Well, after a few days earning the mortgage & keeping the Chancellor in his acustomed luxury, it was back to the workbench.

Job for today - get as far forward with the watertank as possible (more work tommorrow )(Overtime - ).

As can be seen, the sides & ends are in six separate pieces. Ok, it looks like three but I've already soldered the flare units in place!. Nice little job for the RSU. Note, there are no tabs to locate the sides in the footplate... Normal procedure these days is to form the sides/end as a 'wrapper' - but there we go! Instructions are a but thin on the ground ('end goes between the sides'). Unfortunately the end is 'handed' for the footsteps (one side only & the instructions don't say which side - & of couse there's no drawing...)

The flare was formed round a suitable diameter rod (actially the handle of a swiss file. Either the brass is naturally soft or the RSU annealed it!)

Here, the sides/end are assembled - any gap in the junction of the 'flare' was filled with solder and filed to shape (it actually went together quite well & didn't require much fettling). At this point the instructions said to add the steps (bet they are on the wrong side...!). As the tank top is the next to go in place, I also added the handrail knobs - much easier!

At the front end the tank top support frames sit inside the sides. The instructions state 'the location of the supports is not critical'... I don't trust statements like that, and

shows how I spaced them from the sides so they would (coincidentally) sit over the edges of the hole in the footplate.

Nearly done for the day. The instructions say 'shape the tank top to follow the supports, then trim to length'. Again I expected problems, but perhaps I'm a little jaundiced! Anyway, about 30 mins later

she's not looking too bad!

Still got the front end and top detailing to do. Might get that done tommorrow evening if I'm lucky - if not - Friday.

Oh yes... Those c...ed brake hangers... A careful study of the drawing in Russel Vol 2 shows they were suspended from the outside frames. So there's a thought!

Regs

Ian