Slaters' Super Scale Models

[relaxinghobby]

 

Slaters' Super Scale Models as it says on the box.

Must be an early example, a first generation plastic model perhaps?

It's for the body only, were the chassis sold separately or where you expected to scratch build your own? The ends and sides are supplied as mouldings, but the detail seems shallower that on the modern ones. The rest including the floor and roof are supplied as small samples of plasticard of different thickness’s that you are expected to cut to size.

 

Age unknown.

 

Comes in a plane cardboard box with a sheet of instructions that is really just a diagram, All the loose parts sealed into a little paper envelope.

 

I think this would be a craftsman level kit as the Americans would say, meaning it requires a high level of skill to complete. For instance the corners of the moulding need to be chamfered to get the corners to meet accurately, I think, but it is not clear from the instructions.

 

Definitely harder than a modern kit to complete.

 

 

 

 

 

[D51]

This is the Slaters LMS large cattle wagon kit, introduced in the mid 1950s.

 

At this time Slaters were best known for their "huminitures", plastic figures and animals, and had recently brought out "Plastikard".

 

The kit combined their plastic moulding expertise for the sides and ends with the use of plastikard for the floor and roof and their plastic monofilament wire for the details.

 

The underframe components were not included so the modeller would have required buffers from ERG, axleguards from Bonds, S & B or Evans, couplings from ERG or Peco and wheels from several sources.  The axleguards would have been stuck to the floor with Durofix.  It would not have been a cheap wagon!

 

Slaters never made any other wagons in this generation.

 

These were not the first plastic wagons of course.  Graham Farish, ERG, Trackmaster and Tri-ang preceded them.

 

Frank

[Il Grifone]

I have one of these (actually assembled for once!) tucked away somewhere. I'll put up a picture, if I can find it. IIRC there is a large moulding bevel, that needs to be filed off, before the parts will fit together*. Mine is rather overwidth, but perhaps I put it together incorrectly (This is the first time I have seen the instructions and at the time I didn't have a drawing. My kit had just the sides and ends IIRC. I can confirm you had to source your own underframe couplings and wheels.

 

Conversely, the K's kit of the same wagon only lacked couplings (and paint, lettering etc. of course), but weighed a trifle more.

 

With hindsight the corners probably should be mitred to fit together correctly. Mine has been earmarked for rebuilding for many years - ever since I bought the Roche wagon drawings book in the early seventies. Amongst others, I built a H & B refrigerator van from it just before Tri-ang Hornby brought out theirs (1972?)...... I still have to sort out their panelling error.