Kitbuilt - SECR L class from the DJH kit

[Horsetan]

.....I miss Crownline - some of their stuff was a little ropey but the turned chimney is nice....

Most of the whitemetal stuff was fairly awful, particularly when they tried to portray injector / ejector pipework. Trouble was that, in those days, there was almost sod-all in the way of alternatives.

 

The turned brass, copper and etchings were generally very good, though.

[pete_mcfarlane]

The chassis was test assembled tonight. I say test assembled, as it's designed to be screwed together. I'll be disassembling it at some point to drill holes for the brake gear (the kit comes with whitemetal mumps) and will probably solder it up and lose the visible front set of screws. It's using the Romfords that came with the kit at the moment - I was surprised that this kit has the more modern kind with finer flanges, although they still look nothing like the wheels on a real L.

It's OO, and you can tell from the cab interior. 

The backhead is also way too deep. I managed to lose a few millimetres in depth, although it's still too deep. It shouldn't show much when the thing is finished. Even before doing this there were some massive gaps in the cab interior which will need sorting.

And finally test fitted. It's now at the right height, and there's plenty of room for the wheels inside the splashers. There would have still been room if they'd made them the correct height, and not added an extra millimetre.

Edited March 31, 2015 by pete_mcfarlane

[pete_mcfarlane]

And another evening of work to report on.

 

The SEF Wainwright tender came today. This is what you get.

A nice Alistair Rolfe designed etched nickel silver chassis and some pretty good castings. The castings are from the early 1980s but are streets ahead of the DJH ones, and the chassis is dated 1989. Which my brain tells me was 26 years ago, but it can't possibly be that long ago. 

 

I need to make a couple of modifications. Firstly, the only real difference I can see between an E and L tender is that the bulkheads have curved top on the D, like in the photo below (which is actually the spare C class tender on the Bluebell). On an L this is straight. So a couple of new parts need making out of N/S.

The other modification is that I want to hang the tender off the loco's drawbar, to get extra weight on the driving wheels. This is the basic chassis etch.

The rear axle now has a proper bearing in it, and the front hole has be elongated in to a slot, to allow the axle the float up and down. The middle axles already had this. This is the current state of the chassis after doing this and assembling it.

So far, so good. 

Edited April 1, 2015 by pete_mcfarlane

[pete_mcfarlane]

Not much happened over Easter, but since coming back I've started the assembly of the tender, and have made the coupling between the tender and the loco. 

 

This shows the general arrangement of the coupling. It's cut from 15 thou n/s sheet.

It allows the weight of the tender to be supported by the rear of the loco, as in this shot. It runs nicely through the point on my test track, and shows no tendency to nose dive. 

The front of the tender is slightly too low - this is deliberate as I've not fitted the correct Gibson wheels yet and will allow me to adjust the ride height with washers until it's correct. What you can't see in the photo is that the footplate valence is different depths on the loco and tender, and after looking at photos I've noticed that the tender steps appear to be different between a L and an E (the L ones are cranked inwards, as are the ones on the locos, which needless to say DJH have got wrong....). 

 

At this point I'll leave it and pick up again on Wednesday (although I have just spotted a picture of 1768 with a modified C class tender, so that's one option to avoid any tender modifications. I would notice these things after sticking it together). 

[pete_mcfarlane]

A quick Google discovered Narrow Planet - who do custom 4mm scale Southern number plates, which allows me to pick any L class I fancy. So it may very well become 1768, which gained the spare C class tender (the one off the C that was converted to a tank engine) after writing off its own tender in a prang. 

 

http://narrowplanet.co.uk

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/18221-narrow-planet/

 

I also checked the DJH tender - it too is wrong for an L in case anyone is thinking that I made a rod for my own back with the tender swap. It's a slightly weird attempt at the D1/E1 tender with the wider footplate at the front (to match the wider rebuilt loco). Except that they read the drawing wrong and made the valence and the footplate wider at the front, instead of just the valence. 

[pete_mcfarlane]

I've nearly finished the tender - without much in the way of modifications as it's going to be 1768's C class tender. It's waiting for some Miliput to dry before I sand it down and for the last of the details. As you'd expect from SEF, everything has gone together pretty well. 

I've also produced a few more parts for the loco - a Comet SR type bogie has been modified to look more like the one on the L (again, the DJH one is a bit crude). A replacement from buffer beam has also been produced out of n/s sheet and a couple of Maygib SECR buffers.

[pete_mcfarlane]

And in case anyone is wondering about the shape of the coal space in the tender, it is accurate. Presumably the fireman spent a lot of time climbing up in to the tender to rack the coal forward so he coal get to it..

 

 

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

And Sunday's update. I've added most of the detail to the tender, with only the more fragile bits now to be added. The tender side extensions are a bit fragile, so they're reinforced with lots of araldite and a bit blob of Miliput. All of this will be hidden under a big pile of coal once the loco is finished. 

