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Dinky Toys photography specials (cont...)

janwerner's picture
janwerner
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DTCA MemberNetherlands

Bruce, you bet my Dinkies are all stored well above sea level, although the street surface is below sea level! Kind regards, Jan

Dinkinius's picture
Dinkinius
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AustraliaDTCA Member

Jan
I can well imagine that this would be the case! I can recall the bad floods The Netherlands experienced in 1953 and how badly that affected your country.
Kind regards
Bruce

dinkyfan's picture
dinkyfan
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DTCA MemberUSA

Dave
Great picture, and they did get that handle right! That real one looks like it has been well used!
Terry

Dinkinius's picture
Dinkinius
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AustraliaDTCA Member

But the winding handle must have been a reconditioned replacement!! :laugh: :laugh:

janwerner's picture
janwerner
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DTCA MemberNetherlands

Turning the handle of the real one is the next problem to be tackled, Dave!

Just another sample page of my Dinky photo album:

Regards, Jan

janwerner's picture
janwerner
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DTCA MemberNetherlands

Another test, especially for light conditions, of my new photography stand (in development):

dinkyfan's picture
dinkyfan
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DTCA MemberUSA

Jan
Very nice lighting......bright colors, but no harshness.....looks lovely to my untrained eye!
Terry

dinkyfan's picture
dinkyfan
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DTCA MemberUSA

Just for fun, here are two French "first cousins".....the Willeme Log Truck along with the Unic Saharien Pipe Truck. Their common bond being the trailer, and both of these are the earlier version with the perforated beam and ridged front wheels. Both lovely trucks, that the French Meccano team got right!
Terry

buzzer999's picture
buzzer999
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DTCA MemberUK

I've been away from the computer for the last three weeks as I have been on holiday in an internet free country so I have not been able to contribute.

These two are lovely, I have the Unic but not the Willeme, I need to enlarge my small collection of French Dinky.

Dave

dinkyfan's picture
dinkyfan
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DTCA MemberUSA

Dave--Welcome back from your holiday! Hopefully you had a wonderful time and are all rested up and ready to dive back into Dinky land. I hadn't seen you post for some time, so was a little concerned......good to have you back...lots of posts since you have been away. The recent increased participation is sure welcome!
Terry

buzzer999's picture
buzzer999
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DTCA MemberUK

Thanks Terry, Julie and I have been in China, hence no internet. I spent two or three hours yesterday coming up to speed - the activity is wonderful.

Dave

dinkyfan's picture
dinkyfan
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DTCA MemberUSA

Just spent some time today, re-taking some photos of my Dinky Studebaker Tankers....a most lovely little collection that proved very popular over the years. Here is my little bevy of Studebaker Tankers.....a colorful lot!
Terry

janwerner's picture
janwerner
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DTCA MemberNetherlands

Hi Terry, I must have published it somewhere else already, but this is my favourite photo of my Studebaker tankers. I used it as the cover for my calendar for the year 2013. As you can imagine I am still looking out for the Esso version with the darker lettering. For the rest I am satisfied with this wonderful set ...
Kind regards, Jan

dinkyfan's picture
dinkyfan
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DTCA MemberUSA

Jan--Very nice lineup of your Studebaker Tankers! To me, these were one of my early favorites, and they were produced for a very long time. It is interesting that Meccano chose to make so many Studebaker models, both in France and England. In the U.S., they were well known and respected makes, but far from being a best seller. Makes one wonder what the special attraction was to include so many, although I am not complaining....I happen to like the old Studebaker's.
Terry

buzzer999's picture
buzzer999
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DTCA MemberUK

Here is the front cover of an original Studebaker leaflet from 1949 which is the original vehicle Dinky based their tanker on.

In the 1950s when the tanker was introduced Dinky never called it a Studebaker and I was never aware it was one until many years after. I just loved it as a nice little tanker.

There is a dedicated Studebaker museum in America and I contacted them some years ago to ask whether or not the Studebaker R2R had ever been made as a tanker in real life and they could not confirm this. They did say that it was a very popular vehicle in its day and could well have actually been made in this form.

I am a little surprised that Dinky chose this vehicle as Studebaker trucks were not exactly seen every day on Britain's roads.

I wonder if this was made to encourage American sales and the then drive for exports?

