one side adding a nasty twist to the whole upper body.

I then had to desolder the boiler and make sure that the boiler went down square. I did this by using a craft knife and soldering iron to remove as much solder as possible until the boiler was free.

I then measured the distance from the tank tops to the etchings for the hand rail holes on both sides to ensure the distance was the same. Having squared the boiler off I resoldered the inside of the boiler to the tabs on the inside of the tank sides.

I deliberately left the cab roof off as I wanted to paint the inside of the cab after the engine was painted.

The lower melting point of the solder made soldering the coal rails quite easy, I found that getting a peice of wood and cutting it the size of the coal bunker and bending the rails around it made it very easy to bend and fit the coal rails.

The chassis is next to be built, a good tip hear is again to cut a wood tmplate around which to bend the chassis. Its easy enough to bend and solder the chassis etchings, but its also easy to solder them out of square.

Even by soldering the copper bearings into the side plates and passing the axles through the bearings is no guarentee that the chassis will end up square.

I have now made a solid brass spacer to go between the chasis around the back axle to ensure that the sides and bearings all sit square. I then soldered the spacer between the chassis sides to ensure that the chassis doesnt twist.

I used a hacksaw to cut the spacer to length, roughly and then used my lathe to square it to the exact size.

By drilling a hole slightly bigger than the bearing 2 mm deep either side into the spacer and a hole right through the middle slightly larger than the axle it is then easy to wrap the chassis around this spacer, which keeps the chassis square and stops it twisting when the engine is under load.

It also adds a little more to the wieght.

Next the motor.