nickd

The pan saga continues into week 3. The first picture shows the reach rods for the Watts Links that move each pair of arms together. I made them on a simple jig. Either ends telescope inside some brass tube to maintain the correct centres. The second pic shows all the cranks and rods and arms threaded onto the rotating shafts on the pantograph bases ready for alignment and soldering. The bell cranks for the Watts Links were aligned using my trusty eyecrometer. The next two pictures show the completed pan base in the lowered and raised positions. The bit of video demonstrates how the Watts Link makes the arms move in sync. The last couple of days have been spent making the upper arms from 0.8 mm rod and the skate. And here are the nearly complete pans. They need something fabricating to keep the skate level and a bit of wiring. More pics here https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/52295650372/ I wonder if anyone can help me finish the models? I had intended to use MM1 Models 10,000 and 10,001 diesel bogies on these locos, they are identical to the bogies fitted to EM2s. However MM1 aren't trading at the moment as Laurie L is ill (get well soon mate!) Does anyone have 2 pairs of (unmade) JLTRT or MM1 10000/10001 bogies I could borrow until Laurie is up and running and I can get replacements for you? PM me if you can help, Ta.

It's panto time! Ooooooh behind you! I had some etched parts made 20 years ago for pans for a model of the EM1 prototype 'Tommy,' there's glimpses of it above. The etches are for the base, the lower arms and the skate, the rest has to be scratchbuilt. You can see in the above picture that I made up most of the etched parts and cut out a load of others. The lower arms have cranks from which both the springs and the reach rods (that make the lower arms work as a Watts Link, and therefore rise and lower together) attach. I had to make 64 identical ones. The jig that I made for locating the roof mounts was used to fabricate the pan bases. The sides were mounted in the jig (the mounting hole positions have to be very carefully measured) stretchers were added and the shafts for the lower arms added. The shafts are 1.8 mm OD thin walled tube rotating on 1.6 mm rod. Theres a lot of bracing and mounts for the pantograph lowering mechanism. It sits on the base of the panto and is made from boiler band strips, angle and rod. The last pic shows one of the air cylinders fitted up that raise and lower the pan. They're printy parts, cheers angain Michael! More pics here https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/52279319835/ Short week this time. By the time you read this I'll be in a sweaty car bound for a campsite in Robin Hood's Bay........oh no you won't.

So this week has been spent sorting out the roof brackets for the switch gear and pantographs and busbars. All the brackets are scratchbuilt from brass sections and the printy bits are grey. I made a jig for locating the pantograph brackets, I can use it upside down to build the pans on. All the switches and busbars are made from boiler band etch. most are 2 ply but the switch terminals 3 ply. All the insulators and busbars come off for painting. More pics here https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/52265104511/

So only a short working week this time and not much to show but I did finish the control desk. All the levers and stuff come off for paint. I also made some seat bases and squabs and fitted them to the cab floors. The cabs were completed by adding the lights, or not in the case of the lower lights, as the painter asked me to leave them off to make masking up easier. Quite by luck the front side handrail knob shafts pin the control desk into the cab. I added the windscreen wipers as well. They're spares for a Heljan diesel, class 47 as I remember. And finally here are the etched and 3D printed parts for the pantographs. That's right folks, next week is panto week. The last pic is surely the dullest photo ever posted. More pics here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/52249528193/

Thanks for the heads up Barry, but I have my own etches.

Right. So this week I came across the first detail difference between both locos. The rain strips on the front of the cab roof are different. Minerva doesn't have any in the period I am modelling and Electra does. Both locos got the horns. I made some blowers for the outer compartments of the bodies. They're made from plastic card from a well known Derbyshire supplier, and they're quite basic, but you really can't see much (if anything) of them through the windows. I made the compartment partitions from plastic card, as well as the corridor wall, with sliding doors, that passes along one side of the body. I like putting partitions and floors in model diesels and electrics. It really gives a model some heft if you can't see the track through the windows and it looks like the compartments are full of something. I made a representation of the racks that hold all the LT and HT switchgear in their respective compartments, but again they're not really visible through the windows. I was about to glue it all in place and the postie came with a box of 3D Lego. I set about adding the grills/louvred panels to the body sides, as they're much easier to locate while the bodies are empty. They have a clever design and slot into windows in the inner etched skeleton. Now I was a bit worried about them distorting in the searing 40deg C Sheffield heat while I shivered on holiday in the Orkney Islands so I decided to solder them into place like this; In this way they can be moved about a bit to align them and finally glue them as well. Hope they've not gone curly when I get home. They look like this, and I was very pleased with them so big thanks to Mick Davies for the prints. You can (not) see the interior in the last pic. I started fitting some detail to the printed control desks but had to stop to dash to get the ferry. More next time when I'll finally get to build the pantographs (or will I?) More pics here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/52220955354/ Can you see the Old Man of Hoy?

