Easybuild class 129 DPU

I bought this t'other day as I want something to do over the festive period and my Caprotti 5 loco kit still hasn't arrived, so something a little different for me on the build front... a coach construction essentially but in fact a diesel parcels unit to be precise. Now I am given to believe from a very reliable and informed contact that one of these Cravens built units was sent down from Newton Heath to do the Leek- Mirfield evening parcels run in the last few weeks prior to goods operations at Leek station finishing, the regular unit being M55997 which ended up at a test unit attached to Derby Research Centre and named Lab 9 Hydra. What I'm not sure of was if in 1969 this particular unit ran in Rail Blue whilst at Newton Heath or if is was still in the earlier green livery, certainly I never saw any Rail Blue traction at Leek. I do know that by 1971 M55997 was running in Rail Blue when transferred to Chester depot.

Anyway here is the box the kit comes in, nice and sturdy ... always a good sign when buying kits.





Some etches, a Cannon motor for the power bogie and a CD Rom with instructions, you can download a hard copy for printing from the Easybuild website if like me your Rom Drive has stopped working.





The body parts





Various white metal castings for all the underfloor detailing.





The glazing pack and the cab ends... I really love that beige porcelain marble finish and look they have even provide two nice little carry handles over the cabs for when you want to hold the model without causing damage to the sides.






The non powered bogie with wheels.





So there we have it folks, lets see how this one goes.

 

yes but you know my strange sense of humour just couldn't resist that one.

 

Thanks chaps, I had hoped to have finished of the Standard 4 and cracked open the Caprotti 5 but the gearbox motor combos haven't arrived due to a shortage of gears and the Caprotti 5 is still awaiting delivery so the 129 jumps the list. The bogies seem very good quality and well defined, so far all I have done is to wash the plastic components in warm soapy water to remove residual film from the making process, I'm also out of 0.7mm drills so cannot prepare the bodysides... order for replacements will come Monday so it says.

 

If I fitted a pantograph would it then make this a DEPU ? Now that will get Toto going as we all know how much he likes 25kv overhead traction.

 

Thanks for the kind comments chaps, Toto the bogie mouldings look spot to me and with some weathering I doubt there is much mileage replacing them with brass ones... the plastic doesn't look "clumpy" in my eyes but yes brass bogies make for a much finer finish. Keith if you want Mark 1 stock then these prices are very attractive... btw I just spoke to Pat Ennis and he hasn't posted my Caprotti 5 yet but will do so after Christmas, so I asked him when exactly (being frugal with costs lol) and suggested I'd placed another order with him for a 77XXX Mogul if he got this order off on time and he gave me a discount and wavered the additional postage costs... so winner all round . He also says the rebuilt Merchant Navy upgrade needs a couple more areas attending to and won't be ready until March 2021 so I asked him to put my name on the first one when its ready. Pete, all I can say is this kit is quite heavy and that is without adding extra weight... soon as some replacement twist drill bit arrive we are ready to go with this build.

 

Rooting around in my various toolboxes I happened across a 0.7mm twist drill for circuit boards and though this was the perfect opportunity to crack on prepping up the Easybuild 129 DPU body sides, instructions say to use this size to bore out the preset marks for door hinges, handles and bump stops. So taking the two sides I decided to open out the inverts which form the fuel filler points and coolant intakes, for this I opened out a hole near the top of the mark using a 3.2mm drill set up in my Proxxon TM220 pillar drill unit taking care to stay within the filler point profile, once the first hole was formed I gently cut into the sides in tiny downward strikes using a scapel then nibbled out the waste plastic then finally forming the shape with needle files. Remember these sides come CNC machine profiled from blocks of Plasticard so care and patience for what soon becomes a repetitive process were required on my part. The picture shows the two sides, the upper side is where the pilot hole has been drilled within the filler point profiles and the lower side shows the "opening out" process with the completed hole filed on the left and the raw cut hole on the right.




