I decided to give the loco some buffers the other day, which was not as straightforward as you'd think, something to do with one hole in the bufferbeam being .6mm lower than the other... I needed to open the holes out to 3mm to suit the Gibson buffers that I'm using so whilst one hole was simply opened out with a broach and tapered reamer the offending hole was moved upwards using a round file and broach alternately. Here's how it looked before I started, the low hole is on the right;

How on earth did that got past the design stage?

Then I decided to add the exhaust, not provided in the kit or mentioned in the instructions. I measured the size (3.5" dia.) and position on the Heritage Shunters Trust 05 and, after marking the position and drilling an appropiate sized hole, soldered in a length of 1mm thin wall tube. The tube was cut after soldering and the cut end cleaned up with file and wet and dry board. (I have a couple of small pieces of wood with wet and dry glued to them - very usefull). A pic;

And so onto the steps. The steps are in 3 pieces, two tread plates and a backing plate. The backing plate is etched to length which is all very well but means that you have a butt joint where it meets the footplate. Here's the etch;

Now I'm fairly good at soldering but I coudn't see the point of struggling with butt jointed steps. So I bought some 5mm x .3mm brass strip to make up new backing plates, the strip is above the etch in the above photo. I marked out the length of the backing plate, then used a scrawker and square file to make a half-etched fold line, folded up the step and the cut it off the strip with a 3mm long section left on to attach under the footplate. A fillet of 188 degree solder behind the bend adds strength.

The treadplates don't have etched fold lines, the part that attaches to the backing plate is already half etched. So I again used a scrawker to generate a fold line and a Hold'n'Fold to bend them to shape. Like this;

To solder the tread plates to the backing plate I tinned the tread plates with 188 degree solder and used my RSU to solder them in place. The RSU is perfect for this type of work as the probe can be used to hold the part in place whilst generating heat to make the joint. All good so far;

As you've possibly noticed (assuming your still awake...) I've been using 188 degree solder so far. This is because I wanted to use 145 degree solder to attach the steps to the footplate, the theory being that using less heat means that the step assemblies are less likely to come un-soldered. Which I'm happy to say worked just fine! Again the RSU came in very handy.

Here's a pic of the build so far;

Still much to do, I reckon its time to get the chassis running.