DJH Urie S15

[Barry Ten]

I thought I might as well throw my hat into the ring with the Urie S15 I've been building over on the blog for the last month. The model is being built with a rigid chassis to 00 scale, and will run on plain DC. I use DCC for post-nationalisation stuff, DC for pre-nationalisation, and my S15 is going to be finished in Southern livery.

 

The DJH kit is an old one, and my example (obtained second hand) was packed in 1988! I must have bought it about twenty years later, and it's been sitting gathering dust ever since. I wanted to have a go at it, but every time I opened it, I was put off by the crude-looking frames and the thought of tackling valve gear. However, sooner or later I'd have to bite the bullet and this year seemed as good as any.

 

My kit came complete with Romford type wheels, leaving me to source the motor and gearbox. I plumped for the current DJH type as recommended for the same kit, which is still in production. I've used the DJH gearboxes in a few other models and found them to give reliable running, taking one significant variable out of the equation. By contrast my experience with using other gearbox and motor combos has been a bit more hit and miss. At least this way I know that any running issues won't be down to the gearbox.

 

The only work I did on the chassis prior to this year was to ream out the axle holes and solder in the bearings, which I did in 2014. At the start of March I assembled the frames and got a basic running chassis going:

 

 

I got to this step in a few hours of work over one weekend, testament to the ease of using the gearbox. I found I needed to open out the couplings rod holes quite a lot, far more than when working with Comet or Branchlines chassis, in order to get free-running. With the drive on the centre axle, the chassis runs well, but it would lock up if drive were applied to the rear axle, perhaps due to the cumulative slop in the motion. I wasn't happy with this from an engineering standpoint, but if the proof is in the pudding, it does run very satisfactorily as assembled. The wheels are live to one side, so the engine only needs pickups on the other. I use the Tony Wright type of pick-up method, using nickle-silver wire which is springy and easy to work with, bearing onto the wheel rims. I can honestly say that these pick-ups are a doddle to get working and once in place are totally problem-free.

 

In next tackled the cylinder and valve gear. Apart from being my first engine with full outside valve gear, I also wanted to push my skills a bit by soldering as much as possible. The assembly of the cylinders was therefore my first attempt at white metal soldering, and I'm pleased that it all went well, although I did do some careful testing on spare white metal first. Being able to tack and un-tack the cylinders until I got them set properly was a great boon.

 

Incidentally, I am using a Brewsters variable temperature soldering iron, which is normally set at 6 for all my soldering work. I dialled it down to 4 as an experiment, and found that that was sufficient to melt the low-melt solder, yet not hot enough to damage the castings. I left it on 4! Lucky first time!

 

 

Next I moved onto the valve gear, and you'll notice that I swapped one motion plate for another, after realising that the earlier one was wrong for the Urie chassis. The instructions are a bit ... let's just say the Dead Sea Scrolls look they were written more recently. They were all but hopeless for the valve gear, and I found it much easier to study photos of real S15s, as well as other models.

 

 

I rivetted the valve gear. Although I'd not built valve gear before, I had made some engines with outside cylinders, and I must admit I've always struggled with the two approaches of making swivelling connections - either using rivets, or the soldered pin method - and if I get anywhere it's more by luck than judgement. With this model, I decided I really needed to nail down at least one of the techniques, so I spent a lot of time getting to grips with rivetting, and in the end I think I found an approach that works, for me at least. Rather than trying to form the rivet in one hit, as is recommended by some authors, I used lots of small taps from a hammer in a circular motion, until the rivet began to deform in a controlled way. Once that was going well, I could switch to heavier taps if needed but the best results were from using the small taps, even if it took a few minutes to form each link.

 

(Last night, as an experiment, I tried the soldered pin method again (on a non-functional joint) and although I got there in the end, I'm still struggling with it; the solder doesn't want to flow readily onto the neck of the pin for some reason. I even made sure I ordered all-brass pins. I'd like to crack this method as well as sometimes it's preferable to a rivetted joint.)

 

Although I'd been daunted by the valve gear, it all went on in a straightforward manner and there were only minor clearance issues to be resolved. The only fiddly part was the nut and bolt that retains the radius rod and die block through the motion bracket, as the nut has to be fixed on from the rear, where there's barely any clearance. I did get a tremendous kick out of getting the valve gear up and running - in fact, I've still not got over the simple pleasure of watching the chassis creep up and down my track.

 

The kit doesn't include brakes, so I made use of the Mainly Trains etch for Southern locomotives.

 

Assembly of the body was also pretty straightforward, again using all-soldered construction. I had to make some decisions about the boiler fittings, smokebox door etc, which place the model in post-LSWR condition. I was tempted to go pre-grouping, with the stovepipe chimney and no smoke deflectors, but in the end decided it would be easier to paint and line it in Southern condition.

 

 

The DJH kits (as mentioned elsewhere on this forum area) aren't necessarily the most accurate, but for my level of modelling, which is more about overall feel than getting things bang-on down to the last millimeter, they're all that I really need. If there's something obviously wrong I'll try to fix it, but - as for instance with the S15 - if the model is too tall or isn't quite long enough in the boiler or chassis, I can't say it's really obvious to my eye, but then again it might stand out more next to a truly scale model. I guess it's down to personal modelling standards in the end.

