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DLT's SR Locos - Lord Nelson Craftsman Kit


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Hi DLT

That looks amazing ! as you said a bit of weathering and that will look just right, you have done a top job on building this one .

I heard that the S15 may be doing a Run down to Torrington wink.gif

Well done DLT!.

All the best

Drarren

 

 

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As a fellow southern modeller i have been enjoying following your forum, I built this S15 kit and found that the wheels of the bogie hits the inside of the cylinder on tighter radius and turnouts. The bogie would tilt to start with then bounce of the track. I filed down the inside of the cylinder and motion bracket to improve clearance. The other option i had was to down size the bogie wheels as Hornby did on their King Athurs to make more room.

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As a fellow southern modeller i have been enjoying following your forum, I built this S15 kit and found that the rear wheel of the bogie hits the inside of the cylinder on tighter radius and turnouts. The bogie would tilt to start with then bounce of the track. I filed down the inside of the cylinder and motion bracket to improve clearance. The other option i had was to down size the bogie wheels as Hornby did on their King Athurs to make more room.

Thanks for all the comments Guys.

 

I quickly realised that theres not a lot of space for the bogie to swing, and filed quite a large amount off the rear of the cylinders. The motion bracket came in for similar treatment, having first been strengthened with additinal bits of brass (see earlier in the thread) Once thre was enough clearance I smeared Araldite on the rear faces to insulate them, just in case the wheels touched. The clearance issue isnt helped by the fact that the loco body is slightly short; so the cylinders are closer to the drivers than they should be, giving less room for the bogie wheels. I adjusted the forward/back position of the cylinders and bogie to give the best compromise between appearance and clearance.

 

I first fitted the bogie with Romford wheels, but didnt like the appearance, and I think the profile contributed to the derailing. The Gibson wheels look a lot better, and have the right number of spokes. The slightly deeper flanges helped to keep them on the track, but also just touched the frame and the underside of the footplate in places, causing shorting. More filing and scraping was called for, and more Araldite smearing. The wheels also come very close to the bufferbeam and the footsteps on sharp curves, so clearances remain pretty tight.

 

Cheers,

Dave.

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I have one of the DJH S15 kits to build and have been dithering about how best to tackle the brake gear; this thread is just what I need. And the loco looks fantastic, too.

Many thanks Barry,

 

Many people are put off kitbuilding by the thought of valvegear, but quite honestly I've often found brakegear to be more fiddly; although I'm getting the hang of it now. DJH have got around the problem by completely ignoring it, theres no brakegear in the kit, nor any suggestions on providing it. The etched SR Brake gear fret from Mainly Trains is very good, nicely detailed etchings. It just provides the visible bits, its not a "kit" as such. You need to provide plenty of straight brass wire and work out how to assemble it.

 

The parts I used were a tad on the large side, the blocks needed filing down a bit to achieve sufficient clearance. I positioned the longitudinal pull-rods so that they were just touching the inside of the springs, giving the whole assembly a positive lateral location. The front end is screwed to a new chassis spacer, soldered between the front springs. I drilled holes in the loco frames for the hanger rods, but in the end only fitted one through the rear holes, (there isnt room between the front drivers) so the front and middle brake-hangers are not attached to the frames.

 

Hope this helps,

All the best,

Dave.

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Dave, did you have any of the cylinder/motion bracket problems with the PDK S15 kit you built earlier in the thread? I've been looking to get a H15 kit but been put off the DJH one by the running problems i had with the S15.

 

thanks

Geoff

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Many thanks Barry,

The etched SR Brake gear fret from Mainly Trains is very good, nicely detailed etchings. It just provides the visible bits, its not a "kit" as such. You need to provide plenty of straight brass wire and work out how to assemble it.

 

Hope this helps,

All the best,

Dave.

 

Thanks again. I've a feeling I ordered the SR brake gear etch last year with a view to using it with this loco; I'll have to have a good rummage in the kit box now though...

 

My S15 was a very old kit, bought second hand with everything in it except motor and gearbox - I assumed at the time that the absence of brake gear was just a reflection

of it being an old production run and that if I'd ordered a new one, it would have the parts. The other two DJH kits I've built, a C2X and a GWR 1366 pannier, both had brake

gear parts (albeit rudimentary - just a few white metal castings). I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the S15 now...

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Looks very good Dave. What's next?

You may need to make a short display diorama for all of these 4mm locos - although sitting on Charmouth still look very good.

 

Richard

Hi Richard,

 

Thanks very much, there are certainly more SR locos in the pipeline, but I've got some narrow gauge modelling to finish off first, including a tram-loco to go with the new coaches.

