The firebox has now been assembled in mild steel, I cold formed the wrap around the bulkheads.

I wired and bolted the parts together before silver soldering them. Apologies if the additions are a bit hit and miss, I'm adding them as I go, but they are listed in a different order on the 1/20th scale Burrell page, still work in progress.

Hello Noel, thanks for the note, have dropped you a PM. I'm still developing the design and drawings as I go, but any info to help would be great. Thanks, Nigel

Just spent the day working on the firebox door hinge and latch, still needs some fettling, but feels like a good point to share.

I had another look at the lettering on the door and decided it wasn't quite right in terms of font or in terms of etching. So I had some help from my son to create the original image in Inkscape (free to use vector drawing software) and we downloaded the font Rajdhani from google fonts. This isn't perfect as the original lettering I'm sure was created by hand in wood and you can see in photographs of the doors that the letters and spacing changes. However, at 1/20th scale we were not going to be able to get to that level easily. Inkscape allows you to change the spacing of the letters and this helps when they lay on a circular path.

In particular the letter "C" has a form where the ends curl around and the "R" has the leg form that is closer to the original. The quotes are from another font to get the dot and curl formation.

So, this pm I spent some quiet time machining the front axle, 3/16 inch square mild steel, turned down to 4mm at ends for wheels to run on. Then machined 0.6degree taper on the square axle – I did this by first machining an angle plate at 0.6 degrees and then using this to align the axle for each face. Luckily the centre 14mm of axle is square and not tapered, hence allowing me to use the same reference wedge.

I need to make a washer for the end on each side and straps for the steering chains. I've used a brass bolt for the pivot pin, but might change this to a plain pin and "split pin" – might be fun at 1/20th scale.

Sorry, no photo of it alongside a Mamod, but did get to make the inner wheel hubs, using my Unimat Pillar drill and simple dividing feature embeded in the table base.

and a closeup of the dividing feature

and then finally these thin brass wheel inner hubcaps fitted to the wheels and the axle now with a steel end hub soldered to the main axle