The hull for Victoria is reasonably easy to do .What ever you do dont buy the vac formed hull from the UK supplier its junk and thats been polite about it.I sent it back and built plank on frame using 1/16 ply
The other problem from memory with the vac formed hull is its about 25mm shorter than the drawings and even at its original size things are a tight fit.If I was doing it again I would build it at least 1/2 as big again
I used the Duval engine as Basils simply has to much soldering involved and with my luck one of the passage ways would get blocked.
For a single single acting engine I pinched the little loco Crackers engine design with a few mods it punches above its weight and has an inbuilt trunk guide that makes a big difference to the engines life span
James Senfit also used the trunk guide idea on his Bijou and Thimble engines .I built his Thimble engine at 2/3 size 2mm bore and stroke its about the size of a match head
On simple wobblers K&N brass tube makes very good cylinders as its very true and it saves a bit of machining as well as a lot of weight around the pivot a point often overlooked although Im guilty on my last engine
When making wobblers I like to use a simple jig to drill the port face holes its just more accurate for me at least
I built a couple of Cracker T locos to try some ideas out for burners using a straight through flue and Im happy with the results so this is the way I may build River Princess boiler sort of suck it and see.
The last model plane I built was a Bowden free flight design with a AM 2.5 diesel all old school
Its always better to cut metal although I often doubt my sanity over dumb mistakes but thats what I get for sticking to fag packet drawings
Iv not done that dirty four lettered word for sometime
thank god