Tonight, I had the soldering iron on. Initially to add some spacers to a Stanier tender chassis for the Black Five I re gauged back in November.
Once I’d done that I saw the opportunity to make some progress with the chassis on the 782 class which also lay aside whilst I concentrated on getting the Jumbo finished.
Brake gear is pretty much my least favourite part of chassis work but in all fairness, the SEF parts went together easily and now the loco has brakes and external pull rods. It really does make a dramatic difference to the chassis’ and ultimately the loco’s appearance, giving the impression of more substance, weight and mass
‘below deck’.
There’s still a lot to do on the body though and much needs done to improve the finesse of the undeniably old kit. I may even replace the rather heavy roof casting, but we’ll see.
No doubt about it though, those horrible cast footsteps really do need to go!