There were lots of half-etched rivets on the buffer beam, and I started work on my Small Ben by carefully pressing them out; such was my concentration on the job that it wasn’t until I’d pressed them all out that I checked my references and realised that actually there were no rivets at all on the buffer beams of Wee Bens, either in HR days or after the LMS rebuilt them, so in the bin with the buffer beam. This goes for the rivets half-etched on the footplate too; there aren’t any; fortunately I didn’t press them out. I decided to do without a few more rivets on the loco chassis too; what you see above is what you get. I’ve cut off one of those downward protrusions behind the rear bogie wheel arch as it’s the wrong size and shape; both sides will be replaced with something more the part after I’ve bent the chassis to shape.
