I have now moved on from the cheese grater stage with the GVT tram loco and am convinced I made the right decision with scrapping my first attempt - not that this one is perfect and some bits are annoying me but not enough to abandon it now. It is now a very solid and stable body greatly helped by the additional metal but also by my building it upwards while having tack soldered the basic body to a sheet of copper clad PCB which really helped to keep everything straight. Here it is attached to the PCB which also makes a great return for the resistance soldering iron which I used to great effect in attaching the beading.

Each outer panel was made up separately  as per the original which has meant the panel lines are really beautiful which I fear does not really come out on the pictures. Using the double skin has also meant that the inner panels can be riveted, some of which are visible on plans and photographs but others I have had to interpret for myself. I have done something about powering it it that I have cut out an alarmingly large amount of metal from the boiler in order to fit a Branchlines chassis that I have available.I need to get on wit the cab now which is actually quite a complex area and is scaring me a bit, but I guess it does not involve a great deal of metal if it needs a few attempts.

There may be a bit of a hiatus now in traditional modelling as I am planning to push on with the decorating of the house - been here 15 years and still not finished!. Unfortunately this will mean dismantling the front office/ modelling room, redecorating this and then turning this into a temporary lounge while I do the proper lounge across the hall. I have been stacking up a few 3d projects in my head to work on which should be possible to push on with though.