Building the rear bunker.

Rear bunker components

Next in the instructions we move to the rear of the loco to start building up the bunker. We start with making up the rear of the cab with the fitting of the coal doors. The instructions are nice and clear, the hinges on doors are folded to 90 degrees so that they slot into the cab rear spectacle plate.

Cab back plate folded up

Before the cab floor is built up there are a couple of slots that require cutting, this is so that the tabs from the door handrails will fit, it’s probably easier to see later in the build. The slots are easy to make with a piercing saw but it’s not too critical as the slots will be hidden later on behind bodywork, and the tabs can be trimmed if necessary. Note the under floor strips are to be fitted and the tabs twisted but not soldered, these are soldered later on when making sure the bunker is square to the tanks.

Marking out the rear plate for handrails

The rear bunker plate has a few holes missing, the instructions includes a drilling template which it suggests cutting out and sticking to the rear plate as a drilling guideline. It includes all the required dimensions so I used a marker pen on the rear plate and marked out the positions with an engineers square and calipers. The required holes were then drilled out.

Rear plate with handrails

Once this was done then the bunker floor was folded as instructed and soldered to the rear plate. Steps and handrails were then added and then cleaned up. A small drill was used as a spacer when soldering in the handrails to ensure that they were all a consistent spacing from the rear plate.

Making up the coal bunker

The bunker sides, sloping plates were then added to the rear plate and then the cab rear spectacle plate fitted. All tabs were twisted and the assembly soldered up and given a good cleaning.

Fitting the bunker doors

The bunker doors were then fitted, along with the locker doors and finally a couple of half etched panels and handles. The hand rails around the doorway are made from a small strip holding the handrail knobs and a half etched overlay to include the rivet detail. To give a better fit it is suggested that the holes in the half etched overlay are opened out to fit over the base of the handrail knobs. The instructions suggest drilling out the holes but that wasn’t something I was keen on being very thin material and close to the edge I was worried it might snatch and bend.

Open up the holes for the handrails

So I used a set of broaches to open up the holes, but as can be seen in the photos it’s cutting close to the edge.

Handrails fitted

However it really is worth it as the final fitting of the of the handrail knobs gives a much finer finish.