Tender top - the big bits

As mentioned a couple of days ago, the tender sides for the Bulldog locomotive were a bit bent when released from the etch but tweaking with fingers and thumbs sorted this out. Forming the flare over a bit of brass rod strengthened things up further. This isn't difficult, you just have to keep fiddling to get it right. Form. Test against the back piece,. Tweak. Test. Repeat until happy.

Then the sides locate into half etched lines in the footplate. A test run showed these to be a touch shallow so I ran the Olfa plasticard cutter along them to take out a bit more metal.

I suppose I should make fitting the parts out to be a big deal and keep you on tenterhooks or wow you with my skills but the truth is that all 4 sides fitted well first time. They were tacked in place and once happy, I finished the joints off all the way along. Even the tender flares, notoriously difficult to get nice and tidy, went well.

The only problem was the tank top. The shape has to be divined with from a sketch in the instructions plus a bucket load of trial and error. Putting the divider in place helps when gauging the height it should be fitted but there still plenty of tacking and adjusting. I think it's right now but have put the finished parts aside as returning with a fresh pair of eyes might show up some errors that need fixing before I progress.