[Erik Zwaan]

Thank you Don, Diderick, Kevin WS and Eatcrow2 for your reactions. It’s good to have you all on board!

Continued with the tender body last week and although the assembly is not difficult and the fitting in general is very good, a few remarks are worth noting:

Inside formers 132e of the tender body are a few millimeters too high. Bottom plate 132c of the tender would otherwise not fit within the bottom rim as indicated in the instructions.

For a better span of “gluing control” it would be my preference to place the formers inside the body already and to not attach them to the bottom plate as per instructions. For the same reason, place engine side bulkhead 118 at the tender body before fitting the bottom plate (and attached to it, part 132d). Save it for last as in this way only the bottom plate has to be glued in place instead of the entire assembly with formers.

Engine side bulkhead 118 has to be trimmed on the curved side by approximately 0.5mm to make it fit properly in the “arch”, considering the small gap on the lower side required for fitting the bottom plate properly.

To make the inside of the tender body stronger I laminated it with 1mm thick board but a cereal box would be just as fine. By doing so, gluing strips 132c are not required. Their dimensions are not entirely correct anyway. I only realized this after gluing them to the bottom plate and subsequently partly removed them as you can see in the bottom plate picture.

Although the print of the cokes look very realistic it is clear to see that the same pattern has been copied three times, which is a bit of a pity. I’m considering changing this later on by adding a layer of sand particles or something on top, and then painted appropriately. Still have to find stuff with the right dimensions. Any suggestions?

The inside lining of the coach and engine side bulkheads is not correct. At the coach side it is too short whereas at the engine side the print is not aligned properly. I took a picture of the coach side to illustrate this. Luckily I scanned the sheets before starting the work and with a print of the parts concerned, trimmed to fit, it's easily solved.

Next will be further body build-up and related details before starting the tender chassis.

Interesting to note is that this type of tender had a build-in narrow corridor along the right side to allow the engine staff to move freely between the engine and front coach. Especially for longer distances they could find a place to rest in this way, and a double crew could take over. The outline of the roof of this corridor is clearly visible from above in the model.

Wikipedia and YouTube provide a wealth of interesting information, not in the least about how a steam engine works in the first place!

Erik