[Kevin WS]

The three sledge parts now need to be joined to the engine.

In the instructions, Dave mentions that the engine should be mounted to the sledge base BEFORE the sledge sides are added - if the sides are added before the engine is mounted, you will not be able to get the engine in, due to the various angles involved! I also confirmed this by "dry fitting".

There is also another advantage to joining the pieces this way, and that is glueing the engine to the floor first creates further rigidity, and also fixes the angles at the back end of the sledge - this makes it easier to align the floor to the sides when the latter are added.

Picture 1 shows the mounting rails of the engine glued to the floor. The rails were glued (after dry-fitting the alignment of the sledge back) exactly on the place marked for them on the floor (the two drawings of "U" channel). You can see in this picture the back of the sledge has NOT yet been attached to the engine.

Pictures 2 and 3 then show the rear of the engine glued to the back of the sledge, as well as the rail positions on the floor.

Pictures 4, 5 and 6 - The sides are finally added and the sledge/engine combination is complete!

Note that I added the sides one at a time, carefully checking the alignment drawn on the inside of the sledge sides, each time a side was added.

Something I also did not mention earlier, was that I also coloured all the edges of the cut pieces with watercolour pencils (my favourite for this purpose) as I went along. You can see the end result along the edges of the sides of the sledge (see the last picture).

I also used a 2H lead pencil (hard pencils smudge less) along some of the edges of the engine, though some edges I also left white as this complemented the appearance.

The last thing left now is the Blackboard - an essential accessory!