Dave

janwerner's picture
janwerner
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DTCA MemberNetherlands

Hi Dave, although not used in publicity, below the evidence that the factory internally did make reference to the Studebaker, in this case on the large design drawing, as reproduced in DT&MM page 160.

Regards, Jan

buzzer999's picture
buzzer999
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DTCA MemberUK

The problem with that Jan is that in the 1950s no-one outside of Meccano had access to that information. I wonder why they never put it in any promotional material??

Dave

dinkyfan's picture
dinkyfan
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DTCA MemberUSA

Dave--
You are right....that does seem odd that they never referred to it as a Studebaker truck...just tanker ...... And it wasn't like they had never used the Studebaker name before....the 39 series was obviously before that and then Landcruiser Sedan about the same time. All the other trucks in those catalogs had names to them...Austin, Fordson, Dodge, Bedford, Trojan, etc..........
And back to my original thought...why Meccano was prone to using so many lesser known U.S. cars. By the early 1950's, Packard had faded a lot, and was a very minor market presence, yet Dinky made the convertible, and then the sedan in the late 1950's, as the death knell was already sounding. Then there is also the Hudson...always a decent car, but again, never a large seller post war, yet Dinky made the early 1950's version as well as the later sedan. And there are many Studebakers, including the post war French trucks, the tankers, the Landcruiser, the Golden Hawk, and finally the President...and of course,the early French Commander. Another late model in its death throes at the time was the DeSoto Fireflite.
It sure would have been interesting to know what was the consideration back in the day, when they chose what to model. I would've bet they made a 1955 Chevrolet or a 1955 Ford Thunderbird, just to name 2 iconic cars from that era. I think part of the problem was they had already introduced several passenger cars earlier, and wanted to make those for several years to recover costs, etc., and by then, that was the Golden Era and sales were very good and little competition til later.........

Terry

janwerner's picture
janwerner
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DTCA MemberNetherlands

The naming of the models was an unexplicable and curious mix anyway.
For the Estate Car Meccano even seems to have regretted to use the name Plymouth, which shows up on the first individual box only and then disappears forever. Moreover, I haven't seen any internal factory document which the name Plymouth ever mentiones! Always just: Estate Car.

Regards, Jan

dinkyfan's picture
dinkyfan
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DTCA MemberUSA

Jan
Of course you are quite right......all this just adds to the continuing mystery of many things Dinky. We have found out a lot of things about the models and their manufacture, but many others will likely remain I solved, or at least inexplicable.
Terry

sjmcm1982
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Jan would you care to elaborate more on your studio setup? Are you using artificial light & diffusers? Your pictures look superb! Stef

dinkycollect's picture
dinkycollect
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DTCA MemberFrance

And Jan's drawing for the Studebaker tanker specifies aluminium alloy and not zinc alloy.

I have just chequed the prices of aluminium and zinc, the later is 20 % more expansive. So,why were Dinky Toys not made of aluminium ? Was the manufacturing process of aluminium more expansive because of a higher melting temperature ?

Jacques.

buzzer999's picture
buzzer999
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DTCA MemberUK

Jacques, as I am sure you will recall I wrote a lengthy article on Dinky Toys made from aluminium in the January 2011 Journal during my time as the DTCA Editor.

A number of Dinky Toys - such as the 582/982 Pullmore Car Transporter were made from aluminium for practical reasons, the weight of a large model such as this being one of them.

With regards to the 30pa/441 Studebaker Castrol Tanker and the 40f/154 Hillman Minx, experiments were carried out with these two vehicles to have them cast in Aluminium and not Mazac.

See photo above where my Castrol tanker weighs 58.3 grams and my ESSO version weighs 106 grams. As far as is known the only Studebaker tanker to be cast in Aluminium is the Castrol version.

This experiment had nothing whatsoever to do with the price of raw materials but had everything to do with the crisis in Korea. Mazac was in short supply and Aluminium was plentiful and as such Meccano conducted the Aluminium casting experiment on the two vehicles mentioned above.

In reality things returned to normal fairly quickly and Meccano reverted to only using aluminium where it held a specific advantage over Mazac.

This is dealt with in significantly more detail in the journal and members can access the January 2011 issue via this site and read more.

