[Erik Zwaan]

Hello, and thank you for your responses. Yes indeed, a hole puncher that's the word!

It's been a while as I had to gather the minutes to work on the model in the past two weeks. Corona confinement means working from home and it seems like the working days have only gotten much longer ever since. People are longing for relaxation of the lockdown, that's for sure, and I'm looking forward to the day when I can go back to the office.

Anyway, the first truck is finished, with the exception of the wheels, they haven't been glued yet to the axles. I wait with that until there's rails.

No big issues but I had to alter the brake hydraulic parts here and there for proper alignment of the transmission rods. Also, I included a reinforcement with 1mm thick cardboard on the inside of the truck to support the swivel on which eventually the sleeper will rest. Although it looks differently, I did the same for the F7A trucks.

Compared to the F7A/B trucks, it seems that the braking shoes are missing. According to the designer most of the sleepers were equipped with braking discs, which will not be visible in the model as they're hidden behind the wheels.
Braking shoes will be visible and let's see if these could be included as an option in the model as I have seen quite a few pictures of trucks which were equipped with braking shoes. Reference is made to attached pictures. Somehow I would prefer to include the brakes, as it looks more complete and also would be uniform with the F7A (and B). To be continued and feel free to comment!

Erik