What an interesting and enjoyable build this is turning out to be.

While researching in Tatlow and reviewing a drawing supplied by a friend, I picked up that up to 1931 these vans had quite prominent sanding gear. Having resized the drawing to 7mm scale and taken dimensions for the sand boxes from it I deduced that the ones in the veranda compartment would be visible when viewed from normal model railway viewing angles – above and to either side.

So I gathered some bit’s of scrap etch from the turntable and made a couple. I made the hinges and soldered them onto the lid using the microflame. I had just nicely got to soldering the lid onto the box using sprung tweezers as clamps, when it all sprung apart and one of the hinges dissapeared into thin air….

An hour later when I had made up a new one and the boxes were fitted to the floor, my good lady found the one lost in space.

I also beefed up the brake yokes. The photo’s that I am working from show the main cross bar of the yoke to be quite substantial so once again scrap etch to the rescue. That was done after this set of photos was taken so they will probably be on when I show pictures of them.