During the week I assemble the chassis for the J17 tender which went together well apart from me drawing the holes for the brake hangers in the wrong place. Artwork correction took marginally longer than drilling 6 holes in the right places. I've stuck two pieces of copper-clad sleeper strip down the inside of the chassis and soldered the pickup wire onto these. While I have metal brake blocks and hangers on the etch I thought it would be interested to try 3D printing them and see how they worked too. The advantage of a 3D print being that there is no possibility of shorting anything out and, as the brakes are out of the way, they should not bee too fragile.

The hand rails were added using Alan Gibson 'short' hand rail knobs. I thought these had a very chunky base so stuck them in a mini-drill and ground off just a little to make what I think looks a better size.

The tops of the handrails on the front of the tender are a little vulnerable until the hand rail wire is fitted but it was possible to drill them out to .45 without breaking. The handrails on the front of the sides didn't have knobs for some reason.

To get the power from the tender pickups (and chip) to the motor I wanted to get some very small plugs and sockets. I found a source from Micron Radio Control who have a wide range of connectors. These tiny 'UM' battery lead 1.25mm Plugs and Sockets can be purchased with different thicknesses of wire, I choose the thin stuff which is similar that used on DCC chip harnesses . I must congratulate them on their service, the bits arrived within 48 hours of being ordered and they refunded part of the cost of the P&P because the actual postage cost less than the minimum amount charged by their website.

A view of the underneath of the tender gives some idea how this goes together.

I have some P4 Markits axles on order now so I will have a go at another batch of loco wheels soon. The original ones using EM axles are ok but I think I can make them with less fiddling if I can use the P4 axles and just have a plain flat back to the wheel insert. I think the next challenge is to get the rest of the 'hot work' done on the locomotive body before sticking the 3d printed boiler on. This means the cab hand rails and rain strips, the brass buffer shanks and the lamp irons.

David