Goodday gents, a short update before going on holidays and thanks once more for your reactions. Kevin, good to see you're back again on the forum! Diderick, that snow plough looks impressive and SWF, I learned this from the Gresley build a few years ago. I had glued the wheels on the axles and glued the rails exactly on the designated locations and found out the that the pitch of the rails should have been wider as the wheel flanges didn't fit in between. This required modification to something already completed, and there's nothing worse than that... So I've become a bit more cautious now
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Alright, the trucks. For some reason I found it very hard to make progress on the assembly of the first one up so far, and it' not even complete yet. As shown here, only one out of four brake cylinders has been installed and the brake yokes/shoes are still missing.
In the meantime all cylinders are in place now (however no pictures yet...) and the brakes are under construction. I have glued the brake parts on 0.5mm thick board, which looks more realistic, but it took time to properly cut them out, and then the edges need to be painted yet.
The truck parts do fit well and the only modifications I made are a few details to highlight the finely printed skin details, such as the frame for the center steps, the axle hubs and some other structural parts. Also I cut out a few of the black areas, to enhance the looks of the trucks.
I put a pin in the swivel joint on top to easily and accurately position the truck below the fuselage. The dry-fit certainly looks good up so far, I think! Note that the wheels have still not been glued yet to the axles.
That's it for now, will be back in a few weeks time after the yearly Summer break
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Cheers,
Erik