Not a great deal done ths week as I had 3 tank locos across the bench for mechanical repairs and DCC upgrades. I did however sort out the cab steps and handrails. The steps are scratchbuilt from 0.3 mm nickel-silver strip. You can see that the door handrails are cranked at the bottom and not centred on the door frames, as per prototype (see pic above.) The picture also shows the handrails round the cab front, these are in nickel-silver and removable for paint. As far as I can make out the cab door handrails were black (in lined green era) and the cab front handrails polished steel or chrome. I also added the 3D printed vents ont the top of the roof. Crude 'handrails' were soldered to the roof below the vents for the glue to grab. You can still see the faint pencil lines I drew to position the 'handrails' and then vents. Positions were taken from this pic using the trusty eye-crometer. Finally this week I made some horns. They are from the Markits range via Roxey Mouldings. The horns as supplied were too long so were cut up and mounted on scratch built bases. Pantographs next week, surely? More pics here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/52204228549/

So this week has disappeared in a frenzy of solebar detail. I have hand cut 90-odd outriggers and soldered them all to the solebars. I have discovered that there are many different shapes, some repeat many times and some are different on both sides. Some have holes in them for the runs of pipework. I have stared and stared at dozens of photos of EM2s to work it all out. Luckily they're all quite similar. I also fitted up 3 cab roofs, and added all the runs of pipework. Such a lot of work condensed into a paragraph of words. I really am enjoying the build though, even if scratchbuilding in MI is a series of many repeats. More pics here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/52185536492/ Next week it's the cab steps and handrails. Then the louvred panels, vents and lighting. Hopefully a bit of pantograph action too.

This week has flown by, and much was done, but at first glance so little has changed! First up I sweated the remaining pair of body overlays on to the second model and then turned my attention to the rivet strips that cross the roof sections. The strips were quite tricky to attach so that they sat nicely on the roof sections and were straight. Also it's a test of how accurately the bodies have been made, as the strips start and end above opposite bulkhead joins on the body sides, and if the sides aren't in line the strips will not be straight. They were soldered with 70 deg solder to prevent any distortion. Door treads and handles were made and attached. After hours of task-avoidance I decided that I had to attach some resin 3D printed parts. Working in plastic is outside my area of comfort (see my blog on building DA Princess Royals with resin fireboxes!) I needn't have worried as the parts had been printed with such care and accuracy that it was like working with Lego (with a bit of filler.) Thanks Mick. I attached the infill pieces between the rear of the cab door frames and the body sides. They have a sacrificial edge that has to be carefully sanded back such that the outside edge of the strips land just below the body sides. There's a brass strip that curls round them at the bottom which actually serve to hold the plastic parts while the glue sets. On the advice of Mick I used 15 min epoxy resin. The top part of the infill strips can then be profiled to match the roof. I did this with a sanding disc, keeping it parallel to the roof panel and making light passes until the disc gently touches the brass roof. The cab roofs were also 3D printed and a few trial items had passed between Suffolk and Yorkshire until we were satisfied we had a good fit. Again the cab rood sections have a sacrificial edge that has to be reduced gradually until the roof sits in line with the brass sections. You can see that this sits a little proud so with a bit of sanding It can be made to sit nicely. I glued them in place with epoxy and held them with elastic bands while the glue set overnight. To fill any gaps, and blend in, I used a fine filler from a car spares shop (sold for filling stone chips and scratches.) I allowed that to cure overnight and blended it in with 240 grit wet-or-dry and lots of water. As you can see above there's a brass strip along the join between plastic and brass roof which will hide any suggestion of a join. I made 4 sets of BR screw link couplings from LGM. They look great but take a good while to make. A U-shape of brass rod keeps them vertical in the coupling pockets. I also bought some steam loco vacuum brake pipes from LGM and they were much too short for this application. I canabalised them for the end fittings and scratchbuilt the rest by winding fine copper wire (from inside 12V motorcycle loom cable) round pre formed 12 mm brass rod. The next little awkward job was the gutter strips at cantrail level. This is made from 0.4 mm rod planted on the top edge of the body side. I made a tool to locate the rod and allow me to tack it in place. The same tool was used to hold the rod while soldering it in place. I used 70deg solder and reduced the heat of the tip of my iron. This reduces the tendancy of the rod to try and escape by expansion. They have to be dead straight or your eye just goes straight to any distortion. You can see from the last photo that the week concluded with making some of the many outriggers on the solebars. This will continue long into next week as there's dozens and dozens of them, and they're all hand cut from brass sheet. So next week when the solebar detail is done I have to fit the handrails, lamps and louvred panels. Then the bodies are done. I'll just need to add interiors, bogies and Pantographs. More pics here https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/52171799136/

