Rivet or weld?

In real life I can just about manage to wield a (pop) riveter with dexterity, but the last time that I tried my hand at welding, the results looked just like something that had recently passed through one of the local pigeons.  It didn't do much for the door of my Mini either, which fell off shortly afterwards...

Back with modelling, I've been a little more successful in completing the test builds of the 5522 LMS coach bogies.

I initially made up the riveted version, using it as the test bed to write the instructions for the kit.

Satisfied with that, I have just finished building the welded variant, which can be made from the same kit.  The basic differences are to not add a few rivets here, and to put in some welded ribs there...

I'm very pleased with both of the bogies.  I now need to cast a much larger stock of the axleboxes and bolsters, and think about how best to pack them.

Many thanks to Keith Norgrove for also doing a test build based on my first draft of the instructions, and making many useful suggestions on how to improve them.  Any errors or ambiguities that remain are entirely down to me.

Now to think about a test build of an underframe for them to sit beneath...

Cheers
Flymo