Progress on my Wee Ben has not been spectacular over the last few weeks, I’ve mostly been working in the flat assembling various components such as the etched brakes which I thought looked better than the cast ones that came with the LGM Small Ben parts pack. You can see in the above photo how I’ve bent the tender chassis to shape (using a bending jig from "Metalsmith") and soldered brass sprung hornblocks into cut outs in the chassis sides for all six wheels. Another job that took some time was shorting out the wheels of one side of not only the tender but the loco too, as I intend to use the so called "American" pick up system. I joined the brass central boss of each wheel to the outer steel rim by means of a fine brass rod running in a groove cut behind a spoke and locating in small holes drilled in both the rim and the central boss, thus effectively shorting out the plastic insulation. You can just see this arrangement on the back of the near axle offside wheel. I drilled access holes in the top of the chassis so I could adjust the screws that control the ride height of the tender. Washers were added to all the axles to restrict sideplay of the wheels.