I was asked to build a pair of EM2s from MSL Hobbies kits. I was delighted as I have lived in Manchester, Sheffield and Rotherham all my life and was/am a big fan of Woodhead and especially the electric locos. One of the supplied kits was in pristine condition, still in the box with all of the original packing, the other had been opened and fiddled with, and some of the etchings had been damaged at some point. I contacted Mick Davies (Mickoo) who agreed to produce some etchings to replace the badly damaged ones in the kit. It occurred to me that perhaps we should make 2 sets of etches so that both models match each other. Of course the project developed a life of it's own at this stage and Mick actually produced 2 complete bodies with 3D printed parts, more of which later. Better than any steam loco, including Kings, A4s and Princess Coronations. I figured that if Mick produced the body etches I could scratchbuild my way round the rest. The EM2 bogies are the same as those fitted to the LMS pioneer locos 10000 and 10001 and MM1 Models agreed to sell me 2 pairs from their kits. I had some pantographs drawn by Adrian Rowland years ago when I scratchbuilt a model of Tommy (EM1 prototype,) and luckily PPD still had the photo etch tool! The etched body panels arrived from PPD Ltd. One pair of panels had the skeletons of the bodies in nickel-silver and the other pair were brass overlays of all the rivet and strapping detail. I began by building the bodies. The sides were folded up from the floor after the cantrail rib had been folded at a right angle to the side, bulkheads/formers were installed and the cab rears folded up. The last sentence makes the process sound simple, infact it is feindishly difficult. The fold lines have to be heavily scored to emphasise them, and even then the strips above and below window and louvre appertures bellied out on folding. These had to be encouraged using itterative folding and a hammer to straighten the bellied parts. I used a rectangular dolly to the rear to reshape the sides around the folds and the appertures. I used an actual hammer to build an O gauge loco. The structure has to be constantly checked for squareness and straightness and adjusted where necessary. It has to be able to sit flat on a flatbed and all she sides and ends have to be square and straight. Next the cabs were folded, and again squareness is paramount! The cabs were then attached to the bodies, I did this on a flat piece of plate glass to make sure the whole thing is true. Again it has to be spot on! And here are the cabs taped to the bodies prior to fixing. You can see that I've attached the roof ribs. The process of attaching the overlays then began with the cabs. Much care is needed to align everything then radius the cab corners. Then a deep breath and form the roof sections. They must be very close to the correct shape before attaching. You cannot use the roof ribs as formers as you will leave a witness mark on the outside. Lastly the body side overlays can go on. This is the bit where you find out how accurate your fabrication has been. The side overlays have a rebate alont the inside of the top edge that slides satisfyingly over the bottom edges of the roof to disguise it all. I soldered the sides on using 90 deg solder with my iron tip temp turned down a bit to prevent any heat buckling. You can see in the above picture that I have added some door details and all the lifting lugs on the roof. There are many many repeats. I also scratchbuilt the solebars and buffer beams. The solebars are cut from 6 x 2 mm brass L-section from Phil Atkinson at Hobby Holidays. I've built quite a few models of steam locos but building deisel and electric locos is much more difficult because of the accuracy required. There's a few more pics here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/52153920622/ Next week I will do battle with some 3D printed parts.

