Thanks for the comments about my last post. I'm very much looking forward to using these Shawplan/Extreme etchings bits.

This is going to be 816 when it's finished. Eclipse is something of an odd choice for a warship name - the last HMS Eclipse having been sunk in 1943. I'd have thought that Eagle or Exeter would have been better choices for a Warship name starting with E. Wikipedia says that the ship cost £246,664, which seems very reasonable compared to how much these things cost today.

Back to the model - as promised here is a photo of the new Gibson wheels. Swapping them for the original Bachmann wheels is the only work done so far to the bogies. One of these wheels will need modifying to the 2 hole variant, as 816 had a mix of 4 and 2 hole wheels in 1970.

Tonight I've soldered up the cooling fans. These come as 13 etched components, all numbered, which have to be soldered together. I stuck two bit of wire in a block of balsa and threaded them all on using the two etched location holes. Apply a fair bit of solder paste between each layer and then some heat from the soldering iron. The finished on it the picture hadn't been cleared up at this point.

Lastly, I've spotted a potential issue. The blanking plug for the DCC chip seems to be under one of the grill opening, which may cause problems with fitting the fan. I'll check further tomorrow.

Also visible is the grey paint on the window surrounds to highlight and gaps in the filler. Some more filling is needed!