 

You'll also note that I've fitted the axleboxes. What you can't see (because my camera isn't good enough) is that they have 'SE&CR' cast on them in lettering about 0.75mm high. Which is pretty impressive. 

 

I've also reverted to using the chimney provided with the kit, which is the correct pattern for the locos in their late 1930s condition. The Crownline one can go back in the spares box.

 

 

 

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

It's starting to look like a loco. Boiler glued in place and the gaps (mostly) filled, and test assembled for the first time. 

It now needs a lot of work to the front frames to get the bogie to swing, so it will actually negotiate my test track (unpowered and being pushed along). Because I've lowered the loco by 1mm on the chassis, the bogie cut outs aren't big enough and are going to need enlarging.

 

It looks like whoever built the model on the box lid has had to do the same thing to clear the 1980s era Romford wheels with their huge flanges, presumably to get the thing round trainset curves. In fairness, the DJH website says that the minimum radius for the kit is 2'6" which seems not unreasonable. 

 

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

Over the weekend the loco had a lot of metal carved from underneath, so that it now runs smoothly through points and the wheels don't rub on the underside of the boiler. The cast bufferbeam/valance piece wasn't used, as it was the wrong shape, so I built up the valance area with plasticard.

It was then filed and sanded to shape, and the bufferbeam (which I'd already made) glued in place. This evening I also fitted the steps to the loco - the cab ones were modified from the DJH ones (basically I bent them to the correct angled shape). The ones at the front were the wrong shape, so I made some from brass section and n/s sheet. This is the current state of affairs - there's the a bit of Milliput filler under the cap that's setting before it can be sanded down).

[pete_mcfarlane]

I've now detailed the chassis, and it's ready for a coat of etch primer.

 

The brake gear is from a Mainly Trains etc - I think it's intended for a Maunsell loco. It replaced the cast DJH brake shoes, which are nice castings but a bit basic. 

Having read DLT's thread about his Southern kitbuilds I decided to make the brake gear removable, so it fits in to 1.5mm tubing attached to the chassis sides.

 

The plastic firebox looks huge but is definitely the correct size - you can see how much empty space DJH left under the chassis, so adding this should improve the look of the loco! I also replaced the sandboxes with plastic ones  DJH only provide 2, which I've used for the front pair (and attached them to the underside of the footplate rather than the chassis). 

The (Finecast) tender chassis is no so advanced - it comes with some vague looking etched brake shoes, so I've sent off for a set of Brassmasters etched ones intended for the Bachmann C class to rectify this.

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

One step forward and too steps back. The chassis is painted and the unpowered wheels are on, thanks to my trusty GW models wheel press. They look so much nicer than the Romford that came with the kit.

On the minus side, the Comet gearbox I'd planned to use is closer to 9.5mm wide than the 9mm shown on their website, so doesn't fit between the frames. So that's gone in the box for a rainy day and I'll see if I can get a slimmer Gearbox from Branchlines. The other challenge motor wise is that the firebox casting (even after some filing) won't take a 14mm wide Mashima motor.

 

The kit was designed for a DS10 or D11 in case anyone is wondering what motor is recommended - you wonder how a front heavy whitemetal 4-4-0 would ever move with a DS10 inside it. 

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

I've now fitted the brake gear to the tender - using the Brassmasters C class detailing etch (remember, the loco I'm modelling had a tender off a C).

I simplified it compared to what's provided, which is very good but somewhat flimsy and complicated. Basically I've fitted the shoes and the pull rods outside the wheels, but not the ones inside the wheels. It looks OK from a distance anyway..... 

 

Clearly the real thing was a bit over complicated (it seems to be a hangover from the Stirling tender engines), as the later Wainwright engines have a simpler arrangement of the brake gear with only inside pull rods. 

 

I've also fitted the rather nice vacuum tanks to the chassis. It's currently in the Ultrasonic cleaner, and will be painted and fitted with pick-ups. The order for the (slimmer) Branchlines gearbox went in the post a few days back, so I'm slowly getting there. 

 

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

Not much has happened over the last week or so, but tonight I assembled the Branchlines slimline gearbox. Normally it takes about 15 minutes to assemble one, but this one took a couple of hours of tweaking and adjusting of bearings before it would run smoothly. I've never used the particular model of gearbox before, but I'd not had any problems with the larger Branchlines boxes. 

 

It was then run in, stripped down and cleaned, and has been reassembled and stuck in place using bath sealant. Next step is to fix the front drivers.

Edited May 24, 2015 by pete_mcfarlane

[pete_mcfarlane]

The chassis is now alive. After a few evening of cursing and swearing and binding coupling rods, I realised that the Gibson wheels were slipping on their axles. Really badly, something I've never experienced before. I eventually fixed this by removing them, and putting them back with plenty of Loctite. I then pinned them to their axles by drilling 0.5mm holes through the hub in to the axles, and inserting lengths of wire. so after a good clear up, the whole chassis moves smoothly under it's own power, and pickups have been added.

