powerrabbit

Westpoint Arena Exeter toy and train fair is on Sunday 20th February 2022. I haven't been for four years, hoping to go all being well. The one that used to be held at the market, Matford Centre has been axed. The next one held at Newton Abbot racecourse is on Sunday 13th March.

Hi Eric and welcome to the forum. You’ll probably find that the model and toy tractors here in the UK are a lot different than what you have over there and you will be spoiled for choice, some you have may be familiar to you but the makes and models are very diverse, some of us are pretty random in what we collect and others specialise in one make. Anyway, enjoy and we look forward to your posts on the forum.

You often find these books at a more reasonable price at toy fairs, it was a few years ago now but I paid £24 for a copy.

Try Humbrol post box red Sean, that’s pretty close and you can lighten it a little with a spot of white, original colour is Hunting Pink.

Hoping this gets picked up by you Matthew. The only Cropmaster petrol/kerosene model produced in 1/32 scale was by Brian Norman based on a 1946 model, you may be hard pushed to find one, made in very limited numbers and even if you do it would be very pricey.

Brian Norman produced a 1946 Cropmaster petrol kerosene model in 1/32 but now very hard to find one and if you do be prepared to sell your car to buy it!

The Great Book Of Hollowcast Figures by Norman Joplin is a very good reference book for identification, a bit expensive but worth the investment. I have been able to identify many unknown to me items that I have acquired over time by having this book.

A bit more research throws up the following, the contents of the boxes is completely random, 100 gold tractors mixed in with the 7500 total produced. There is nothing on the box anywhere that identifies what colour is in it. Here is a picture of the base of a box that contains a gold one.

Revisiting this topic I recently bought one that was blue but there is a gold example listed on eBay with the price tag of £849 + £15 postage (or best offer) from the Netherlands, the underside of the tractor bears a serial number suffixed by an A but the base of the box is not a full picture so any numbers on it are not visible, saying that, the blue one I have has a serial number on the bottom of the QR code sticker that has the A suffix but obviously is no indication that the A in this instance that the box contains a gold model. Unless someone discovers otherwise I don’t think that there is any way of knowing without opening the box.

Wondering if this magazine replaces previous titles, I just took out a 12 month 6 issue subscription to the new Model Farmer and Commercial Machinery World, seems reasonable at £27. Will see what it’s like and then decide weather or not to continue with it after this first year.

Hi everyone, been a long time since I last logged in, other things going on and all that!

Have not been very active on the collecting front these last couple of years, what with the pandemic restrictions closing everything down, shows, shops and collector fairs but now restrictions have eased somewhat, for the time being anyway, toy and collector fairs in my area are now opening up again. I have not purchased anything much in that time, not even from the internet although I did buy the new Britains 100 year E27N model at a good price last week and previous to that a mint and boxed red MF35 in the sliding box from a guy that has opened up a collectible toy shop locally. Anyway, I will look forward to catching up with you all over time and log in from time to time.

All the best.

Tim.

10 hours ago, paulali said:

i use tamiya acrylics and their spray cans on their kits,which are plastic Tim so dont know why it would not stick to plastic? i have never had a problem with them,i also use them on any convo work i do on the farm models,again never a problem

Perhaps Paul Tamiya have improved or changed their paint formula, it has been a few years since I've used it and that was their brush paints in the screw top jars, several people I know that used to build their own Tamiya RC kit cars had the same problem. Nowadays the Tamiya RC kit components, like the bodyshells are pre-coloured so paint isn't needed

The Tamiya paint that I've used in the past I find does not stick to plastic very well, flakes off after a while and if you 'key' the surface you'll always be able to see the roughness unless you use a filler primer and in using that you can loose definition of detail.

I find that the best 'super' glue to use is called PowerBond 806, this glue was developed by NASA and was used to stick the tiles on the space shuttles, you can buy a 'package' which consists of the glue, 1,2, or 3 lots in 10 or 20ml bottles, a release agent and a degreaser. This glue will stick any material except polythene. It has a shelf/storage life of 15 years and you keep it in the fridge, I use it an awful lot and find it's ideal for glueing plaststruct.  As for paint, I use the small tins of Plasticote spray paint and primers, some have said in this thread that Humbrol paints are a bit thin, try the Revell paints, they are thicker and dry in half the time.

Finding out today that my electricity supplier has been ripping me off and over charging for the last 3 years! The advert says 'get a smart meter and say goodbye to estimated bills, forever'. In your dreams, it seems that they don't work out in the sticks. Started off by sending in online the meter readings on 26th of each month, then they've been charging for the rest of the days in the month after that, that means they've been charging me for an extra 4 or 5 days. I was told by one of their customer service bods to stop submitting readings, I would then not have the second bill each month for those days, now this last 2 months my bills have been 'estimated' so I rang them up today and this is how I found out that the 'smart' meter isn't so smart after all! I am now waiting for them to pay me back what they've over charged me and will now submit my meter readings on the last day of the month.

Previously in the task bar at the top of the page there was 'new content' you could click on and that would take you to a column of posts in order of latest to earlier posts, I have this page in 'my favourites' and when clicking on it, it takes me straight to the new content page, now when I open it from 'my favourites' it comes up 'page not available' so I then have to navigate to new content from the 'browse' box and then try and find the posts that I have not read. Bit of a nightmare, it was far better and very easy with the 'new content' button.

I'm not a Fordson person myself  but I do prefer the blue/grey livery rather than the blue/orange. Would I be somewhere near the mark Paul if I were to guess that this tractor is an E1A major of 1956 to '62 or an early DDN?

If you do drive the tractor up to Lanark Paul, it won't take you as long coming back, it's downhill! Really good looking tractor.

Problem with auctions Bill is that anything that interests me or you are usually the very things that make the most money!

There didn't seem to be any particularly rare models on offer, by the advertising that I saw for this auction in and on various media it looked like it was going to be the sale of the century, perhaps prices reflected the interest of what was on offer.

Seemingly not terribly expensive prices, a lot realising less than they were new. The best prices seemed to have been made by the construction models. A good test of the market.

I don't know what's on my workbench, it's a foot deep in rubbish!

Went up to the Honiton Hill rally for a couple of hours, it's like walking through 4 inches of slurry.

Couple of days late in posting but only just downloaded the pictures from my phone.

Local little Agricultural show on Saturday, my Brother trying out his skills on the tractor see-saw balance.

Done a bit of wedding transport for the bride and groom this afternoon.