I've now glued the waggon bodies to the chassis. Before I could do this I attached the couplings to the chassis. I wasn't convinced that just glueing the tail onto the chassis would be strong enough when pulled (shear strength?) so first of all I drilled a couple of .45mm holes in the couplings 'tails'. Then the couplings could be epoxied in place. After the glue had dried, I gave it 24 hours, I drilled through the holes into the chassis and then cyano'd a short length of .45mm wire in place, which not only strengthens the joint but gives a representation of a bolt head when trimmed. A pic;

After the bodies were attached I glued on the batter plates, the brake side only has one plate;

The ends also have batter plates. The instructions ask you to use the supplied ones suitably trimmed, as on the left below. However a lot of waggons had smaller plates attached at an angle, as in the middle, and a few had the smaller plates attached vertically as on the end waggon (I chopped up the supplied plates to make the smaller ones);

These plates were fitted so they could be struck with a sledgehammer to loosen a sticky load.

Here's a waggon with a '2-and-a-bit' link chain temporarily fitted;

Showing a couple of waggons coupled up;

And the link;

This is made up from 2 x Smiths LP3 links and a section of North Yard 16 links per inch chain. This isn't my ideal solution, I wanted to use Smiths LP3F (which are finer links) but they were too small to use with the brass strip that the couplings are made from, and a couple of round links, which I coudn't find suitable chain for. However, I think that this is an acceptable compromise.

Next job is to make up the etched brake gear.

Paul.