I have recently finished a pair of small tank locos built from Agenoria kits, both were commissions (I haven't built anything for myself for 21 years now!) I had never built an Agenoria kit until I turned professional and now I've built a few. All the ones in the range that I have built have been ex-Pete Stamper origin, and they've all been very good, especially when you consider that they are etched from hand drawn artwork. They're very simple to build and the ones without awkward structures (eg saddle tanks or the dreaded GWR bunker) should be recommended as suitable for beginners. I think these two have turned out well. They are both pre-grouping locos absorbed into the GWR (I'm sure someone will fill me in with the origins.) Hilda (the 0-6-0T) was used as an engineer's loco and 1338 kicked around Swansea docks for ages and is now preserved. I was particularly drawn to 1338 as it has interesting valve gear, and it's always nice to build summat new. The buffers on 1338 were a bit of a challenge and were scratch built using the etchings for the heads in the kit as a guide. They have stocks that I think are LMS in origin, but have been heavily modified. Both locos have had the saddle wrapper etches modified, or in the case of 1338, replaced. Hilda has had the bottom half of the saddle tank wrapper replaced with thinner material. This was done primarily to create the obvious joggled repair present in the photos of the loco I worked from. I'm guessing that the bottom half of the saddle tank rotted out on the real loco and some new material was welded in. Both locos have the saddle wrappers pre formed in the kit. This causes a couple of issues, firstly you have to un-wrap it a bit to punch out any rivets, and secondly both wrappers have the dreaded half etched lines on the rear to 'aid' shaping. In reality they just leave awful witness lines and a threepenny bit profile on the finished shape (you get the same with smokebox wrapper and bunker rear etches.) The witness marks are impossible to flat out satisfactorily, especially if you've already punched out the rivets. I think that the solution here is to scrap the etches provided and cut out some new panels using thinner material. 0.3 mm nickel silver or brass is a better choice of material as it can be formed by hand round a suitable rod without the need for the dreaded etched lines! In my experience 0.45 mm sheet is just a bit too stiff to manipulate by hand. You can see that I have replaced many of the larger castings in the box with 3D printed items (thanks Mickoo,) as their quality wasn't that great. This isn't a criticism of the current owner of the range, as I think both of my kits pre-date the Andy Beaton years.

A couple more pics to conclude. Model now finished and tested, coal added. It pulls a reasonable load for a single. There's more here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/52088977406/

So here we are with the assembled loco post paint. It needs a coal load and a bit of very minor touching up.

The drawing is Q51 in the Doncaster drawing section and is specifically of 1003-8. I'm told that the tener was a 3850 gal tender. Does that sound right?

hi Chris. I have identified the correct GA for the loco from the Doncaster drawings section of the NRM archive. As I understand it the tender allocated to the loco when new was given the same number, so in this case 1008. But other than that I'm at a loss. You're right there are 3(?) types of tenders that these locos had. The NRM has several tender GAs so hopefully they'll have the correct one! They seem to be 30T tenders but with different frames and water capacities. Nick

Hi All. I'm hoping someone will be able to help. I have a commission to build an O gauge Stirling Single no 1008 as in the photo. I will be commissioning a set of custom etches (they will become available to anyone who fancies a set ) but first I need to visit the NRM to get a copy of the GA. Can anyone tell me which type of tender 1008 is coupled to in the above photo? There were a few types of GNR tenders at the time. Thanks Nick

Well I did have a massive soldering session and everything is attached to everything else. I added the Westinghouse system to the IOW loco and finished the cab interior. All that is left to do is to fit the motors when they arrive, check all runs well and take them to Warren 'Felt-pens' Haywood. I like the mods done to the IOW 02s, it makes the locos look a bit more business like. More pics here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51991138780/

