Nice box, usually a good sign.
Me in the process of realising I was making a big blunder - my new tank was too long.
That's better.
Using Peartree brass bearings - they went straight into the castings, no drilling required. I had to have a little sit down there.
Me discovering it wasn't my fault, the original was too long too.
This is an interesting wagon, I can't find a single prototype photo. There's nothing in the BR diagram books, even going back through GWR diagrams I can find no reference to DD7. Still, never mind - there's a picture of a completed kit on the box. There were no real problems to start with, but I did go with the Peartree top-hat bearings as the instructions suggest 1 to 1.5mm of side play is best for tight corners. Using roller bearings together with the distance between the sole bars and hence axle boxes it quite possible the axles would fall out. With the bearings going straight into the castings I was attainig Nirvana in one go anyway. If I did one again I'd fit the tank ends to the platform floors before fitting them, access underneath is very limited with the brake gear in the way, and holding them in place is difficult - I made a couple of wedges and knocked them in to the holes which worked ok. That's jumping ahead a bit though...
The resin tank supplied was something less than round unfortunately. To fit it with the very obvious seam at the bottom would have required some serious hacking of the cradles. The tank is 46mm in outside diameter (going by measuring the resin tank ends) but after a lot of searching I could only find plastic/perspex tube with 45mm OD. This, I concluded, was near enough. The perspex wall thickness is 3mm, the same as the resin tank, so they just popped in the tube ends nicely. A spot of filing and filling and the universe was at peace. Well, almost.
Putting the tank on the chassis, as in the photo with the conflats, the deliberate mistake was immediately obvious. Thank [insert deity of choice here] I'd not glued the ends in. After some faffing 19mm of the tube got the length right, and some decidedly nerve wracking bending of the end supports to the right radius let to success. Phew!
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