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I would doubt they are Exley . Exley had the underframe formed as part of the body wrapper and apart from very early had the roof ventilators pressed in. The one, could it be Leeds bakelite?

Exley coaches are always worth a reasonable price. Price is dependent on condition , but also upon which model it is. Some such as LMS coaches are quite common, some other liveries not so. One could have a look on ebay under Exley, but look under ' sold item' as some of them have been there asking quite stupid prices and have been there since cocky was an egg. It's only the ones that sell that give a true indication of market value.

Kevin , Attached pic , I don't know a date of manufacture, obviously pre war. A bit ugly and intrusive. I got it mainly for curiosity value. The BL drop link aren't too bad to connect but Exleys when a long rake are a nightmare. And the similar Fleet couplings are even worse.

I have a BL 4 wheel tinplate open wagon with auto couplers, but these bear no resemblence to those shown in the diagram. They look awful and gigantically over size. I always wonder why Hornby Dublo couplers weren't used on O gauge Come daylight I'll try to take a picture .

Yes , it looks like early Exley Which early on did have separate vents. I have them on early some GWR bow ends. Personally i think the pressed in ones look more subtle, and less like Dogs testicles as with the separately applied ones . The pressed in door handles are typically Exley. The early Exleys had sand cast aluminium ends which weren't as smooth and detailed a finish as the white metal post war version. But pre war didn't have the copper wire through the alloy sides but a pin in the centre of the roof end and the wires underneath were folded over the edge of the bottom. here was a protrusion of the end underneath that the flooor attached to and had a screw through into the wood Exleys can usually be picked by being a one piece alloy wrapper with a tumble home and the chassis frame incorporated Here's apic of 2 similar exleys , pre war , one with pressed vents the other with added on vents. I imagine this was allpart of an ongoing process of improvement.

Simon Being made for coarse scale tinplate [ although that definition can be a bit hazy at times] these were made for 3 rail running. The group here being of the opinion that so called 2 rail is unlikely to ever find acceptance and its use is confined to clockwork drive and steam. However when I first saw the driving wheel as laser cut and turned , I shared your reservations about spoke profile. But after turning the tread / flange, they were placed in an indexing chuck of an NC mill [ attachment to a hobby lathe/mill]. The cross section of a spoke is , shall we say oval, and the mill bit ran along the side of a spoke and milled that edge to the profile. Then returned down the adjacent side to complete that spoke . The wheel was automatically rotated the required number of degrees and the process repeated for each spoke until the wheel was complete. During which the operator could go off and have a coffee. The counterweights which vary from wheel to wheel [ OK axle to axle] were laser cut to suit and JB welded on . Avoiding the incongruous look of Ace , BL etc having the same size weights everywhere. On a more general note , I went to a large international manufacturing expo at Jeff's Shed last year. Noticeably most displays were from Chinese companies. There was an impressive array of NC punching , 5 axis NC milling machines , 3 D printers etc. One company had beautifully made mill vises. My own is a pretty cheap ordinary item and I asked the price of one of their large good ones. " $ 45 " he said and I thought " great I'll take one." But my brother who was with me said " How are you going to carry that home in peak hour on a tram?". As for casting, it's horses for courses. Lost wax casting gives a wonderful finish, but different companies have different methods and results. The local manufacturing jeweller gets perfect results but is limited by size of their centrifuge. Although my wife likes that they regularly send their wholesale catalogue of gold castings out. Pressure lost wax didn't have the size limitations but they cast in aluminium bronze and silicon bronze which was extremely hard to work and they bead blasted the ceramic off rather than chemically dissolved it. I think it's a matter of knowing all the options available and picking the one that suits that job best.

Simon Fitzroy Loco Works uses laser cutting for the tinplate parts on their locomotives. On the Cock o' the North , the driving wheels were laser cut initially,in steel. Then the treads and flanges turned, and a home NC attachment on the mill/ lathe profiled the spokes to the finished shape. I have to say it was amazing to watch being done Attached some pics of 2 locos in the bare tin , so to speak . These were prototypes or try outs and the final end products had more detail. These were not intended as fine scale models but rather to be in the Basset Lowke tab and slot style but incorporating modern technology in the manufacture.

Simon. I suppose the difference in method between etching and lasering is that the DXF file provides a road map for the laser to cut, or to follow. Price varies by material being cut , thickness of material, how many " starts" [ it cost s a little more to start a new hole or cut] The company programmer will take your drawing [ program] and put in starting points and presumably other tech factors to do with speed of cut. For small delicate items they sometimes will leave them attached by a small bridge which can be broken off by hand. The place I am currently using also does folding by NC, very accurately, actually extraordinarily accurately I just need to mark in the fold lines on the program. Like every thing in industry, the first one is the most expensive, in bulk they get very cheap. From their point of view it takes the same amount of time to pull a sheet of stock out and set it up on the machine whether cutting one or one hundred. One needs to ask for ' display' quality if the company is also doing industrial work.. This is so the workers don't drag the material from stock and scratch the surface... not a problem if cutting structural items but annoying for instruments and models. I think lasering gives a cleaner square cut to the edge, compared to etching I've seen. Formers to press or fold can often be lasered as well, depending on the design of what you are making. For making punches [ in this case the sides of Exley seats] where I would need many, I had the 2 parts of the die hot wire cut. Amazingly precise. When I went to pick up the pieces I said ''you've forgotten to cut it it's only been drawn on the steel.'' Then he pushed the 2 halves apart. Limits with lasering is that they generally can't cut a hole of smaller diameter than the thickness of the material. But they can laser etch an 'X' at the centre point so you can accurately drill. Somethig to consider with home lasering is that the commercial cutters won't cut plastics and synthetics if they don't know the composition. This is because of the danger of toxic emissions. These can, as an alternative, be water jet cut.

