Dublo 3 rail points

[sagaguy]

Has anyone here managed to find or mix a paint colour to match the base colour using a brush to repaint them.Like most meccano products,the paint finish is quite difficult to match.

 

             Cheers,Ray.

[Il Grifone]

My attempts at mixing have all failed. As you say it's an elusive colour (and also varies between examples). I keep meaning to try the Dulux paint matching device.

[sagaguy]

On a different topic,i was given,a few years ago,some H/D 3 rail items which included a Duchess of Atholl & an electric point.This point had a broken frog casting so ithought,aha,a cheap 3rail point from you know where & swap the frog over.On dismantling the said point,i noticed that the switch rail assy.pivoted on a peg that was cast into the frog whereas all the other points i have & see,the switch rails are shorter & pivot half way along.Iv`e never seen this variation so i suppose it could be immediate post war.Still,the motor will do as a spare.

 

PS.The solenoids are riveted to the case,not nuts & csk.screws as normal.

 

                  Ray.

[Il Grifone]

It appears to be a pre-war electric point* (I have one of these - the casting is OK, but a wire has broken off one of the coils.....).

 

The manual pre-war points (at least the first ones) have a sleeper base similar to the other plain track. The castings of these are liable to 'mazak pest' (both the levers and the crossings). Replacement white metal crossing castings used to be available, but at a price that was more than the item is worth. I made up a crossing for one with scrap rail, but really need to do it again with brass rail, as the plating has worn off revealing a copper colour.

 

Incidentally, the prewar points will accept 'scale' wheels without derailment, as, having longer switch rails and tighter check rail gaps, the gauge variations are less than with the post-war version.

 

*These appeared at the beginning of the war and hence are uncommon and initiated the strange choice of plain grey for pointwork. Some may have been released pot-war, but would probably have been stockpiled pre-war production. It would appear that Meccano squirrelled away sufficient printed metal work to produce most of the post-war rolling stock. I'm not sure how they got away with it though. I believe there were limited re-runs* around 1950, which possibly appeared with the sintered iron wheels. This would probably coincide with the release of the silver 'Esso', 'Esso Royal Daylight' and 'Power' (less hand) tank wagons. Contrary to what it states in the 'Bible', these were available by 1951 at the latest (I received examples of each at Xmas). The confusion probably arises because the boxes were still the same. I can remember wondering at the time why the box stated "Power Ethyl".

 

* I think only the commoner wagons were reprinted. I did not receive any SR or GWR wagons (apart from the GWR cattle truck), the LNER high sided wagon or the LMS cattle truck and obviously not the early tank wagons - I only found they ever existed several years later. I think only the green LNER and LMS version of the N2 tank were still available by then.

 

Coaching stock must also have been in short supply, as I didn't get any, despite being given an 'Atholl'.  A Farish Pullman (Pauline) and a Trix Twin 'scale' LMS coach appeared later, but neither was a great success....

[sagaguy]

Hi Griff,the base is grey as in later points.As you say,it`s not worth repairing but as an oddity,it`s quite interesting.I got some Stanier coaches from a swapmeet in Hatfield in about 1985/6,they go well with Atholl.

 

                    Cheers,Ray.