Darstaed

Dear Phil, We will do the decals with the next batch. The next lot is winging their way to the UK and included are teh Gangway end shiels, one pair for each BSK which means 2 pairs for each Set A. Please contact Ellis Clark or Bob Whyat of Scalelink, Cheers, Andries

Dear Trigger, Thank you, Cheers, Andries

Dear CME, Thank you for your post. Re the water fillers it is very difficult to gauge their size as we cannot find any drawing for them. The genesis is that we wanted the water pipes going into the filler caps and initially we designed it that way. So the caps had t be large enough to drill a hole in them. Then when we made samples we found that it is very hard to take the water pipes out of the filler cap, this has to be done when removing the roofs. In order to save our customers a lot of agony and annoyance we decided to make the water pipes vanish inside the roof as near to the filler cap as possible and that is wat we did. What we did not do was reduce the size of the filler cap. If any of the members has the correct size for the filler caps please let us know and we will alter the tooling right away. Cheers, andries

Dear Phil, Thank you for your post. That is resolved then, I will make the decals pronto. Cheers, Andries

Gentlemen, Re coach height : I also measured two of the coaches under production, a B/G and a Maroon one. The B/G is 0.8 mm higher than the Maroon coach not only at the roof top but also at the buffers. What I will do is make new springs for the C/W bogie that are 0.8 mm shorter so the B/G coaches are the same height as all the other coaches that have BR MK1 bogies. Would it be possible for some one to take some measurements of the Heljan diesel locos and measure he height of the roof and height of the centre of the buffers taken from the top of the rail ? Cheers, Andries

Gentlemen, re Guard : I have removed the word guard with a liquid that we use at the factory for cleaning paint excess.It is a mixture of N-HEXANE and and agent to was screens use for screen printing. The latter is again a mixture of xylene / ethylene glycol ether acetate / kerosene. I do not know where such a concoction would be available but I am sure one of the experienced decorators on the forum will. The important thing is that the word can be removed and I shall make a decal in white colour with the word "Guard" in the correct font. As the word is very nearby the white line I will also make a decal of the white line in case of too enthousiastic cleaning. One should pay attention not to rub too much otherwise it will become gloss like one polishes his shoes. Cheers, Andries

Dear Airport, Thank you for your post. The GUARD lettering on the coach is printed, not applied by decal. After printing the printed object goes in the oven and will be very difficult to remove.Therefore the image has to be covered, not replaced, by a decal. Tomorrow I will try. Making a decal with a blue back ground with an exactly matching blue is virtually impossible as the paint used for spraying on metal is different from the paint used to make the decals. Therefore two different paints from different paint makers are involved. Therefore the only thing I can do is make decals that cover exactly the image in place now but that still means that the font will not be correct. Cheers, Andries

Gentlemen, My apologies for late reply. 1. re coach height : Class 27 would you be able to establish how much is our roof higher than the Heljan diesel loco ? We have taken our coach dimensions from the Parkin book. As you can see the buffers line up so the bogie should be correct too. What can be easily done to brringthe coach down somewhat is make the springs in the C/W bogie a bit shorter so that the whole coach comes down but then the buffers will come down too. Has it been established that the Heljan diesel dimensions are correct ? 2. Re the gangway end corridor shields the are in the same tooling as the next 4 single coaches we are doing now, they should be available in april. Of course we will supply them as a free upgrade. 3. Our next model, to be announced in may, will have screw link couplings so these will be available in near future. For the moment you can purchase MTH ones from Ellis Clark and Bob Wyatt. 4. Re Guard printing on B/G : It is no problem for us to rectify this and make decals. However not only the colour is different but also the font as on the earlier liveries was with caps and the word "Guard' on the B/G and IC has only the letter "G" in caps. So a decal could not cover the printed word. I am open to suggestions. Thank you all for your input, Cheers, Andries

Gentlemen, Thank you for your comments. 1. Re coach height. Can Class 27 please measure exactly hoe much our coach is higher than he diesel loco in the picture ? As the buffers line up it would look like our body does not have the correct dimensions but all body dimensions have been taken from the Parkin book. So this is a mystery. If he coach height offends then I could simply make a new set of springs for the C/W bogies so the whole caach will come down accordingly but then he buffers will be lower too. Are we sure that Heljan got it right ? 2. Regarding the decals of course we can make them, no problem. The Q is how easy is it to take the printed word "guard" off ? Also the font is different as on the B/G livery only the letter G is capital and the other letters are minusculi whereas on the earlier liveries all letters were caps. So just making a decal the same size but in white to cover the print wouldn't do as the letters wouldn't be covered. Please comment. 3. The end gangway shield tooling is being made now, shortly I will know when we have produced them. Probably April. Cheers, Andries

