The buffer beams were cut from 80thou (2mm) plasticard; the thickest available and consequently the hardest to cut. I found that they were too small to "score and snap", so I ended up scoring with a scriber and gradually cut the beams out with my trusty Stanley knife (with a fresh blade, of course).

The holes for the buffers were drilled out, increasing the bit size each time until I reached 2mm. From then on, I reamed the holes with a diamond needle file until I reached the desired size. The buffers are of the Caledonian Railway 3-bolt self-contained type (courtesy of 51L) - slightly larger stocks than the SECR prototype but have the right character. They were fixed with Deluxe Materials Rocket Rapid cyano glue.

The covers(?) for the buffer stocks were cut from 10thou (0.25mm) plasticard. The top plates were rounded at the corners with the black surface on a nail file and fixed with Plastic Magic adhesive. Finally, the rivet strips, Smiths coupling hooks and brackets were fixed with the same cyano glue as the buffers.

This was very small and fiddly work - would have been far more difficult without my magnifying lamp!