I seemed to have got through quite a lot of the build this week. I began by making the smokeboxes. The wrappers for both locos were without rivet heads, so that helped. All the parts in the kit for the smokeboxes were used. They all fit nicely, but the smokebox wrappers have half etched lines on the inside to aid shaping. In reality they just produce a threepenny bit shape and witness lines on the outside. It would be good if manufacturers just used thinner (half etched?) material which can be folded by hand without the need for half etched relief strips, although I suppose that would not allow pips for rivet heads to be raised. See above for bunker rears. Someone pointed out to me that the smokeboxes in this kit stick out beyond the sandboxes and in reality the fronts of the smokebox and sandboxes should coincide. They were right. I decided that the way to achieve this would be to shorten the boiler. The kit advises the use of a ring of brass wire to produce the quarter circular section cover between the front boiler band and the rear of the smokebox. I decided to make life more difficult by cutting out circles of 1.0 mm brass sheet to the required diameter, and radiusing one edge. These were soldered concentrically to the rear of the smokebox to give the same effect as brass wire with a fraction of the dressing. The smokebox and the boiler were stood on the footplate and I could measure how much to cut off the front of the boiler so that the smokebox front and sandbox fronts were in line. It was quite a bit at 1.8 mm. I soldered the boiler to the smokebox and added all the cast weights that Jim puts in the kits. The next task was to fettle all the castings for the chimney, dome and SVs. The brief was to replace the white metal castings in the kit with brass castings from elsewhere. The kit castings for the chimney were not hollow (!!) and the SV plinths, covers and valves were one cast lump, so probably a good decision. I did have some issues with the replacement brass chimneys and SVs. The Adams chimney was fine but the later Drummond chimney had a couple of issues. The Drummond chimney had casting marks that went through the bolt heads on the saddle. The only way to remove the lines and make the saddle a good shape was to grind off the cast bolt heads, shape the saddle and then drill the saddle to accept replacement fake bolt heads from my favourite German supplier. Also the chimney cap has 4 holes in it. When I put the chimney on the smokebox the holes were not in line with the axis of the boiler so had to be filled and re-drilled. An easy fix but....... Also neither chimneys were hollow all the way through so I still had to drill and cut out the bottom and do a fair amout of grinding with a vicious looking burr to clear ot the flues. All in all 4 hours work to fettle 2 chimneys. I used the cast white metal kit domes, which were a bit pitted but filled ok with low melt solder. I moved on to the safety valves. I dressed up the plinths and shrouds and popped one on the firebox. The plinth nestled very well on the firebox clothing but..... FFS! This time I altered the saddle to twist the casting straight. It would have been quicker and better to cut off the shroud and either reattach it or make another one!! Next I made the steam manifolds with all the pipework and whistles etc. The LSWR loco has 2 whistles... And the IOW loco has a church organ whistle and a steam pipe that feeds the displacement lube in the cab...I think! The next step was to complete the cab interior of the early loco and add a crew. Actually I need to add the displacement lubricator when it turns up. I left the IOW loco cab until I have made all the Westinghouse system as the brake part is in the cab and I don't have a handle yet. I finished the week by fettling the last parts required for the tanks to be completed. On monday I'm going to have a mass session soldering everything together!

Not much progress on the 02s this week because of the above, however I did manage to add some pipework. I added steam heat and air brake pipes to the IOW loco and some vacuum brake pipes to the LSWR version. No train steam heat pipes on the latter as it hadn't been invented at that time, or rather the LSWR weren't that good at customer service (like Markits!) All the hoses are detachable to keep the painter happy, and there's some pipework detail represented under the footplate. I also ditched the kit CWM injectors and added some nice cast ones with copper pipework. The LSWR early injectors look a bit weedy! I've put it off for long enough so it's cab detail next week.

I have had a couple of days off from the 02s to carry out a couple of little jobs. One was fixing a Slater's Saint for a Guild member who approached me at Kettering ('A morning's work!' said the Loco Clinic, HaHa.) The other was a footbridge built from an iffy Churchward Models kit now marketed by Phoenix/Precision of SR Z class kit fame (don't you just love hand drawn, blown up 4 mm etches?)

