With the Dean saga hopefully drawing to a happy conclusion - touch wood - I thought I'd crack on with another loco build while I was in the right frame of mind for a bit of soldering and swearing.

Having built several six-coupled locos with either inside cylinders or GWR outside pattern, I thought I'd best bite the bullet and tackle something with actual valve gear. This DJH Urie S15 has been in my kit collection for at least six or seven years, being purchased as an almost complete kit at a very reasonable price from an RMweb member. Wheels were included; all it needed was a motor/gearbox.

For quite a few years, there were rumours of Hornby bringing out an S15. Being mindful of that, I kept telling myself I really ought to build the kit before the RTR one came out, knowing that the Hornby model would likely be superior in detail and probably at least as good a runner.

Fortunately, now that Hornby's S15 has been announced, it turns out that it isn't of the same prototype as the LSWR-built Urie ones, so there's still plenty of incentive to get on and build the DJH kit. With its stepped footplate and taper boiler, this Urie example should look nicely different to the Hornby examples, great as I'm sure they'll be. I'll make no claims for the DJH kit's general accuracy, but if it looks close enough to the prototype to fool me, I'll be happy enough.

Last year I made a start by soldering the bearings into the wacking great sheets of brass which constituted the side frames. These are huge lumps of metal, befitting an era long before modern chassis design, and they have big cut-outs for the older type of motor. There is also no provision for brake gear!

I got the frames assembled yesterday afternoon, and quickly installed wheels and coupling rods. The rods were a bit tight and needed a fair amount of fettling before smooth running was achieved. It's always better when the rods and frames are on the same etch, as then you know they're going to be dimensionally compatible. However, once pickups were in place, and the DJH gearbox mounted, running was immediately slow and positive. In fact, of the locos I've built to date, this one was by far the best runner at this stage of assembly, being quiet and steady. With the extra weight of the footplate in position, it ran even better. I didn't even remember to lubricate it until this evening.

If this were a simple 0-6-0 I'd be over the moon, but being a 4-6-0 with valve gear, we're barely at base camp!

I decided to fit and fettle the front bogie before tackling the cylinders and valve gear, as I want to achieve as perfect running as I can before proceeding to the next step. As you can see, clearance is very tight between the bogie and the side frames, and some fairly brutal filing will be needed before totally reliable running is achieved. Once that's done, I'll look at the best way to tackle the cylinders and gear, deciding how much of the basic kit's parts will be used.

Fortunately, DLT of this forum has already tackled the similar Maunsell S15 kit, and there's a lot of useful advice and clever modelling in his thread:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/2359-dlts-sr-locos-a-black-motor-for-torrington/page-5

This won't be a quick project, I suspect, just one that I dip into now and then.