Next stage is to add the filler point profile pieces... these are white metal and need to be drilled at the base to accept the filler nozzle, I used a 1mm drill for this and reamed out the excess to gain a snug fit, the nozzle is represented as a metal rivet which I glued into position prior the gluing to the body side. I'm using a cyano for this and a new product called Stick 2 Industrial Grade made by Euer Bond, later on as the build progresses on the larger parts I shall use another cyano product called Bond It which comes with a spray activator but this seems a little excessive and wasteful just on tiny parts. The Stick 2 did just fine grabing the small filler castings.




The lower filler points are for fuel and here the inner floor rib needs to be cut away for about 7mm which is equal to the bottom edge width of the filler casting, this makes the casting locate in its correct position.
Now I found a good way to fix these tiny pieces in the correct positions onto the body sides was to put a dab of Stick 2 onto the top face of the casting then placing it from underneath the body as if you were in effect looking over the assembly, slight positioning could be made before the glue set solid. I then found with the fix attained another drop of Stick 2 could be drawn down the edge of the casting using a pin and capillary action would form a good seal to the body side. One further point to add is to give the back face of the casting a gentle sanding so it meets with the inward curve of the body side and finally trim the excess rivet away using cutter snips.

 

The instructions for this kit are reasonably well presented so there isn't a need to explain how to put this together, I felt it more a case of sharing my own approach to assembly with a few techniques I've learnt along the way so far. Anyway back to the body sides and there are three prepping jobs needing attention and must be done now, the hinge fitting, the guards door shortening and the ends which meet with the resin cab ends.

The guards door is identified as a door without hinge drill points, its the left side of a double door set on the end and when the sides are placed together (later on) the guards doors will mirror each other at one end of the coach body. Note the left side has no hinge drill points and the base of the door is trimmed back flush to the underside of the inside floor rib, this is because the guards door opens unwards and needs to clear the floor. I found a good way was using a scalpel and cut down into the door line at each side then cut out a vee notch which makes trimming easier and a nice sharp angle edge.





The second prepping task is to fit the door hinges and believe me these things are micro, luckily Shawn provides a few extra ones to cover for loss or damage e.g mis gluing. Again I found cutting these tiny pieces from the brass fret with Xuron cutters best done over a white box so the pieces don't stray. Now there are two hinge types the shallow head ones go along the centre of the door line only... I cut and fixed all these first, the deeper headed ones are for the top and bottom row hinges. I connected the hinge and baseplate together (as these are all two piece components) and holding the assembly with tweezers I pushed them into the hinge hole and with a dab of Stick 2 from the back I let the cyano do its stuff making sure the front hinge plate remained upright. I tiny dab of Stick 2 applied with a pin will keep this plate in position.






The third and final prep is to trim down on the sides below where the cab roof will meet, mark a point 5.5mm inwards and trim down from the top by no more than 1mm, it will also be necessary to square up the cab roof edge which meets the sides in order to achieve a nice even fit. The picture also shows the hinges in position and the commode grab hands drilled into the resin cast cab side... these holes spaced at 15 20mm from the cab base are only put in on the left hand side of the casting. Do not glue the cab to the sides at this stage of the build as more prep work is needed to the cab ends yet.

 

Now the next move is to get the roof ready which involves drilling a series of 2mm holes for the ventilators which are positioned off set as a double row. I ran a strip of 40mm tack tape masking along the roof and trimming the tape at the ends, the centre point at each end was marked and a constant pencil line struck the length of the roof, from this I struck two more lines at 7.5mm distance one each side of the centre line. I now had only to mark off the drill points and make a pilot hole then drill out the 2mm hole. Once done the tapeis removed and the swarf cleaned away. Again do not fit the ventilators nor the exhaust port at this stage because of damaging these items in the next body filler process.

One final tip to note is once the holes are drilled mark the guards end of the roof on the inside and when it comes to fitting the roof fit the guards roof end over the guards compartment ... hence the shortened door bottoms.