I hope I'm not too far off topic, but a glance at posts in this area seems to cover home lasering . I've been lasering various materials for both repro vintage rolling stock, locos and accessories and also parts for vintage cars. Mostly lasering but some materials have H&S issues so e.g canvas bakelite. was NC milled and sprig copper contacts was water jet cut . But all using the same DXF programs. In metals I have used aluminium, steel, stainless steel, spring steel, brass, tinplate etc depending on the application. Attached pic of an Exley portsmouth motor coach in O gauge, laser cut but not yet pressed. Laser cutting can also be used in some cases to make the dies. When I had recommended this to Vintage car people in UK I invariably get an answer that they can't afford to by an industrial laser cutter and feel that large companies won't take small jobs. I don't have trouble getting large companies to do my jobs, Paying cash is a great motivator. And prices are quite cheap. But these days there is no reason that a laser cutting company needs to be nearby. I draw my own programs on Design View , and ancient CAD program, so old it was originally the floppy discs that were actually floppy, Probably on a clockwork computer. But very easy for someone like myself with no computer experience. So they could be emailed anywhere in the world,a quote returned by email,, payment made by credit card and the job posted to the buyer. and from an Englishman's point of view, they can be done in a country where there are exchange rate advantages Aluminium as you can see cuts very well, and for extremely fine jobs like instrument needles I get brass or stainless which give an extremely clean cut.

Kevin Thank you , well spotted.. On a now ex-forum , or perhaps it's only sleeping, but certainly fallen off the perch.forum.

The ends are just cast in pewter from originals { although copies of pre war ones are done in alloy, as original. The buffers on postwar are just 1/8" flat head copper washers. as original. I remeber ordering some and Boydd- Carpenter sent me some,Just readdressed the envelope from Woolies The battery boxes are pressed from tinplate. Quite and easy die to cobble up. Looking like a rubiks cube, astrip of tinplate ispushed in one end, the 2 halves wacked together with a hammer and the ends bent at right angles over the end of the die. The windows I now laser cut as this can easily do the small vent windows at the top of the main ones. The door handles and vents above the doors are conventional 2 part steel dies with guides to line themup. The roof vents I much prefer to the stick on ones which look over scale at times. It's just a male die pressed into a piece of lead. And old trick for making cheap louvres in car bonnets The wrappers are 0.5 mm half hard aluminium [ or .020" as Mr Exley would have known it as. The ribs across the roof were ..a surprise . I cobbble a die from angle iron with a guide done while the wrapper was flat . The first try distorted the flat spaces between the ribs, but pressing ahead [ so to speak] I ran it though the rollers and the distortion disappeared. Early coaches had vents painted on. So I drew a DXF file and took it to a place that computer cuts vinyl. In maroon in coach lengths as I found the spacing was alway constant what ever the coach. i got hudreds so they are gratis if anyone needs some , they are pretty easy to apply and very durable, Fleet couplings were pretty close to Exley The only thing I couldn't reproduce were the stamped on company logos and lettering and had to rely on transfers Atttached some pics of some of the local made O gauge coaches. Made over a period.

I have been reading posts on Exley. I have a bit of a fetish for Exley coaches, like, I suppose Imelda Marcos with shoes. So it must be running to about 100. There was a vast range of coaches over the years, certainly many more that were written about. Most of the basic later O gauge coaches were duplicated in OO gauge. It's interesting to see 2 Portsmouth sets side by side . One in O gauge, one in OO. Most may not agree but I do like the pre war Gresley coaches. I know the teak finish is variable bt one has to admire the skill in the had lettering and lining. And the method of manufacture allowed an infinite range of coaches. The proportions , to me at least are more impressive that the current offerings and I like the embossed door handles and vents. WE run a rake of 10 of these behind a Fitzroy loco works Cock o' the North and the effect is impressive. What has puzzled my though, is why two identical Gresley 'dining' coaches. One is marked " Restaurant Car" and the other " Dining Car". Is there a subtle social distinction in the these names. The other Exleys which I am currently obsessed with are the clerestory ad the fully lined coaches. I swapped a fully lined GWR clerestory some years ago and realised that as we'd been making repro Exleys of the Stanier formatt, the clerestories involved mostley the same processes. Laser cutting the windows has made it vastly easier than when we punched them out.Especially the long clerestories with their small openings. I'm sure Edward Exley would have welcomed this technology Once copied we ended up with 2 rakes [ one each] attached pic shows some at Flinders St . One original the rest faked. I was lucky enough to get an LNWR dining car which is quite something. Exley was a lateral thinker. I notice that although its in O gauge he 's used his OO tooling for the small ventilators on the side of the clerestory . The other pic is some LMS ? MIdland in OO. The suburbanset I picked up in a local shop. The lining gives a nice effect of 3 D. The MIdlands were in a group of 16 I picked up on ebay. Most had not been used and were still in their wrappers. Unfortunately the rest were just LMS mainline coaches of varying types Having assemble many Exley coaches I can't agree with the idea of glueing the windows in . The clipped in windows form a structural part of the coach and are not difficult to install. A small dob of Araldyte could be added to the end of clip for a bit of belt and braces surety.