Gentlemen,, ​My apologies for late reply. Scotland is as beautiful as ever but the weather did not agree with my wife so she is felled by the flu. We are travelling back to the East tomorrow where the temperature will be well above the 20 degrees C. ​Regarding the bogies and coach height etc. ​The designs were made and tooling of the bogies started without taking into account the Kadee couplings that are of course larger than life. This is entirely our oversight because we were planning a link coupling initially. Therefore there was not enough clearance and the bogies had to be lowered a bit. We discussed this internally with our gurus and decided that 3 mm max would not detract from the look of the coach that still would look right. Coming from a school that taught me that if something looks right then it is right we proceeded with the production knowing that at any future time we can supply new bogie frames to those customers who wish to replace them. Darstaed has been manufacturing coaches since 1966 and we will be manufacturing coaches for a long time to come. With this long term view in mind we will sort out the wrinkles over time. ​Those customers who purchased the BR(W) and BR(S) coaches should have received their brake rodding upgrade and if not please contact Ellis Clark to Bob Wyatt of Scale Link. ​The next upgrade will be the gangway end shield and probably an electronic component. We thank you for your continuing support and input, ​Cheers, Andries

Gentlemen, ​As it is CNY in China we have been travelling in Europe. At the moment we are in Glasgow attending SEC of Model Rail Scotland. ​I will reply to your observations shortly. ​Cheers, Andries

Dear two tone, Thank you for your post,I have no problem making separate pick ups available as spares but of course you have to assemble and wire yourself. Please channel your request through EL or SL as then it will be attended to. My duty in the company is to play with your trains before you do so requests through me do not always reach the factory floor. Cheers, Andries

Gentlemen, Thank you for your comments, here is an update and some replies. 1.The B/G livery has landed at LHR this morning and should be available with EL and SL in a few days time. There will be Sets and CK singles. Also the upgrade one which contains a drill plus brake rodding for the BR(W) and BR(S) where the rodding was not installed ex-factory. 2. As it is CNY now China has come to a halt and production will resume in the last week of this month. March will see the shipment of the maroon livery and in April we should start shipping the singles, these are FK, TSO, BCK and SLF (the latter in Mar. and B/G only). After these we will do the RMB , RU, RSO and RFO and finally conclude with the BG for which completely new tooling still has to be made. We will also ship with the singles in April upgrade two which are the gangway endshields. 3. Link hooks to attach the coaches to the loco are available separately from EL and SL. In due course we will make our own. Some of you already have a Kadee coupling on the loco which is in a lower position than on our MK1 coaches to take advantage of the Kadee automatic uncoupling device. We have discussed this a long time ago at the design stage and decided to place the couplings on our coaches at scale height. We will make an upgrade which is a small plate that can be inserted between the coach bottom and the Kadee coupling so that the coupling will be lower in order to enable the Kadee uncoupling feature. 4. In the booklet that comes with the coaches is described how to take the roof off. It is very straight forward. Also is described the different positions the Kadee coupling can be placed in to go around 40.5" curves but then the end corridors do not butt up completely. 5. The B/G, Mar. and IC liveries will have perfectly scale common wealth bogies, Separate bogies are also in the shipment that arrived today in case you wish to model a later version of the early liveries. Cheers, Andries

Dear CME, Thank you for your post. As far as I know all toilet windows have ventilators above them. To make them slanted is not possible with etching I am afraid but they are 3 level etching. Cheers, Andries

Dear Bob, Thank you for your advice. Is there somewhere a picture available ? Cheers, Andries

Dear CME, All decisions re pricing, discounts etc are taken by Ellis Clark and Bob Wyatt jointly. I am just the manufacturer, arcane science of marketing is not my cup of tea. Perhaps you should contact them, Cheers, Andries

Gentlemen, We are now finalising the interiors of the Sleepers. We cannot find any pictures of the inside corridors with the doors of the compartments. I like to know if the doors had numbers on them as I assume the compartments were numbered as is usage on the continent. Can any of you enlighten us on this point ? Thank you, cheers, Andries

Dear Phill, Thank you for your post and suggestion, I am just an artificer in metals with a chisel and heavy maul. How and when to issue which products is decided together with our two distributors Bob Wyatt and Ellis Clark as they are in the market and know our customers requirements. May I suggest you contact them ? I produce what the customers ask me to produce, it would be foolish not to do so. Cheers, Andries

Dear CME, Thank you for your post and your very valuable comments. We will proceed and report accordingly, Cheers, Andries P.S. I love marmite.

