Yeah, my circle cutter came in the mail today. Now I can make some awesome wheels for the locomotive tender.

Now we need a headlight

1 make a box with a hole with a cone inside and cut out top piece
2 top piece formed and soldered
3 place top piece on headlight and solder
4 mount head light on locomotive

we are going to make a smokestack today

1 roll up a sheet into a tube
2 get ready to solder it, notice the little chips of solder waiting to be melted
3 tube is all done
4 solder on a brass strip to finish it out
5 smokestack is done ready to fit to the body
6 smokestack in place #1
7 #2

I am doing the sand dome today. I found a plumbing component that was the right shape and cut the end off and fitted it. It isn't as ornate as the one on the locomotive I am modeling but is similar to what is seen on other steam locomotives.

I am starting to add detail to the top of the body. There are 3 significant items. Starting from the back is the steam dome, then the sand dome and in the front the smokestack.
The steam dome is where the steam is drawn off to go to the drive cylinders. The sand dome is where sand is stored for traction for the wheels. The smokestack vents away smoke and steam. Today I did the steam dome.

I put the top on the cab today

adding the back panels today. Forceps are handy to hold pieces together for soldering

I am starting to build the cab area for the engineer and fireman. There are a lot of small pieces to put together. It is nice when you can hide the solder inside so no one can see it.

Here is how I made the connector rods connecting the steam cylinder to the wheel. Cut out 5 flat pieces, then solder and end on the tubing, then cut the end off the tubing and grind down to make a cap, then solder all the pieces together.

Today I added the horizontal slide bar behind the drive cylinder and then drive rods and connector rods to the wheels. Next time I will show the detail on the connector rods.

Today I added the sides of the cab and the floor. Then I modeled the floorboards in cardboard, finally I made the floorboards out of copper. The floorboards are an area to walk on for inspection and maintenance of the locomotive.

Today I attached the rear wheels to the locomotive and added a small circle to the front. On the real locomotive this is a handle to open the front smokestack chamber

Here is what is going on today. top to bottom

Added trim strip around front plate
Making trim strips for the body
Trim strips added to body
Trim strips with flash photo
The real thing showing the trim strips in brass

Now that I have the larger tube in place it's time to make the front plate. I used a punch to make the little rivet marks. The second picture shows it soldered in place and trimmed to size.

Today I made a larger body tube to be closer to scale

Front view

Rear View