It's finally started....
Having taken delivery of this....
And, no I'm not going spend hours describing the packaging and how to open the box.
This is what's inside - a complete kit nevertheless: wheels, motor, gears, comprehensive instructions including photos and some line drawings, etches (naturally), all the parts labelled and individually packaged and the bit I like is the card with the wire to be used attached and labelled. I also ordered a pair of the cab interior detail kits.
Anyway the first thing I did was punch all of the necessary rivets in the solebars, buffer beams etc whilst they were still on the etch frame. The floor was removed and the necessary rivets punched.
Then I faffed around with the plate below provided as part of the etch. The build will broadly follow the instructions but I will be taking one or two deviations from these - no change there then.
Next were the trucks- it'll already be noted I've not followed the sequence described in the instructions as I wanted to get the trucks operational first.
It was my intention drive all axles but having seen the non-driving truck assembly and carried out a dry run for measurements etc I decided against this as the drive line falls right in the centre of the bolster plate. And I didn't want the hassle of making a new bolster to arch over the drive line coupled with the faff of having to reposition (and risk compromising) the truck mounting to obtain the correct ride height.
Firstly the non-driving truck. This is made up from milled brass and really goes together quite well. The only downside is I do not have enough hands to hold the parts whilst soldering the butt joints. This would have been easier if I had a resistance soldering iron but with the number of kits I build I cannot really justify it's cost. As can be seen I'm using Slaters wheels (re-purposed from the Class 33) rather than the Peartree wheels provided in the kit. Slaters wheels are insulated all round whereas the Peartree wheels are insulated on one side only and as I operate DCC I want to minimise the risk of track current leaking into loco and possible shorting via the couplings and buffers. The Peartree wheels will go into stock.
Next were the truck mounts. Again formed from milled brass and butt jointed, however I beefed up the corners with 2mm square section brass. Probably overkill but the stronger joint makes me happier. I suppose a strong joint would make anyone happy.
I also added some 0.45mm brass wire down the centre line to give a slight fore and aft rock on the driving truck and some lateral rock on the non-driving truck.
Next came the driving truck. Here I substituted the Mashima 1833 motor provided in the kit for a Canon 1833 motor.
Easy I thought, ha ha. No - completely wrong as the Mashima motor has two bosses whereas the Canon only has one and is also a gnats crotchet longer. The idea is to support the motor using the two plates (left in the photo below) however as I am using a Canon 1833 another solution was required. This meant supporting the motor from one end only - again, my solution is probably overkill.
The first step was to ream the support hole to match the boss on the Canon motor followed by soldering the support plate to the truck mounting plate. Worried whether the weight of the motor may bend the support plate I added some brass angle to the front, made some side gussets from scrap etch and added some brass angle in the inside corner.
The rest of the truck was made up and once I had set the gear/worm tolerance I soldered some brass angle underneath the motor - which acts as a support so needn't have gone to the trouble of beefing up the motor mount - Doh! - and more importantly it provides the correct gear meshing automatically when the truck is taken apart and reassembled.
The allen key hex bolts provided have since been replaced with slotted bolts.
Close up of the underside of the driving truck.
Now the truck just needs running in.
As for the loco I'm favouring either no.1 John Lyon or no.3 Sir Ralph Verney however the latter had a slightly different rivet arrangement on the solebar which I'd have to check. But do have nameplates for no.13 Dick Whittington.
- hence the filing back. 
