I have been making mixed progress on the cylinders and valves.

Having skipped the completion of the steam chests pending the arrival of graphited yarn, I moved onto the connecting rods and cross head assembly.

This entails attaching the rods to the cross head and fitting the cross head guide bars. The latter attach to the rear cylinder cover and to brackets that attach to the chassis.

Those with good eyesight will spot the problem in the picture. The hole for fixing the guide bar has been drilled but not tapped. Time for a bit of a panic, but for once I have managed to fix something myself and with my new tap and die set I tapped the holes without any drama.

So onto attaching the guide bars which required a bit of rotation of the wheels to get the cross head in position to tighten each end. Polly suggest putting the chassis on blocks to do this, but I found it easier to put it on my short length of rail and roll it back and forwards.

I really like the look of the end result. My locomotive is beginning to look more and more functional.

Hopefully the yarn will arrive soon and I can go back to the steam chests and valves.