Since my first post on this new loco, I've made some progress with the cylinders, lubricators and associated pipework.

The Comet kit design incorporates the top part of the cylinders into the running plate etch with the cam boxes and reversing links mounted above. It is intended that the cylinders are attached to the chassis in the normal way. However, completed examples of the model I have seen have struggled to disguise the join line between the cylinders and cam boxes which does not exist in the real thing.

I couldn't see why the whole cylinder/slide-bar assembly couldn't be permanently attached to the running plate mounting plate and become part of the body, providing the connecting rods can be removed from the crank-pins to facilitate spliting the chassis and body. That way, the joint line can be as unobtrusive as possible. This arrangement did present some cylinder alignment issues but I overcame these with a couple of simple jigs to ensure that the projected cylinder centre line passed through the axle centre of the driving wheels.

Whilst access is fairly easy, I decided to fit the lubricators and complete their associated oil distribution and steam heater pipework at this stage. Normally, I wouldn't start to add this type of detail till much later in the build and after I've got the loco running but it's done now.

Here we see three views of the lubricators and oil pipework. I use 0.2 mm wire for these. Still overscale but a lot finer than many people seem to use. The pipes to the left-hand cylinder and slide bar cross along the top of the frame spacer. On some of these locos, the pipes were clipped to the outside face of the front splasher. That would make lining of the splasher very tricky, so I found a suitable example (44741, a Longsight engine) which had them on the top, curved surface after it's 1952 overhaul.

These shots also clearly show how the cylinders have been fixed to the running plate rather than the chassis.

The cylinder lubricator (the forward one) has a steam heating supply to thin the sticky steam oil for ease of pumping. On these locos, this supply was taken from the steam lance cock on the RHS of the smoke-box. It can be seen making its way down and along the top edge of the saddle, then aling the footplate and over the splasher top to the front lubricator. To allow the boiler to be removed (for painting and lining), the pipe is split at the front of the reversing shaft bracket on the running plate.

Finally, an overall loco shot showing my sketch diagram for the lubricator pipework. The routing was mainly gleaned from photos in the Wils Swan loco profile book for these locos. An invaluable source of information including copies of some of the key drawings.

Dave.