I have collected the painted parts and they look great. Well, I should say that the bits I have unwrapped look great and I am being very cautious to only unwrap parts as I need them. Here is a photo of a “pile” of painted parts.

So it was back to Kit 9 to start putting things back together.

The first painted part out and on to the loco was the smokebox.

It went on without too much difficulty and really looks bling. He has used a heat resistant paint so should stay looking smart for a while. It certainly still looks OK on all of Polly’s own models.

I then had to wrestle once again with the boiler and, in particular, the snifting valve. Twenty minutes of careful wrestling and I won.

Throughout the reassembly I am removing my watch and wearing nitrile gloves to try and protect the paintwork.

Once the boiler and smokebox were on the frames, I could fit the smokebox door and the handrail stanchions. Neither of these caused too much difficulty. The latch bar holders also went on without a hitch.

So now for the major challenge that I was dreading – refitting the cladding and cleading.

In the end it went well. I used my string round the boiler techinque to pinch in the cleading enough to get the boiler bands on and the firebox section went on without much of an issue. I remembered that taking the reverser off gives more room for manoeuvre in doing this.

So having nipped up the boiler bands I am back to the end of Kit 10.