Dave

jackh
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DTCA MemberIsrael

Jacques,
Very good question here!
The main advantages of mazak/zamak die-casting process over aluminum are the following: superior mechanical strength overall,especially when casting thin walls; no tendency of surface sinkage upon cooling; lower casting temperature,(around 400C against 650C), thus improving die life by a magnitude of 5 to 6; higher dimensional stability; better perceived quality due to increased weight; easier acceptance of surface treatment, coating and painting; more adapted for small details castings because of metal flow qualities; better corrosion resistance.
Add to this that for most part of the 20th century, aluminum was more expensive than zinc.
In short, it is the ideal material for our hobby and is being used today as extensively as in the past!
One of the main drawbacks, though, is that if raw material purity and cleanliness is not at its highest level, the castings quality deteriorate very rapidly and is the main cause for the "metal fatigue" effect.
Wishing all the DTCA forum members a Happy and Healthy Jewish New Year!
Jacques H.

janwerner's picture
janwerner
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DTCA MemberNetherlands

The market price of zinc in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, a diagram which I compiled many years ago on the basis of a standard work on metal prices in history: J. Schmitz, World non-ferrous metal production and prices, 1700-1976. As we all know zamac consists of over 90% of zinc.

But I would suggest we should keep an eye on the topic header on top of this thread, in order not to make an unsearchable mess of this forum!

Kind regards, Jan

buzzer999's picture
buzzer999
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DTCA MemberUK

I accept what you say about the topics Jan. However, human nature comes into play, someone posts a photograph and it often then inspires a reply and further discussion.

I guess we will have to rely on the search function which does work particularly well on this site.

The future for TMT looks worrying and this site looks like taking over.

Dave

janwerner's picture
janwerner
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DTCA MemberNetherlands

Never mind, Dave, it's just my nature to keep things a bit tidy and organized.

To return to Stef's request, I am not completely satisfied yet with the new photo display. It has to do with the fact that I have more space in the room now available, but the windows and the light coming in are more limited than in the living room where I use to make my photographs near a large window. I had to make a stand (from a party table base) high enough to come closer to the window. On top of it I made a very flexible table, allowing even big ship models to be exposed. I never use artificial light, unless I want to get some special effects. So I virtually always make my photographs by (preferably bright) daylight.

Well, lifting a tip of the veil:


The experimental stand.


The resulting photograph, sorry, I cannot present it bigger here.


A horrible snapshot, just showing the relative sizes.

(by the way, as you can see the room was NOT tidy and organized, because my wife and I were just busy sorting everything out! ;) )

Kind regards, Jan

dinkyfan's picture
dinkyfan
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DTCA MemberUSA

Jan--It looks very promising for sure, and the picture of that large scale ship turned out very nice! I really like that contrasting background. It looks like you a form of skylite in the ceiling instead of a normal window on a wall....is that correct? If so, I can see where that would be beneficial in getting more natural light in, as a vertical wall gets limited sunlight at certain times of the day. Looking forward to seeing some more great pictures soon!
Terry

janwerner's picture
janwerner
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DTCA MemberNetherlands

The window you see in the background can also be disturbing, the main light should come from behind the camera, where there is a (not too big) vertical window combination. But I can more or less dim the light through the window visible there.
On the other hand, depending on the time of day, I can even use that window for the job. Therefore I made swivelling wheels under the stand last week, (not present when this photo was made), so I can easily replace the stand and move it to a place where the light available at the given moment is optimal for the job to do. For such a big ship that is very critical and as you can see the lighting isn't that perfect as I would have it to be yet. So the experimenting goes on for the time being!
Kind regards, Jan

dinkyfan's picture
dinkyfan
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DTCA MemberUSA

Jan
Thanks for the further explanation. I sure like your idea of putting casters on the table, so it can be moved around as your light needs vary. I really do not have a good area inside our house for available light use, so I either have to outside, which can be good at times, but awkward ferrying all the camera gear and models, which are upstairs, or just making the best of my light box area with artificial light. That is super handy, and always ready to use, and only about 20 feet from my models, so has turned into my "go to" photo area. I have been using color corrected compact fluorescent lights, and hand holding them. I have found, for me at least, that I need to move them both around to get the best lighting without bothersome reflections. So I usually have a light in each hand, along with my camera cable release, while peering through the range finder to see the best effect. After using my zoom lens a lot this past year, I have gone back to using my 50 mm Nikon close focus lens, and am happy with the results. I am also very happy with Photoshop Elements to edit my photos, and am really enjoying taking pictures of my collection and sharing them.
Terry

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