 

Just jumping forward a little in this build and here I've fitted the cabs and roof using EMA Plastic Weld which fuses the joints together and can be reworked if needed by softening the joints with another coat of EMA, here the cab ends are being filled to meet the roof profile. I'll go back to the cab end prepping in the next post or two.

 

Taking a step back now focusing on cab prep work which involves drilling 0.4mm holes above the centre of each front window for the wipers and drilling out 2mm for marker light LEDs, I glued in lengths of 0.4mm brass wire over the windows to take the wipers ... this will be a final job to do after painting and glazing.





Before fitting the cab ends a thin amount of bodyside above the drivers doors needs removing, this is make a good tight fit for the resin cab casts, the amount is 5.5mm lengthwise and certainly no more than 1mm in depth. I tack fixed the cabs using Stick 2 and once cured I made the joint on the inside with EMA Plastic Weld... do one cab to each side then again once cured bring the two body halves together checking alignment with the roof as guide.





Then set the roof having first marked and drilled the vent positions, if you want to super detail the roof with weld seam lines to simulate the panels now is the time to do this task... of course this last task I'd forgotten all about so now it will have to be done the hard way with roof glued in position. Make the joint with EMA fed along the cantrail inset from the inside of the bodyshell... remember to start in the centre and work outwards towards the cabs noting also to hold the roof ends firmly in position until cured as the roof profile does have a tiny "banana" shape but its nothing to worry about.

There is a slight roofline profile differential against the cab, this is made up with Isopon filler or even Cuprinol Two Pack Woodfill which I find better as it grips plastic more easily and doesn't pair back at the edge when sanded with wet and dry. Leave the main roofline untouched as you don't want to loose the profile at this point.

 

Now its time to change focus and build up the power bogie... always nice to be able to mount the body onto something with wheels on so the ride height can be checked. The motor / power bogie frame structure is different from the non power one as it comprises of etches and also has ball race bearings instead of the basic top hat brass cups which the non power unit has.

Put the main bogie stretcher plate and the strengthening beam together folding the joints first, align the two using the pivot bearing as aid (the little aluminium flanged washer) then grip the assembly with crock clips and solder the both pieces together. Note the body shell floor has been fitted with the bogie mounting tables and the initial cut out for motor has been made... I say initial because some further trimming will be necessary later on.




Now add in the pre assembled (at factory) balance beam with wheelset... this item already has ball race bearings fitted, hold into position with 0.9mm wire so the balance beam pivots gently rocking but not so much as to lift off its position on the frame.





Next make up and fit the side support frames like thus... I glued the etches to the plastic with Stick 2 having previously strengthened the seam with solder. These items are then bolted to the frame with the geared wheelset added along with Delrin chain.

One thing to note when fixing the ball race with cyano is cut two side slots in the plastic side frame and gently feed the cyano into the space with a needle... this prevents the ball race from seizing up solid if any cyano creeps where it shouldn't.





To be honest putting the power bogie together and testing for clearances will more than likely involve several disassemblies and re assemblies particularly during motor testing and in attaining a levelness all round, it really is too long winded to describe here and probably boring as well. If anyone does build an EasyBuild DMU and needs advice then do message me if in need.






And the view from the underside.

 

Its now back to the floor and some additional modifications needed in order to allow the power bogie to swing within its radius, this extra cutting out causes a severe weak spot and will need strengthening... I'll probably use brass flat on the inside and run lengths down each inner side as support is also needed to take the weight of the white metal castings which will go on later.

I over cut the clearances allow accommodation for the pick up wires.






And with the bogie added to body... sadly I cannot construct the non power bogie since the kit is missing the swivel beam... I'll get onto Shawn after tomorrow and ask him to send me one, but at least we can now see the Cravens unit coming together and I can return to making those roof seams and construct all the under floor details.

Thanks for watching / following and reading folks... more later this week as it happens but for now that's it.