A lot of work went into the design of the tender.  Once the dimensions were finalized, all the materials were ordered and delivered.  Before starting on the frame, brakes on the tender trucks needed to be addressed.  The Daylight has Buckeye trucks on their GS-4 tenders.  Beautiful trucks!   The brake setup that was decided on is simple and minimal.  It's not as efficient in stopping with some setups I've seen, but it does work and meets my needs.   Work started with the brake shoes.  Here's the setup used for making the shoes.  The cutter is angled (about 3 deg) to match the wheels.

A slitting saw did quick work.

Here they are all done.

A piece of timing belt was glued to the shoes for a better bite.  I did this years ago on my gondola brakes.  The timing belt works great and increase friction dramatically.

The trucks had to be disassembled so a hole could be drilled to hold the shoulder bolt.  This is the fulcrum point for which the brake hanger pivots on.

Got some pneumatic cylinders from Clippard, made some brackets and screwed them to the existing bolt holes.  Made all the hangers, etc. below.

Here is one truck completed.  As you can see, brakes are on the outer wheels only.  Air was applied for tests, and so far so good.  We'll see how well they work when the weight of the tender is on them.

Now that the brakes are finished, work on the tender frame begins...