With the 64xx taking the inside lane on the work bench autobahn it's time to switch it up to something larger steaming up the fast lane.
I've held off for a week or so to collect all the sundries needed (the remaining are in the post) and get the 64xx to a reasonable point where nothing major is outstanding.
I've already built one of these for the Finney7 crew and it's displayed on our stand so I'm well ahead of what to expect in the box. This one will be a little different, the client requires 34006 late in BR on the SD, a chance to add the extended deflectors from our collection and an opportunity to do something about the big hole through the chimney to the ground. The plan being to develop an etch that fits onto the existing model chassis and light blocks the track below, I'll also fashion a blast pipe as viewed from above and make a bracket to hold a speaker, perhaps the DCC board too.
As expected it just all fits where it's supposed to and for what of a better expression 'shake the box and apply solder'.
Unlike the last build these images are not needed for instruction photos so I can let my cleaning frenzy slacken a little, so long as it's smooth and invisible once painted then that's good enough for this build.
The tender chassis is simple, effective and fully functional; I loathe compensation beams on engines but on tenders they're just simply ideal.
The main frames form another sub assembly. Still more brackets etc to fit and like last time I'll fashion a bracket to make the rear buffer beam removable, mainly for painting but also for fitting the retentive buffers once painted.
The two just fit inside each other.
The wheels have a fixing I've not seen before, the last build used 3/16" axles and wheels with a grub screw fixing inside our insulated axle box chassis we developed. These are 5/32" axles and the retaining screw is a threaded stub which screws onto the square ended axle, I like it. The bogie and Delta truck axles are the same and I'm wondering is Slaters have changed the design of their 5/32" wheel fixings to this format instead of the tapered shaft, I do hope so as this set up is much better.