I've made some good progress on the Dave Bradwell B1 chassis. I fitted some pickups, made up the brakes and then refitted the pickups as they conflicted with the brakes! This got me a chassis which could move under its own power from the track. I then spent a good few hours fettling the slide bars to get the crosshead casting running smoothly.

This was quite entertaining and the result was pretty good, the lower part of the slidebar is just pinned together by the 4 lengths of .45mm wire at this stage.

Then I moved on to looking at the clearance between the slidebar, crosshead and the coupling rods. It is rather tight! 

At this point I had to consider the crank pin on the front axle, the nut it is designed to be recessed into the coupling rod to increase the clearance available. I still need to file some of the meat off the crank pin nut.

I was almost there and had just decided to assemble the piston rod so I could check the fit when, with more of a whimper than a bang my 25W Antex soldering iron stopped generating any heat. While I have another iron a 40Watt Weller with a bit the size of a spade isn't really suitable for P4 valve gear.

So, for the moment, the B1 is stalled waiting on a delivery from Eileen...

In the meantime I'm back on the goods shed, but that is probably another blog entry.

David