For those who don't know what a J17 is, here is a picture.

They were a James Holden designed locomotive built for the GER between 1900 and 1903, a sort of half-way house between the lighter J15 and heavier J20.

As I hinted the J17 kit from PDK is also quite 'old school' by today's standards. The frames just had simple holes for the bearings, not even a half etched line as a nod that some people might spring or compensate their locomotives.

Progress today has been quite swift, partly because I was working with such nice components and probably partly because I vaguely knew what I was doing with them!  The High Level horn-blocks soldered in place easily, jigged into place by the coupling rods. I then added the spring carrier etches to the rear of the horn-blocks, using the 'space saver' design on the rear axle to give more clearance for the gearbox. Having fitted these I then widened the holes I'd drilled in the frames for the CSB (continuous springy beam) carriers. Following various recommendations these are made from Markits WD handrail knobs. Being parallel these can be fitted through from the outside of the frames and spaced from the frame so that the spring wire is the right distance from the frames to match the horn-block spring carriers. I fed a length of spring steel wire through them while soldering them to fit. The result was that the horn-blocks look to ride at an appropriate height and seem to be at the same level and 'sprung' the same amount - thanks due to the famous CLAG spreadsheet tool.

One of the extra bits which had been etched was the springs, these solder to the bottom of the bearings and ride up and down with them. The result is that the wheels can easily be removed from the chassis simply by pulling out the sprung wire 'beam)

Now I think I'll spend a few days procrastinating before I attempt to do anything with the wheels.

David