Hi Larry,
Many thanks.
Ignore the position of the bogie, it's a red herring. In most of the photos it's only placed under the frames and not attached with the pivot.
These drawings confirm that the front edge of the guard irons are level with the buffer beam. I'm happy that the running plate was too long as the irons are now level with the beam after I shortened it.
Today I fitted the cab and filled the gap at the slope in the running plate.
View attachment 111732
It looks OK now.
View attachment 111738
Next the firebox. It's just a simple wrapper with a fold down former at the front and a separate one at the rear. It doesn't have the usual Gladiator/Andrews screw in jigs to set the spacing between the front and rear plates, but goes together easily. I've made a start on forming the shoulders, facilitated by good dollops of solder on the inside.
View attachment 111740
A quick test with it screwed to the cab showed it was fouling the driving wheels at the rear edge, so metal has had to be removed.
View attachment 111739
Before grinding away, I added a strip of waste each to replace the tabs that were going to be lost in the process. As can be seen I've added a nut to the inside of the rear plate to allow removal of the firebox and boiler for painting.
View attachment 111737
Here you can see the need to remove the lower edges of the firebox. A little more still needs grinding off.
View attachment 111735
The boiler comes ready rolled along with an overlay to build up the front end for the smokebox.
View attachment 111734
I added a nut to the inside of rear boiler disc before fitting it so that it can be bolted to the firebox and aligned for soldering. Its drooping slightly without the smokebox saddle.
View attachment 111730
On the frames we have a further problem as the boiler fouls the front driving wheels, so further cutting and grinding will be required. It would possibly be OK if built to scale 7 standards.
View attachment 111731
I also made some preparations for fitting the splasher sides, by "panel beating" the inner edge of the running plate with a small ball pien hammer, to allow the sides to sit flat on the lower straight edges. When I've soldered the straight sections, I'll manipulate the running plate further to get it as close as possible to the reverse curve on the splasher before soldering and filling any gaps.
View attachment 111733
Cheers,
Peter