This is Connoiseur's starter kit (linky). It's loosely based on an LSWR C14 the same as the old Triang Nellie/Polly loco and makes the same simplification of omitting the outside cylinders. At £60 it's as cheap as O gauge loco kits get, though you need to add £38 for the motor & gearbox and another £30 or so for the wheels.
So here we are. All the parts are here except for the wheels and plunger pickups. (The kit has parts to fabricate wiper pickups but the instructions recommend Slaters plunger pickups.) There's a single brass etch, pre-rolled boiler and a bunch of whitemetal castings. Even figures for the crew are included.
Making a start, the parts for the footplate are cut from the etch.
There are no locating tabs here and the buffer beams aren't quite symmetrical and need to go a certain way up. Starting with the rear buffer beam everything is positioned very carefully by eye and soldered together. Not difficult as such, but quite painstaking.
The cab sides need beading adding. The beading is a bit of strip with an etched recess so it sits against the cab opening. It was a case of bend - solder bend - solder. All rather fiddly and ended up looking messy.
Still, it cleaned up OK.
With the beading on the sides can be soldered to the footplate.
Beading added to the tank tops and handrails to the cab.