More progress was made this week. I added the handrails and extended the cab floor into the doorways. The tapered cab door handrails were made by spinning nickel silver rods in a mini drill and filing them into a slight taper using a file. The spinning rod is supported on a block of wood. The kit comes with cast whitemetal buffers but the brief was to replace them with turned buffers from Markits. The buffers were very nice but the customer service at Markits is not. As is the case with all telescopic model buffers a certain amount of hardware extends to the inside of the buffer beams. This inhibits the fitting of support gussets so I decided to make the buffers self contained. I've done this with quite a few sets of buffers, but these were easier than most because they are rather nice turnings. The cast ones can be a nightmare to convert because they are often not square or the hole doesn't go through the centre etc. The Markit items have nice stocks that are accurately turned and have drillings for the fixing bolts. I took brass rod and filed it into a hex pattern using the flats on the chuck of one of my pin chucks. These were let into the drilled holes in the stocks and soldered in place on the rear. I had to made additional holes in the stocks for the SR model as the buffers had acquired extra fasteners by then. The fake fasteners I used for this application were from GHW-Modellbauversand in Germany. The Markits buffers don't have a packing disc between buffer and beam, but both of my chosen prototypes did. I cut these from 0.8 mm nickel silver sheet. I can only imagine how much quicker this step would have been if I had a lathe. The next step is to shorten the bit sticking out of the back of the stocks to the thickness of the buffer beam. I did this by drilling a hole in some scrap sheet of the same thickness, poking the back of the buffer stock through it and grinding off the excess length. The buffer heads had to have 4.2 mm cut off the length. This meant that the thread for the fixing nut was removed. I decided to use a ring cut from NS thin walled tube as a new fixing soldered to the end of the head (you need to use Baker's fluid as a flux for this so be careful.) The buffer shanks then have to be drilled out with a 2mm drill to form a relief for the ring. I drilled 2mm into the rear of the stock for this. If you're a bit lost have a look at this sketch. Hopefully it will add some clarity, but maybe not! You end up with something like this, and you can see my scribblings on the sheet under it. I've converted many sets and they all follow the same principal. The buffer beam furniture was completed with some CPL SR coupling and safety chains for the LSWR loco. The CPL stuff is very good but they take a while to assemble. Taps and dies are required. Yesterday was spent adding steps to the underside of the footplate and closing the water tanks. Lead sheet was added to the inside of the tanks. More next week.

Here are a few pictures of the work I did yesterday on the 02s. I spent a large part of last week preparing all the various parts for the loco superstructure and was able to assemble it all in one day, twice!

Work has moved on and the chassis have sand boxes, pipes and pickups. I messed about with the pivot for the bogie and decided that the mounting hole should be slotted slightly to allow a little sideways movement. This allows the model whizz round a 6' curve smoothly, but I did introduce some simple side control using phosphour bronze wire. Next was the footplate assemblies. These went together easily, the valances have fold-over tabs that locate in half etched rectangles on the underside of the footplate etching. The tabs are there to help locate the valances but in actual fact lift the lengths of valance in between them out of the half etched slot along the footplate edge. The valance unsupported by tabs then has a tendency to wobble about above the etched slot. Next time I think I would either remove the tabs and locate the valance etch in the slot or not file the etching cusp off the top edge of the valance etch. The rest of the week was spent cutting out and preparing body parts. The beading was attached to the side sheets and opening cab doors added where appropriate. The cab fronts and rears were prepared. Bars were fitted to the IOW cab rears and all the brass cab window surrounds prepared. The structures for the cab interiors were prepared. The last job of the week was preparing the bunker rear sections. The parts provided have etched lines on the rear to aid bending. The lines aren't continuous across the panel and when you begin to form curves witness marks appear on the outside. I decided against trying to dress these out and just cut out rectangles of thin nickel silver sheet as replacements. Next week I will assemble it all.

I like Jim's kits, they go together very nicely and are easy to make. This is a simple out-of-the-box build of a pair of 02s one from the mainland and one from the Isle of Wight. The plan is to do a few minor upgrades to the cab and some of the pipework on the loco body. I have borrowed a copy of the Bradley LSWR 'Bible' of Adams locos for reference. However I'm not a LSWR buff and would be grateful for any help/comments that would help me along the build. One loco will be of no 185 in early LSWR era and the other of W17 Seaview in SR Malachite Green era. As usual I began the build by making the rods. Both had fluted rods and I have added a few bits and pieces of detail. I decided to make the rear driven axle rigid and add some simple suspension to the front driving axle. I used Slater's square horn blocks and horn cheeks made from 1.5 x 1.5 mm L section brass. I used the rods as a jig for accurate location of the axleboxes. The rest of the chassis build so far has followed the instruction sheets. If anyone has spotted anything that's wrong please let me know and I can ammend it! More pics here https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51904857513/

Here's a few shots of the finished GWR BG Rover. I made it and Warren Haywood painted it. The few pictures I have of the loco all have the same driver in the cab (W Sansom apparently!) Andrew Stadden made me a custom figure of the driver and a fireman, and Evan Griffiths painted them for me.