This is where I begin the adventure of building my first loco kit. I'm starting with something small, namely the CSP Swansea Harbour Trust, E Class Peckett.

I have now got the chassis built and running. I have built a few chassis kits before, both rigid and compensated with varying degrees for success and with various bouts of creative swearing! Sadly this kit didn't get off to the best of starts as when I bought it from the late Roger Slade, I looked through the parts only to find I it had the wrong frame spacers. After a great deal of palaver with the new owners who were less than cooperative following Roger's death. A legal letter finally garnered the desired response - it was either that or going round there with two snooker balls in a sock!

I certainly have taken my time in getting to this stage - about two months thus far. I am following the instructions to the letter and have only had one mishap so far as the isometric drawing led me to believe that some parts were in a different place on the frames - thankfully there are minuscule and their omission will not be noticed. Also I'm not saying what they are so no rivet-counter can go looking for them! I used my Avonside jig to assemble the frames using the coupling rods to get the correct spacing, despite their assembly being some way on in the instructions. Apart from this I following the instructions in the sequence more or less to the letter and didn't experience any major difficulties.

My main source of apprehension was the cylinders, slide bars and cross head, mainly because I have only ever done one loco with outside cylinders to date and that was brass etch with whitemetal wrappers. This time I had to fit etched brass wrappers and I referred to Iain Rice's chassis construction book and it all fitted together very well. I made the usual adjustments to keep the crankpins from fouling the crosshead. However as there is a bit of slop on the crosshead the kit comes with some overlay for the front of the slidebars that eliminate this -

Finally I fitted the pick-ups and connected the motor and apart from having to sort out a loose connection the chassis ran first time and I was duly delighted.

Now onto the body!