Dear CME, Thank you for your post. Re Roofs : Some manufacturers do not spray the roofs and leave the bare ABS. I think that gives a too much "plastic" look so I prefer to spray the roofs. If we would be making very small grooves then the paint will most of the time fill up the grooves unless we make the grooves wide enough and I am not sure if we want to do that. If some grooves are filled and some are not or partly then the whole roof has to be chucked away. We need for mass production a uniform process that does not leave room for error. Once this production is done I will look into it and do some experimenting, after all our hobby is a progressive science and I always can make a number of new roofs that incorporate new features. Re Steps : I am living in China now and the local Gestapo does not favor surfing the internet. Google search and other communication tools are verboten in the workers paradise. So I have asked my Chief Engineer Vijay who is on holidays in India now to do a quick check. He says that 70% of the MK1 coaches that he found pictures off on the internet do not have the steps whilst having window frames and 30% have both steps and window frames. This does not take into account restored coaches. Of course you are correct that at some point the steps were phased out. As we were planning to make a new coach end anyway so it does incorporate the electrical tubing as a separate part, it is easy for us to omit the steps and supply these coach ends as an upgrade for whomsoever doesn't want the steps. This will be done before we do the ICs in June. I thank you for your time and help to improve our work. Cheers, Andries

Dear CME, Thank you for your post. I do not understand the question about the steps. I have not given any instructions to remove any steps so far ? Regarding the weld seams we have of course considered it. The weld seams are very thin both in width and depth. It is very difficult to render them properly and most likely they will be too "fat" when we put them on. That will not be in line with the character of the coach as on most real ones these weld lines are hardly visible and only then if enough dirt has been accumulated to offset the against the back ground. Also I am not sure if on all the roofs of all the different coaches we are making the weld lines are in the same location which means different tools and that is bad news. Therefore we, together with our distributors and gurus, have decided not to make the weld lines at this time. However if there is demand we may experiment printing an ever so thin line of a slightly darker grey which will simulate the shadow of the weld line or if enough customers want it we will change the roof tooling at the end of the run and put the weld lines on. So you may change the roofs if you wish. We shall see how it develops. Cheers, Andries

Dear two tone, Good evening. Thank you for your post, The B+C sets A plus a few CK singles will fly on January 3rd and should be available by the end of next week from Scale Link or Ellis Clark. The month of January will see first the Sets A of Blue/Grey, then maroon and then IC. It is possible ICs will be delayed until after Chinese New Year in March. Then we will start with all the singles of which the SLF will be fourth as we are still making the tooling for the roof and coach end parts which are in the same tooling for the interiors of the RMB and Restaurant cars. Last will be BG as that is an entirely new set of tooling for 40 cm. By August it should all be done and we go on to the Gresleys. Cheers, Andries

Dear CME, Thank you for your post. I have posted a picture of the brake-rodding on : https://www.facebook.com/Darstaed Many more pictures are on Ellis Clarks website. Cheers, Andries

Upgrade 1 Gentlemen, Henceforward all coaches will have brake-rodding fitted. All who already purchased the BR(W) and BR(S) liveriesthat do not have the brake-rodding can get (soon) from our two distributors an upgrade set so that you can install the brake-rodding. Cheers, Andries

Dear Deltic, thank you for your post. Thank you or choosing the"Durham' as it is the alma mater of our daughter. Regarding the observation that another company also brings out the MK1s is not a big problem for us. Our foray into 2-r FS is a modest one and some customers prefer brass etched bodies rather than plastic so there is something affordable available for all tastes which is good for the hobby. Darstaed celebrated its 50th anniversary last year and we are in for the long haul. We envisage to complete the production run of the 12 different coaches in all six liveries by mid-2018 so all who wish to run full rakes will be satisfied. Would there be a requirement for a rerun of some models then this will be done rather quickly as we do not depend on others. In case improvements are desired we will implement them and send the components to our customers according to the Volkswagen Beetle principle (usually free of charge) so that the models are always updated. Cheers, Andries