 

There's still a long way to go but I'm very pleased with progress so far and looking forward to cracking on with the final boiler details and tender.

[Barry Ten]

Duplicating from my blog:

 

The loco is nearly done barring fine detail and of course painting. I've not done the handrails yet because I don't want to use the split pins supplied with the kit (I think DJH supply proper turned handrail knobs now) and I've either misplaced or run out of my Gibson ones for the time being.

I anticipate a bit of a struggle with the smoke deflectors as they don't sit terribly well on the frames at present.

 

Over the weekend I built the tender. As mentioned earlier, one of the castings was defective but rather than wait for DJH to either supply or not supply a replacement, I reckoned I could bodge my way around it. Luckily it was the inner casting for the bogie, so not visible once fitted. The main part of the tender all went together very nicely. I did have a bit of a struggle with the bogie sideframes, but got there in the end although I'll eventually reinforce the soldered joints with epoxy. i also anticipated some problems with electrical shorting between the bogies and the main body of the tender, but after some tweaking that all came good.

I made my own loco-tender connection, not liking DJH's arrangement. Finally, a temporary coupling was added to enable running tests, before I add the last few parts.

 

There are a couple of tight spots on the layout where the front bogie still occasionally touches the front of the cylinder, so I need to smear some araldite on that area to act as an insulator. Other than that, I'm very happy with the running! It's smooth, quiet and powerful, even without any extra weight in the boiler.

The DJH kit isn't the most up to date, and the chassis detailing is sparse, but other than the issue with the boiler length and the smokebox front, it all fits surprisingly well.

[Barry Ten]

Catching up this ...

 

Most of the parts were eventually soldered into position, including the smoke deflectors, which needed a bit of fettling until they sat properly on the frames:

 

 

After some more testing and tweaking, I sprayed the model in Railmatch Dark Olive, before adding black and white lining using a bow-pen, as well as transfers for the boiler bands. The lettering and numbering was HMRS pressfix.

 

 

 

After some additional running trials, I added pickups to the front bogie, just visible in the second picture. At the moment I still need to paint and line the cylinders - the test I did using a tin of Precision dark olive showed that it wasn't a good match to the body! Oddly I think that Precision shade is probably closer to what I'd expect, being a little warmer in hue.

 

That's about it for now - still lots of small, fiddly jobs but at least it looks semi-finished and I'm very satisfied with what has been a fairly quick and painless build, given that it's only been 10 or 11 weeks in total, and that includes a few weeks of travel away from home.

 

Meanwhile, this has now taken the S15's place on the workbench...

 

 

Thanks for reading!

 

[chriscleveland]

Hi there

 

Looking to build my s15 just wondering if you could show the custom made connection you made for the loco and where can I obtain a bow pen from

 

Chris

[Barry Ten]

Hi there

 

Looking to build my s15 just wondering if you could show the custom made connection you made for the loco and where can I obtain a bow pen from

 

Chris

 

Hi Chris

 

Happy to help, but not sure what you mean by the custom made connection - can you point to which bit you're interested in? I built it more or less out of the box other than the brake gear.

 

(Edit - I see what you mean now, sorry. I re-read the thread several times but couldnt see it! I'll post a picture later.)

 

As for the bow-pen, not sure - my parents both worked in a BR drawing office, so I've always had lots of things left over from those days. Perhaps a specialist art supplier, or ebay? There are also

specialist lining pens for model trains:

 

http://www.phoenix-paints.co.uk/cherry-paints/lining-and-masking/bob-moore-pens.html

 

cheers!

[N15class]

Catching up this ...

 

Most of the parts were eventually soldered into position, including the smoke deflectors, which needed a bit of fettling until they sat properly on the frames:

 

blogentry-6720-0-15453700-1429305528.jpg

 

After some more testing and tweaking, I sprayed the model in Railmatch Dark Olive, before adding black and white lining using a bow-pen, as well as transfers for the boiler bands. The lettering and numbering was HMRS pressfix.

 

urie.jpg

 

urie_2.jpg

 

After some additional running trials, I added pickups to the front bogie, just visible in the second picture. At the moment I still need to paint and line the cylinders - the test I did using a tin of Precision dark olive showed that it wasn't a good match to the body! Oddly I think that Precision shade is probably closer to what I'd expect, being a little warmer in hue.

 

That's about it for now - still lots of small, fiddly jobs but at least it looks semi-finished and I'm very satisfied with what has been a fairly quick and painless build, given that it's only been 10 or 11 weeks in total, and that includes a few weeks of travel away from home.

 

Meanwhile, this has now taken the S15's place on the workbench...

 

C2x_2.jpg

 

Thanks for reading!

Lovely looking loco the Urie S15 is to my mind much better looking than the SR builds. I am just starting one in 7mm that hopefully I can sell rather than keep, but it is very tempting.

[Barry Ten]

As promised here is a shot of the loco-tender connection - just a hook on the loco, and a goal-post on the tender. They were formed from piano wire but any stiff wire will do.

 

I could easily close up the gap a bit.