 

You're quite right, photographing them on Charmouth is awkward with a confusing overscale background, and an unfortunate baseboard joint. An appropriate photographic diorama is needed, but its low on the list of priorities at the moment!

 

Darren, I'm afraid the S15 won't now be able to make a special visit to Torrington. Due to the build time over-running, it had to be delivered to its new "home shed" almost as soon at the last bit of paint was dry.

 

All the best,

Dave.

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Dave, did you have any of the cylinder/motion bracket problems with the PDK S15 kit you built earlier in the thread? I've been looking to get a H15 kit but been put off the DJH one by the running problems i had with the S15.

 

thanks

Geoff

Hi Geoff,

 

Based on my experience with the PDK S15, I have no hesitation in recomending PDK kits. They do both MAIN variations of the H15.

 

You pays yer money and takes yer choice! I thought the DJH S15 with perfectly ok, even though it had some dimensional problems. It was nothing like as bad as I had been led to expect!

Bits of it were particularly good, for instance the design and mounting of the cylinders. And the cast whitemetal cab was easier to construct than the etched PDK version.

For dimensional accuracy and general fidelity though, I think the PDK wins it.

 

Getting sufficient clearance for the front bogie is a problem with any loco of similar wheel arrangement, and I think my problems with the DJH bogie were down to me trying to be too clever!

 

Cheers,

Dave.

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Well I think its finished at last.

Had a problem with the bogie derailing on turnouts. After quite a time fiddling with clearances and the lateral springing, I removed it all. So of course the bogie no longer provides any guidance, but it does stay on the track!

Apart from that, everything seems to be fine.

That looks rather nice! But on the narrow gauge track it looks like it's on a miniautre railway!

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One of the 'tricks' with SR 4-6-0's is to use undersize bogie wheels to avoid the rear axle fouling the cylinders, Hornby's current N15 is such an example of this practice.

 

The difference is barely noticeable in normal use and the N15 remains my preferred all time 'great' .

 

I look forward to the saga of the 'chonker' with a fair amount of anticipation.

 

DesA

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That looks rather nice! But on the narrow gauge track it looks like it's on a miniautre railway!

I resisted the temptation to sit an overscale driver figure on the front of the tender :D

 

Cheers,

Dave.

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  • 3 weeks later...

IMG_0512.jpg

 

The goods 'Arfur has finally arrived at its new home and is being prepared for revenue earning service - a simple decoder installation is a bit of a head scratcher on such beautifully-made kitbuilts - no 8-pin socket and not a great deal of room. A small but capable decoder is needed and the Kuehn family of decoders are our first choice.

 

The loco will be part of a trio on the group's layout - Beaminster Junction - the other two are a pair of Urie N15's which represent the both tender types from the 50's. These might be joined by a first series H15 from the PDK range but that is in the distant future.

 

Thank you to David for his excellent work.

Edited by Tim Hale
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Thanks very much Des, it does look impressive next to the Arthur.

 

Good luck with fitting the decoder, theres not a lot of space, but would a long thin one slide into the boiler? As somebody recently remarked, decoders are like Lingerie; the smaller they get, the more espensive they are!

I'm interested to hear how you get on, so that I can make future locos easy to convert. My current methods probably make conversion a bit awkward.

 

All the best,

Dave.

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How is the Hornby Arthur wired for DCC? Presumably the decoder is in the tender?

 

Thanks,

Dave.

Certainly not the ones with outside bearing tenders: they have the decoder on a bracket in front of the motor. I can't speak for the new version with a watercart tender. The appropriate Hornby service sheets show the layout of the chassis.

 

JE

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The current Hornby Arthur (excpt the latest 'watercart' tender version') pre dates the introduction of the much meligned loco - tender plug and socket set up, hence the decoder socket is fitted in the loco itself.

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  • 4 months later...
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Time to kick this thread into action again, the next job is finishing a Maunsell Q Class, previously described in the Southern Q Class on the Workbench thread, where there is much prototype information.

 

Built from the South Eastern Finecast kit, the chassis is all the new fully detailed etched kit, beautifully built with full compensation, and running very nicely with a Mashima motor and HighLevel gearbox.

Tender is the current Bachmann model, which would be very hard to improve on and will be left well alone.

 

The loco body though is still the 1960s vintage Wills whitemetal. Whilst its pretty accurate dimensionally its rather lacking in detail, and suffers from being designed to fit on a Hornby-Dublo or Wrenn chassis. As a result there is no cab interior, or bottom on the boiler; its one enormous cutout.

What detail there is is very nicely cast on the bodywork, such as the pipework for the steam reverser, but theres not a rivit to be seen on smokebox or buffer beam.

 

Cheers,

Dave.

 

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