As I said, I've never had this problem with Gibson wheels before, and these were some older Norfolk produced ones that I'd had in stock for years (I stocked up for all my unbuilt kits when the business was up for sale, fearing a repeat of the Sharman wheels disappearance). I also had one of the wheel rims come off a bogie wheel, which has been fixed with Loctite. This is something I've had before, but only with the older Norfolk produced wheels. 

 

Anyway, next steps are to fit tender pickups, and test the whole loco. 

[pete_mcfarlane]

After a bit more cursing and adjustingt he pickups so that they don't touch the body and cause short circuits, I now have the basic loco running up and down my test track. It's minus the bogie in the photo, and you can see how the tender resting on the logo drag beam stops the loco from nosediving. It runs quite well in the limited testing that I did. 

After reattaching the missing front footstep (since found in a corner of the work bench) I'm ready to start adding detail. The end is slowly coming in to sight, although lining it will be fun!

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

Tender detailing is complete. First an admission, I cheated and used the brake standard from the kit. A real C class tender (which is what 1768 was coupled to) has an exposed design of brake standard, like this.

I decided this would be too hard (for me) to scratchbuild to a decent standard, and so used the D class enclosed version provided.

Apart from that, the tender has had steps, lamp irons and pipes added. And, no you aren't seeing things, the vacuum and steam heat pipes are on the 'wrong' sides of the buffer beam. This seems to be a SECR peculiarity. 

I also added the rectangular blocks at the bottom of the spring hangers, which some Wainwright tenders had. Judging from photos there's no pattern to this - as I've seen examples of every Wainwright tender engine, rebuilds includes, with and without them. Presumably there was some interchangeability.

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

It's now ready for painting. The loco details were 'interesting' to do, mainly because you can't get a lot of the parts any more. So I had to use (and beef up) the slightly crude clack valves supplied with the kit, as nobody seems to have any stock of the turned brass ones from Markits. The snifting valves on the smokebox are made from plastic rod (the kit had none, despite them being needed for Maunsell SR days, so I again suspect that this kit is basically meant to depict the locos in BR days). The steam reverser, on the other hand, was replaced by a nice casting from Branchlines, and various bit of piping were added.

 

The front steam pipe wasn't supplied with the kit - well, they did supply some random generic ones, but on the L it sprouts from the centre of the buffer beam (again on the wrong side). This seems to be a mid-1930s addition, I guess because the locos starts working in pairs on the Night Ferry and it allowed the front loco to be connected to the steam heat. 

 

Slightly annoyingly I had to remove the front sandboxes, having found that they foul the bogie on curves. 

 

All in all, it's not a bad kit. Or an especially good one. The castings are clean and go together well, which is why these DJH kits have a good reputation (I suspect that professional builders love them because they can be assembled as intended very quickly). The loco itself was good, bar a few dimensional errors that I corrected. The DJH tender was not so good, as parts of it were completely wrong. The replacement Finecast tender was a lot better, although is a slightly generic representation of the C/D/E tenders. I suspect I could have made an L class tender out of it, if I'd realised the differences before starting.

 

But anyway, it's now ready for a good wash and a coat of primer. It's going to be 1768 in late 1930s condition (lined Maunsell green) after it had lost its own tender and gained a C class one. 

 

[Horsetan]

....you can't get a lot of the parts any more. So I had to use (and beef up) the slightly crude clack valves supplied with the kit, as nobody seems to have any stock of the turned brass ones from Markits. The snifting valves on the smokebox are made from plastic rod (the kit had none, despite them being needed for Maunsell SR days, so I again suspect that this kit is basically meant to depict the locos in BR days). The steam reverser, on the other hand, was replaced by a nice casting from Branchlines, and various bit of piping were added.....

 

The clack valves were SR standard, and very neat, clean castings can be had from SEF - they put them in things like the "Schools" class. The same applies to the snifting valves.

[pete_mcfarlane]

I'd not thought of that - they do all their bits as spares........

[Horsetan]

Exactly. SEF are like the Volkswagen of loco kits, because there's a full spares backup.

[suerose]

Hi

Following this with interest as just trying to sort my on L class out started year ago. Can you tell me which motor you actually used in the end as mine was the old DS10 which has to be changed. I need to order a new motor, so if it works for you I can send for the same one.

Regards, Sue

[pete_mcfarlane]

I used a Mashima 1024 motor, which is a bit on the small side but I couldn't fit a wider motor inside the firebox (which has thick whitemetal sides). The gearbox was a slimline one from Branchlines (possibly the 8SL). 

[suerose]

Thanks Pete, that is very useful. I am trying to do the original SECR in simplified wainwright livery.

Regards, Sue

[pete_mcfarlane]

A bit of a cruel enlargement, although it does show where I need to touch up the odd bit of the paintwork before giving the loco a coat of varnish! After several months of battling with the lining it's nearly ready for final assembly. The loco was painted with Humbrol acrylic for the green (which the flash has made look a lot lighter than it actually is) and Valejo for the rest (including the lining). HMRS trasnfers for the numbers and boiler bands, and Narrow Planet etched numberplates.