finelines

Wrong length axles to be drop in replacements. Roger

Two questions. Is there room for cottage industries? Where can I get the 8mm wheels and samples of those ghastly couplings? If it’s Germany what do I ask for?

I could never work out where Iain came from, he often talked about the Lake District although he was living in Caterham. I got the impression that he had transferred to Reigate from some other Art school. His dad was an expert on chemical fires so I supposed they’d moved about a bit. One weekend we had planned to meet at the shop and I got a message to watch the news. There had been a fire at Fawley and he was driving him to the site with Blues and Twos escort so he wouldn’t be coming. He was excited to find that his dads car had one of those flashing blue lights you could put on the roof out of the window! Roger

I first met Iain Rice in Bob Wills old shop in Coulsdon and we spent 2 hours trying to work out how we knew each other. A few weeks later at Reigate School of Art we bumped into each other and became inseparable friends. He was slightly older than me and that played havoc with his grant. The next bit is a bit hazy but he got a job in Hamblings in Cecil Court and we started a business assembling Wills 4F kits and 2railing Hornby Dublo 3 rail. Eventually we drifted apart, something it took a long time to find out was classic Iain. I still remember him with affection because he taught me enough to start Chivers Finelines and I would have enjoyed continuing our rabbiting sessions around the canteen table at the art school. We only met occasionally after those days and I remember telling him I was jealous of his writing career and he said he would swap it for what I had. That would have been impossible because I had witnessed him designing layouts in the flesh! And it was a talent I don’t have. RIP is not enough for me look after yourself where ever you are.

I am not going to allow Matthew to field all your criticism alone because it was me who chose the prototype. I saw a picture of a mineral train near Rose Grove with this unusual wagon breaking up the regularity of the outline and said modellers need one of them. I had already fallen foul of the “reverse T strapping” catch by mistaking a shadow for a solid object. In the end it’s modeller’s licence! Roger

Oh, I forgot to say that I didn’t know that they became common users. Roger

It would have been nice if the answer would have been nice if I’d had an answer yes, there’s lots of wagons that would fit on that underframe because the 12ft underframe wagons are known as the 44 series and it would have been nice to have a new XX series. I am at a loss to understand where our hobby’s going. The arrival of my favourite brake van from Bachmann at 50 quid at throw really makes me wonder. They’ve done the rarer version at a ridiculous price prompted the question, should I do the right one for about 20 quid? My answer is no because I don’t like the tiny rail above the veranda! Roger

Please Sir may I join in? In the days when I had dark hair I looked at the banana vans for etching. From memory there are two diagrams, one with a Maunsell roof and the other had an arc roof. Coming up to date Would these be popular for plastic kits? Do they run on the same underframe? Would the my meat van also fit? What other prototypes would ride on it? I never considered opens for etching. As a little snippet, the last etched kit that never got done was the continental BY. I made the mistake of not putting enough window frames on the etch and I couldn’t enough space on the fret to add them. Mind you I hadn’t worked it how to do the vac formed roof at that point! Roger

Photographs of the first 73s are hard to find. They were build as EMUs and as such were painted in plain emu green, no stripe, but have never seen a picture. The one I remember seeing is the one in electric blue the same as the ac electrics. That’s all from memory, so I’m sure I’ll get shot down. Don’t forget that there were 2 versions of corporate blue at that time because the first one didn’t live up to the supplier’s spec and wore badly. Roger

Holmethorpe 1950/51.

I have already replied to this post on another forum. I checked our sales and as far as I can see you haven’t ordered one. If you had you would be able answer your own questions. An old customer unsolicitedly supplied us with the picture of the one he made in 1995 I think, if you want one that looks as good it’s down to your modelling skills. In the advert we explained what we don’t supply because we are no longer in a position to open accounts with small parts supplies. This is a small run.

Was it worth the hype? Roger

I didn’t quite know what to make of that. I’ve been looking at 3D printing since 2013 and I think it’s only recently reached a usable stage. Roger

Well what’s you suggestion? Roger

Never done a cattle wagon and I’ve noticed the RTR people seem to steer clear of them. No promises, but I’ll have a look. You obviously guessed why I asked. Roger

The answer to question 1 is no. My son Matthew has resurrected my Chivers Finelines range of plastic kits and all the 00 and N gauge are available and in stock. He introduced 2 new 009 kits earlier this month. We have decided not to announce kits until they are ready to sell because I used to get into trouble doing this. I think Coopercraft’s dead and we don't have a machine that inject their dies and neither did Parkside. The Kirk coaches are a slightly different matter. What prototype is it that Coopercraft do that everybody is so eager to get? Roger

Arthur will probably kill me for this, buy it’s important. Matthew has taken over Arthur’s whitemetal casting and he has asked for some tender axlebox/spring castings. We are not happy with the quality we’re getting. We are quite happy to make a new mould and start again so I rang Arthur and asked for the patterns. I understand they were from David Geen kits. We looked at our Q6 mould, but they aren’t the same. I am therefore asking have any of you got a set of these castings that are of high enough quality that you would be happy for us to duplicate. Arthur is a friend of long standing who worked with me and who I hold in great affection. He started Northeastern kits when he was about 4 years older than I am now! Roger Chivers

Is there any suggestion that there will be BR green ones in the future? Roger

I’ve been interested reading this thread. I can’t resist saying, “now this is 3D engraving!” Mind you it would cost me a fortune to replace my machine. Roger

Thanks Matt, as you may have read elsewhere, my Son has reintroduced my kits under the Five79 brand. We spend hours discussing the production of new kits. But have not come to any final conclusions. Roger

I think I heard about this book on Facebook and honestly I bought it to look at the the prototype information in it and I wasn’t disappointed. Then I suddenly said that’s one of mine! I have to thank you for the book about building my ballast wagon kits! My sudden departure from kit manufacture can be put down to a mixture of things, but mostly depression. When you cock up 5 dies in a row..... One prototype in the book I had spent quite a long time looking at (other people call it researching) was the Plaice. I had hoped to use the underframe for other wagons, but l seem to remember they had been quite seriously modified. I like the Pilchard, but I don’t think my machine could squirt something that long. Roger

Cranking up my memory, I believe the first batch of MDVs were not SAB fitted. If we are going to get a failure moulding the solebars it in the bottom SAB fitted one, so there is a decent number of pairs that have been snipped off which could be packed into kits. Talk to Matthew nicely! Roger

Thank you for giving our kit a mention. When I have ideas I sometimes produce a prototype to see if I can do it and whether customers will accept my solutions. The fish van was produced exactly for this purpose with a view to a series of further 6w prototypes. What seemed an easy body on my idea for the chassis. I say seemed easy, but I think I remember it was much more difficult to get the uncluttered appearance right. I was told by my finescale friends that the idea works well on their larger radius curves because the dummy wheel doesn’t appear to lose contact with the rail as it does on very sharpe curves. The non appearance of more prototypes can be summed up in the phrase increasing self doubt. Can you tell if my chassis fits under the sausage van, or is the length/wheelbase wrong? Turning to these coaches, I applaud these introductions. Firstly their bravery in moving away from the crushing adherence to ever increasing finescaleness. Secondly a personal reaction. When I first saw the pictures, I asked myself why I would want any, and suddenly there they were Selsey Tramway coaches! Well possibly not quite, but near enough for me. So now we need to petition them to make a Manning Wardle K class especially one with the name Ringing Rock on it. Roger

I tried to buy Colin’s kits, but he didn’t want to sell. They were of course Ian Kirk’s before Colin. Roger

When I see these models I remember why I chose to do the kit, a little bit of Gresley for your train. Roger