MAC Forum

an old favourite.......enjoy!















colours; white fuselage, silver underside of wings, polished metal empanage, upper wings, lower fuselage and engines. decals from scratch. black plastic wheels (i think) indicate a later production example.


the real thing in case you haven't seen it. No doubt they're extremely rare and whenever they come up for sale, way too rich for me. So i made my own.

NORRI, THIS IS A VERY, VERY BEAUTIFUL PICTURE OF THE POLISHED DINKY CARAVELLE.
I also have polished many toy jet airplanes by hand. Your DINKY Caravelle turned out the best.
Your decals and painting is beautiful.

Some of the jet airplanes I have polished, in my opinion, turned out better than the originals.
I also have started with ones that have extremely poor paint jobs, and also rusted fuselage and
wings and tails.

It is hard to believe, but they almost look like new when I am finished.
I have used MAAS metal polish, both the canned and the liquid polish.
Of course, any metal polish produces similar results.
You should be very proud indeed of the excellent job.
Thanks very much for sharing your excellent colourful pictures.
RICHARD STARR

Yes, excellent work and finished product!
Where did you get the decals?

I have several Dinky airliners in a stripped condition with the aim to reassemble and restore them. I am always surprised that "toy" airplane makers didn't make more use of the "bare metal". Most repaint it into silver...

The reason is, that painting silver is less expensive than polishing. When the model is falling out of the cast, the ZAMAC looks rather blind. You would have to polish it, and that is very time consuming and not really suitable for generating low cost toys.

Oh, I agree completely. When in doubt it's always the cheapest route!
I have only seen one "toy" airplane in original metal, a Maisto F-18 and it was covered with a clear coat. It did show the grain patterns of the Zamac which didn't look like panel metal, but...

That casting you used was produced after the tooling was transferred to the Uk for production, in apx 1969 as evidenced by the 'painting hole' in the bottom of the fuselage which was not present on the early French casting. This tooling was later returned to France for more production there. No dates ever identified for the second french production. This casting has Made in France on it {and has the painting hole}. I can't see from your photo if it says France or not.
Correction: French production ended in 1961, The first UK production was available in January 1962 and ended in 1965 with the introduction of the Big Plane Series. The last UK production had plastic treaded wheels.


The engine pods seem to be missing from the first untouched toy, later they are shown but with filled in engine inlets?

grwebster wrote:That casting you used was produced after the tooling was transferred to the Uk for production, in apx 1969 as evidenced by the 'painting hole' in the bottom of the fuselage which was not present on the early French casting. This tooling was later returned to France for more production there. No dates ever identified for the second french production. This casting has Made in France on it {and has the painting hole}. I can't see from your photo if it says France or not.
Correction: French production ended in 1961, The first UK production was available in January 1962 and ended in 1965 with the introduction of the Big Plane Series. The last UK production had plastic treaded wheels.


The engine pods seem to be missing from the first untouched toy, later they are shown but with filled in engine inlets?

didn't take a pic of the actual model before restoration GR, its a photo from a previous restoration GR.

richardstarr wrote:NORRI, THIS IS A VERY, VERY BEAUTIFUL PICTURE OF THE POLISHED DINKY CARAVELLE.
I also have polished many toy jet airplanes by hand. Your DINKY Caravelle turned out the best.
Your decals and painting is beautiful.

You should be very proud indeed of the excellent job.
Thanks very much for sharing your excellent colourful pictures.
RICHARD STARR

many thanks Richard, glad you like it

MichaelB wrote:Yes, excellent work and finished product!
Where did you get the decals?

thanks Michael, made them from scratch with photoshop. printed on an HP colour laser

This beautifully restaured aircraft is the very last issue with the black treaded Dinky Dublo wheels, is shows made in England.

The painting hole was probably added by the french factory at Bobigny who had made the die. One of the many variation reads MADE IN FRANCE, has the painting hole and metal wheels. The next was the same but read MADE IN ENGLAND, the last one in 1965 was the same again, MADE IN ENGLAND and plastic wheels. The die was then probably returned to France as the Caravelle was listed in the French catalogues until 1968 although there may have been large stocks at Bobigny.

I am desperately looking for a picture of the belly of the one with MADE IN FRANCE and the painting hole. Can some one help ?

All the best.

Jacques.

I thought only the English Dinky factories used the painting hole to hold the model when sprayed. We know that the tooling for the Caravelle was transferred to the UK in 1961, and was on sale there in January 1962. I had thought the painting hole was added then. We also know that later on the French took back the tooling and produced it again, and it already had the hole, no?

Geof,

As there are no records, only logic can be used to sort out the whereabouts of this traveling die. The problem is that Meccano and logics were not friends.

Yes, the painting hole was used only at Binns Road as seen below, Minis been set on the rods of the painting line. When in the painting booth, these rods wrere spun in front of the spray guns. More pictures in the Encyclopaedia in the Meccano factory pages.

                                           

Sales dates do not match manufacturing dates. The first production run of a model was very large as all the toy shops around the world had to be suplied. Later production runs were smaller as the toy was not new any more and then not thought for so much. This explains why the short lived Air France Viscount 706 is not rare although it was on sale for about one year against eight for the BEA one.

Look at your book when you receive it to-morrow and let me have your comments either here or by PM.

All the best.

Jacques.